I am a fan of the press.
Sure, I may not see eye to eye with some members of the press, or specific publications, but I believe that the press has a duty to inform the public about the happenings of their local councils and governments, police and fire, and tell human interest stories.
I especially love local media, such as this newspaper, because local media has feet on the ground in the communities they serve.
We have a tendency in the media to be slanted one way or the other. General consensus states that publications like the Toronto Sun is conservative, while the Toronto Star caters to liberals. Personally, I like to believe this publication falls somewhere in the middle, but I will let you decide on that.
With this left or right leaning editorial mentality in our national papers, sometimes stories can be presented truthfully but in a misleading way.
Take a story published by the Toronto Sun on Dec. 13.
The story, titled “Ontario Liberals reserving three southwestern ridings for women candidates,” outlines how the Ontario Liberal Party is holding certain ridings, including Huron-Bruce, for women candidates.
It’s a damn good initiative by the Liberal Party, if you ask me. For far too long, women have faced multiple barriers and stigmas when it comes to politics. For the party to not only give women this opportunity, but to pave the way to make it a reality in these ridings is commendable.
However, the way the story is written, it leads you to believe that the Liberals have yet to name candidates in a number of ridings, including ours.
That’s not the case.
Shelley Blackmore was named the Liberal Party’s candidate for the upcoming election this past June – a full six months ago – yet you are led to believe no candidate has been named yet.
Nowhere in the Toronto Sun story is it mentioned that a candidate has been named for the party in Huron-Bruce.
Why do I believe this story is misleading? It’s all in the presentation.
The story starts by stating how three ridings have been tabbed as women-only, however later in the same story Liberal Party spokesperson Christine McMillan is quoted as saying this strategy has been used “in more than 20 ridings to nominate a variety of strong female candidates.”
Last time I checked, 20 is more than three.
The Sun did take the time to find out that the Progressive Conservatives will have at least 27 female candidates running in the election, and the New Democrats have nominated 30. Yet, they couldn’t take 10 seconds to check the Liberal Party’s website for their list of candidates.
In the 15 seconds it took me to craft that above sentence, I was able to find out at Linda McCurdy is the Liberal candidate in Windsor West, and Manpreet Brar is the candidate in Essex.
Essex, Windsor West and Huron-Bruce were three ridings named as those elusive women-only ridings.
Is this a news story? Yes.
Is it a news story in December, when candidates have already been named? Not really.
This story would have had more impact a few months ago, before many of the candidates had been named.
It also would have had more impact if the ridings singled out by the paper as being earmarked for women-only candidates didn’t have their candidates named already.
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. All genders and races would be treated as equals and we wouldn’t have to place focus on how many candidates were male or female, or if they are a person of colour or a minority.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and conversations like this will continue to take place.
Hopefully one day in the not so distant future, we find that perfect world.
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Mike Wilson is the editor for Midwestern Newspapers. Comment and feedback can be sent to mwilson@midwesternnewspapers.com.
