I love it when the CBC reports news on the Conservative government, because it’s so fanciful and full of color!
Not that I’m excusing the government for anything. Or am I being redundant? The state-owned, taxpayer-funded CBC vs the government… progressives and their government and their so-called “corporations” are so confusing. What I mean is that I cast the government’s ads about their efforts to reduce wireless costs and increase competition, into the same slop bucket as nearly all government advertising.
But today, we have a story which appears to me to be mostly made-up slop by the CBC. And it’s about pretty much nothing, except being another gratuitous Conservative government hit piece. So I delved to find the CBC’s poorly hidden agenda. Here’s the main takeaway: “Fail,” “Angry Canadians,” and “Want Change.”
They’ve been tweeting this out this morning to try to get as much attention to their made-up story as possible.
How Ottawa's bashing of Big 3 cellphone giants failed: http://t.co/qkpz4VKuHq What do you think of the ads? pic.twitter.com/iVcTy52SMh #cdnpoli
— CBC News (@CBCNews) May 8, 2014
Watch the CBC News channel and you’ll think this is a serious story about government ineptitude and waste (ironic, as it is, that it is being reported by the biggest government waste of them all, the CBC).
Watch their CBC News channel report and it is ominous sounding, complete with Susan Bonner using the now ubiquitous phrase which is always cast by tendentious reporters as an alarming “smoking gun” revelation, resolutely implicating their ideological enemy:
“CBC has obtained the government’s own research! — a poll on the effects of the advertising campaign!”
Big whoop. Joel Johannesen has “obtained” it too.
But then state-owned CBC reporter Susan Bonner breathlessly explains:
“The main takeaway? The ad left Canadians ANGRY, and wanting change in wireless service!”
The main takeaway is… what? As far as I can tell from reading the actual poll “obtained,” ominously, “by CBC,” and by me too (the questions of which I’ve reproduced below), the poll says nothing of the sort. Nothing even remotely like “angry” appears in the poll or its results.
So the reporter, Susan Bonner, simply injected that emotion into the story. Of course Bonner is the one who reported that “Sarah Palin must share part of the blame!” — for the shooting of Congressman Kathy Giffords.
Yeah this is a story which CBC and Bonner are trying to reshape into one condemning the Conservative government for (a) spending taxpayer money on ads informing consumers of the government’s intentions (instead of spending it on the CBC); and (b) not living up to the ad campaign’s stated promises, thus wasting money and, well, all manner of bad. (Neglect, for a moment, the CBC’s massive failure to live up to its stated promises, and their monumental waste of billions of taxpayer dollars, and their dreadful, left-wing-biased news reporting.)
It’s not simply that “angry” doesn’t appear in the poll or its responses — it’s that Bonner said “angry” Canadians was “the main takeaway” from the poll.
Well I guess “takeaway” is one way to say “I’m makin’ this crap up.”
Nor do the words “wanting change” appear. The closest we come to that actually proves Susan Bonner is making more stuff up: the word “change” appears only twice — once as the least favored answer to question Q1B:
“What can you remember about this advertising? What words, sounds or images come to mind?”
Only 56 people out of nearly 1400 polled answer that “change” — or more precisely “Change in the laws regarding contracts/shorter contracts” — was what they “remembered about this advertising” — not that they personally wanted change themselves.
Is Bonner incapable of a simple interpretation of a simple survey results? That would be my main takeaway. Or that she’s full of it.
The only other time the word “change” appears is in answer to another question, (Q3):
“Thinking about the advertising that you saw, heard or read, what do you think was the main point these advertisements were trying to get across?”
Again, just about the least favored of several answers was “Change in the laws regarding contracts/packages/fees,” with only 36 out of 1400 responses. As even a government “man-made climate change” “scientist” can glean, the respondents are not saying what THEY felt about wireless services, or stating their new found desire for change. They’re simply reporting what they thought “was the main point these advertisements were trying to get across.”
So apparently Bonner just made that part up, too. Or again, she utterly misunderstands poll results. Or, you know, that imagination of hers, or perhaps it’s her tendentious Sarah Palin must share part of the blame reporting style.
The poll isn’t about the wireless fees or the government’s action/inaction on the file. It’s about the ads. Just about the ads. It’s an common accountability check on the effectiveness of the ad campaign, which one would expect after spending $9 million of taxpayers’ cash on a government ad campaign; much like when the government blows $1.2 BILLION per year on the failed CBC (accountability not allowed in that case, howevs, as per the awesome CBC’s selective reporting).
