After the recent Globe Leaders’ Debate, I asked a friend if they had watched it. Their answer was ‘’No, I am going to read the newspaper articles on it, instead.’’ When I pointed out that the media coverage will only provide whether or not each leader was a good debater and not whether or not their platforms were good, she looked at me shocked. When I went on to say that the media presents the news, not determines whether it is good or not and that media cannot decide and tell the public which leader won the debate because they had the best platform, but rather the winner would be presented based on whether each leader presented themselves well i.e. calm, informed, stately, etc., it dawned on me how truly naïve the Canadian public really is.
Many of the uninformed, which is the majority of Canadians, will be determining whether or not to vote for a political party based on the opinion of the newspaper review of the debates. Truthfully, what they will be getting is Tom Mulcair and Stephen Harper are tied and Justin Trudeau is slightly less. They will not get that one political party over another addresses their concerns more appropriately, comprehensively or not at all.
If the media did not cover the debates, Canadians would have to watch them in order to determine – for themselves – which leader ‘’won the debate’’, the winning of which would be a combination of whether the leader was a good debater and whether their platform was perceived as the best for Canada.
In the interest of Canadians and Canada, all media coverage of debates should be abolished and citizens will just have to watch them in order to determine who ‘’won’’.
Amanda Million
Be the first to comment