The myth of the ‘liberal media’ in Canada has finally been put to rest

God rest the myth of the ‘liberal media’

By giving Margaret Wente a pass, the Globe & Mail has at last put to rest the myth of ‘liberal bias’ in Canada’s media. A new era, in hyperbolic terms, has begun. So I say, thank you Sylvia Stead. And thank you, Margaret Wente. I don’t think either of you, but especially Stead, realize but you have facilitated the puncturing of the conservative cocoon that has shielded Canada’s elite media for so many years.

Because of company woman Stead’s short-sighted decision, we in the centre and on the left have been vindicated. The advantage the Globe’s editorial board and its affiliated opinion writers, not to mention those at the National Post and Sun Media, have for so long enjoyed is now gone. The public has finally come to its senses and en masse have made their voices heard.

Peripheral and perhaps even established journalists will now feel more comfortable questioning dubious reporting and unethical lapses in the opinion columns of Canada’s press. Sylvia and the Globe, you have ignored Canadians outside your country club for too long and at your own peril. Social media has once again prevailed. The ball has just begun to roll.

We will only become more vocal and more present in the world you once ruled. Reality has come to the old girls club in our media. It’s about time. It’s just too bad that it had to take so many of us to raise the Wente plagiarism problem for the Globe to pretend to act.

Addendum: Occupy, which so puzzled, frightened and intimidated Wente and I bet Stead too, is part of this. Anonymous, as well. The sooner Canada’s journalistic lifers (Stead has been with the Globe corp for four decades, Wente close) realize the world is not an intimate cloister of like-minded, self-interested scaredy-cats who dare not step out into the frightening vagaries of the big bad world, the faster we can reclaim a truly honest, hard working and moral middle ground that should be today’s journalism.

Wente’s prime targets have been youth, working people, the left, those who care about the environment and actively work to protect it, and all those who have never chomped on cocktail wienies at a reception for Conrad Black. Stead’s misplaced condescension and arrogance responding to Media Culpa’s concerns about Wente’s ethical lapses show an indifference and dereliction of Public Editor responsibilities.

Wente will walk. Stead will strut. But the tide has turned.

Progressives: Wente and Stead have given us the opening we have been looking for. A blunder of this magnitude doesn’t come very often. Let’s not blow it.

UPDATE: Looks like I’m not the only one appalled by silence of the media.

X-posted at Let Freedom Rain