Their tweet about “How Ottawa’s bashing of Big 3 cellphone giants failed” is (once again ironic since it comes from the failed CBC) also nonsense. “Bashing” is not an objective, balanced word for a news organization to use to convey facts, it’s just the word the CBC chose to use to convey their contempt for the Conservatives. But moreover, it is not what the story is about. The poll isn’t about whether “bashing the cellphone giants” failed or succeeded. And love them or hate them, nor was that the government’s objective.
And anyway who does the CBC think it is fooling — are we to believe the far-left CBC is suddenly disdainful of government “bashing” of giant private corporations? Are they supposedly now on board the good ship “Free Enterprise and Free Market and Stopping Governments’ Intrusion into the Marketplace and our Lives”? Of course not. I’m quite sure the CBC would just as soon see a state-owned, state-run cell phone and cable TV “corporation,” just like the CBC.
Like so many government debacles, the Conservatives’ effort at taming the consumer outcry about mobile phones is laden with stupidity — idiotic government ads (I loathe thee), and vacuous promises. But I blame the wireless costs/competition problem on decades of liberals and leftists — progressives — who increasingly intruded into our lives and that of the free market, and tried to control it all — the wireless market and us — as part of their ongoing effort to government control the entire (erstwhile) free market, and ultimately our entire lives. The fact that the Conservatives are trying to wrest their way out of this progressive morass, is laudable. And it’s not all their fault that things aren’t going as well as, or as fast as, they and we would all like.
Industry Canada Wireless 2013 ACET – Tables – December 2013 12/18/13
Have heard or read advertising about competition in Canada’s wireless industry
Q1A: Over the past few months or so, have you seen, heard or read any advertising about competition in Canada’s wireless industry?Elements that are remembered about the advertising (unaided)
Q1B: What can you remember about this advertising? What words, sounds or images come to mind?
BASE: Have seen, heard or read advertising about competition in Canada’s wireless industry over the past few months or soElements that are remembered about the advertising (unaided)
Q1B: What can you remember about this advertising? What words, sounds or images come to mind?
BASE: Have seen, heard or read advertising about competition in Canada’s wireless industry over the past few months or soTelevision ad recall
Q2a: Do you remember seeing a television ad over the past few weeks or so showing a man standing in front of a phone display, a woman sitting at the kitchen table looking at her cell phone bill and a mother parked by the side of the road, lost, without cell phone service. The ad mentions that the largest wireless companies in Canada hold over 85% of the airwaves and Canadians pay some of the highest wireless rates in the developed world.Internet ad recall
Q2b: Do you remember seeing an advertisement on the Internet over the past few weeks or so about Canada’s policy related to competition in the wireless industry?Radio ad recall
Q2c: Do you remember hearing a radio ad over the past few months or so about Canada’s policy related to competition in the wireless industry? The ad mentions that the largest wireless companies in Canada hold over 85% of the airwaves and Canadians pay some of the highest wireless rates in the developed world.Newspaper ad recall
Q2d: Do you remember seeing an ad in the newspaper over the past few months or so about Canada’s policy related to competition in the wireless industry? The ad mentions that the largest wireless companies in Canada hold over 85% of the airwaves and Canadians pay some of the highest wireless rates in the developed world.Message comprehension
Q3: Thinking about the advertising that you saw, heard or read, what do you think was the main point these advertisements were trying to get across?
BASE: Recall any of the ads in Q2a – Q2d serie [sic] of questionsMessage comprehension
Q3: Thinking about the advertising that you saw, heard or read, what do you think was the main point these advertisements were trying to get across?
BASE: Recall any of the ads in Q2a – Q2d serie of questionsIdentification of the advertiser
Q5A/Q5B: Who do you think produced those ads? In other words, who funded them?Employment status
D1: Which of the following categories best describes your current employment status? Are you…?Education
D2: What is the highest level of formal education that you have completed to date?Age group
D3: In what year were you born?Children under 18 currently living in household
D4: Are there any children under the age of 18 currently living in your household?Household income
D5: Which of the following categories best describes your total household income? That is, the total income of all persons in your household, before taxes?Own a cellular phone
D6A: Do you own a cellular phone?Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
a. Read a daily newspaper?Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
b. Read a weekly newspaper?Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
c. Watched television?Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
d. Listened to the radio?Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
e. Used public transit?Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
f. Read a magazine?Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
g. Used the Internet?Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
h. Used Facebook?
BASE: Used the Internet
Media consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
i. Watched videos on YouTube?
BASE: Used the InternetMedia consulted in the last two weeks
D7: In the last two weeks, have you…
j. Watched a movie at a movie theatre?Region
In which province or territory do you live?Gender
Language
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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