I suggest it’s the former rather than the latter in this case and in many others.
You really need to read guest columnist Mark Alexander’s column posted here yesterday in our Columnist section (Pollaganda—media polls as instruments of propaganda) before reading the little piece of manipulation in today’s National Post and other Canwest Global newspapers, about a poll on the long-gun registry.
It should be noted that:
(A) We don’t know what the questions in the poll were because for some weird reason the Canwest Global newspaper group, which commissioned the poll, couldn’t find it in their budget to print the actual point of the whole story—the poll questions themselves. Strange way of reporting don’t you think?
(B) We don’t know whether they asked, in their poll, about the “gun registry” as in all guns including handguns which have always been and will continue to be registered under the Harper Conservative plan; or if they made it clear that they were asking only about the long gun registry, which the Liberals so bungled and which the Conservatives plan to dismantle for good on a matter of principle—not just cash.
(C) Why ask the leading question about creating a new registry to replace the old one (see below)? First they establish that the people think the registry should be scrapped, then they suggest to them in their poll questioning that it might be an idea to start up a brand new one? Why travel this circuitous route in a poll about dismantling the long gun registry? Because it provides an answer they like better, I think, and it provides them with a way to ask the question.
The poll’s full details are only available if you’re a subscriber to Ipsos, which costs nearly a hundred dollars. Canwest Global commissioned the poll, and yet they decided not to print the questions in their report in their newspapers.
So if you go to Ipsos’ web site it reports this fact:
Majority (54%) Feel Current Gun Registry Should Be Scrapped And Most (56%) Blame Liberal Politicians, Not Bureaucrats (37%), For Bungling.
Not content with that, they also asked another question, and this as the result of what I suggest is their leading followup question:
But Majority Of Canadians (67%) Also Support Idea Of Having Some Type Of Gun Registry Put In Place By Harper Government.
From that, the National Post can resolve with their headline that “Canadians don’t want gun registry scrapped: poll”. Ah. Mission accomplished. Time to go to the staff lunch room for another Pita Pocket.
Their first paragraph sets it up just the way they’d like Canadians to read it: It’s so expensive… we’ve blown all this cash on it …. why should we scrap it?
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will have a tough time convincing Canadians it’s time to completely scrap the country’s expensive gun registry program, a new opinion poll suggests.
And then they seem to almost confess to their mendacity:
‘‘The concept of a gun registry has taken root across the country. There’s a majority, 67 per cent, that’s not a small majority, who believe that Stephen Harper shouldn’t be doing away with all gun registries.’‘
Nobody said anything about scrapping ALL gun registries. They know that. And yet that’s what they said. Is that good reporting? No it is not. It’s pure mendacity.
And what was with this gratuitous remark by John Wright (an executive in the Ipsos polling firm, not a prescient magical crystal ball-reading genius or even a man who necessarily knows the first thing about politics):
Wright explained Harper’s final decision on the program could have long-term implications on his popularity when combined with other issues such as missile defence, rising gas prices and the new controversial policy restricting the media from taking images of the caskets of Canadian soldiers arriving at home.
Missile defence? Rising gas prices? Caskets?
Oh my. What about Harper’s big belly?
Just to ensure you’re on board, he adds: “There’s nothing ambiguous about this.” That’s a sentence liberals always add to their lectures when it is in actual fact totally ambiguous, on purpose. They often also add: “We all agree…” which means we don’t, they just want you to.
“The fact is” (another oft-used line), you can lead people around like goats all day long and get the answers you want and get people to think about things the way you want them to. It’s called “leadership”, although in this case it’s not very noble leadership. It’s not noble when you’re trying to fool people or confuse them or even lie to them in order to convince them to see things through your world view.
Good political leadership of a country requires that you convince people about things based on principle and sound reasoning. Not confusion. And it shouldn’t be exercised by the news media.
Prime Minister Harper or his people should work on convincing people about things—like the principle of the right for law-abiding people to own guns without having to go through more hoops than convicted sex offenders. And like fighting the war on terror—in Afghanistan and Iraq and anywhere else it needs to be fought.
The media must not be allowed to lead this country any more. It must stop right now.
In the meantime, the good Sun Media Group’s Toronto Sun (which isn’t a professional polling firm) asks a plain, straightforward, simple question in their online poll today, and then just lets the answer sit there for you to decide about its meaning:
I suggest you go to the Toronto Sun and vote.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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