{"id":267620,"date":"2019-10-23T15:15:41","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T19:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:42:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:42:25","slug":"the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/","title":{"rendered":"The parties went negative, and the media enabled them"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is hard for outsiders to understand how gruelling, exhilarating, exciting, frustrating and physically demanding it can be for journalists covering an election. In the modern multi-media, multi-tasking universe in which journalists live, reporters on campaign planes may be tweeting, doing live interviews and writing several stories in the course of 18-hour days, often eating crappy food at irregular hours without proper exercise and with inadequate sleep. All while trying to be fair and accurate. On election night, columnists like the Toronto Star<\/i>\u2019s Chantal H\u00e9bert and the National Post<\/i>\u2019s Andrew Coyne were writing their pieces for the next day\u2019s papers while simultaneously appearing on live TV shows. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ordinary reporters broke stories in this campaign and exhaustively documented the statements of the leaders. Analysts and commentators took apart the platforms. And despite what you may have thought or heard, they collectively produced reams of copy on policy issues. Every time I saw someone complaining that no one was writing about some specific issue, I went online and found deeply reported stories. There were policy pieces on housing affordability<\/span><\/a> and the dependency ratio<\/span><\/a>, and examinations of party platforms on child care<\/span><\/a> and the environment<\/span><\/a>, just to offer a few examples.<\/span><\/p>\n

But for all the individual excellence and all the expenditure of energy and intellectual capital from journalists, this was a deeply dissatisfying election for many Canadians, and the media played a part in that.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s be clear. Despite talk that the mainstream media have been displaced by social media, they continue to play a dominant role in the way most Canadians experience a campaign. More than half of Canadians relied on the evening national TV news to form their views on the election, according to a survey by Abacus Data. That was followed by talk radio. Both of these old-fashioned news sources were ahead of social media, as was the influence of \u201cfamily and friends.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the picture was quite different when it came to the youngest cohort, those 18-29 years of age. For them, the most important source of election information was not social media, though, but family and friends. True, social media were more important to this group than mainstream media; nonetheless, TV news, talk radio and newspapers were all important sources of election information for more than 40 percent of them. What this suggests is that the grip of the mainstream media might continue to diminish over time, but the day of its irrelevance has surely not yet come.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, the coverage mattered. And the coverage, certainly as it was experienced by many voters, was predominantly negative. We have some interesting data<\/span><\/a> on this from Greg Lyle at Innovative Research Group. He asked respondents mid-campaign whether they had read, seen or heard anything in recent days about each leader. Among those who had heard anything about Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, they said it led them to think less favourably of him by a margin of two-to-one. Almost precisely the same was true of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is very much in keeping with the unprecedently negative tone of the entire 2019 campaign in which both major parties trended down in the polls and which produced a government with the lowest-ever share of the popular vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like any campaign, so much happened in such a short time that it can be easy to forget the way it began. In the first few days after the writ was dropped, it felt like a formless void, a space without narrative. And this was a vacuum that was gleefully filled by the Liberal war room. The Liberals had obviously accumulated a little video storehouse of horrors: Conservative candidates saying controversial or outright offensive things on abortion, Quebec, homosexuality and race. In that first week, they dropped bits of what they had found onto social media with deliberate menace just hours before Scheer made campaign appearances with particular candidates. <\/span><\/p>\n

They did this before Scheer appeared with Rachel Willson in York-Centre (her call for anti-abortion legislation<\/span><\/a>). Boom! When he was about to appear with Arpan Khanna in Brampton North (his homophobic Facebook posts<\/span><\/a>). Boom! When he was on his way to see Justina McCaffrey in Kanata-Carleton (her friendship with far-right commentator Faith Goldy<\/span><\/a>). Boom! (Each of these candidates ultimately lost, by the way.)<\/span><\/p>\n

So, it was the Liberals, not the media, who set the tone of the campaign in its first week. Gloomy Ways! But they did so by performing a sort of hack on the media, exploiting their weakness for novelty and tension. Because it was in video form, it took little or no effort to verify on the fly.<\/span><\/p>\n

What reporter rushing to a constituency event where the less-than-electric Scheer was slated to address some small-bore policy idea recycled from Harper 2015 could resist the lure of the video the Liberals had just dropped on Twitter? Particularly when the Tory candidate obliged the Liberal war room by running away from the camera<\/span><\/a>, as Justina McCaffrey did.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, the media did not set the tone, but their weakness for a particular kind of story enabled and amplified it. This kept everyone occupied until that <\/i>blackface <\/i>photo appeared on Time<\/i>\u2019s website, giving Justin Trudeau his time in the barrel (and forcing the Liberals to cage in the residents of their war room for a while). Two weeks later, though, the media dug up information<\/span><\/a> about Andrew Scheer\u2019s resum\u00e9 and then his citizenship, swinging the narrative back to him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, the media are not helpless in the face of the narratives that campaigns present any more than the parties themselves are. Indeed, every day is a struggle among the parties themselves and between them and the media to decide what the election should be about. On the very first day of the campaign, the Globe and Mail <\/i>dropped a story<\/span><\/a> on the RCMP looking into the SNC-Lavalin affair that the paper may have hoped would set the frame for the entire campaign. It did set the frame, but for only a day. Later it seemed plain that many people in the media expected the blackface controversy to dominate the rest of the campaign, until it seemed it had not made much of a dent in the Liberals\u2019 polls, at which point they moved on. <\/span><\/p>\n

Neither of those narratives would have elevated the tone of the election campaign, it has to be said. You could argue in contrast that the Toronto Star <\/i>strove admirably to frame the election around climate change, which if you believe is real, as I do, is surely as worthy a subject to debate at election time as free trade in 1988 or cutting the GST in 2006. The Star<\/i> published a series of vividly reported<\/span><\/a> stories that helped remind those who read them of the stakes if we do not act. But it was Swedish activist Greta Thunberg\u2019s journey to North America that raised the profile of the issue in the media more generally, at least for a week, along with an assist from the Liberals on the hustings anxious to move on from blackface. But then climate change, too, faded into the cacophony.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the last week, it was the most familiar of media narratives that dominated: who is ahead in the polls; can anyone get a majority; if not, who will play with whom in the new Parliament? This emptied the election of most of its policy content and opened up a mostly negative conversation among the parties about which voters should fear the most. Should we be more afraid of Liberal\/NDP profligacy or of Conservative budget cuts?<\/span><\/p>\n

It would be wrong to say that the media alone were responsible for the negativity of this campaign. What we witnessed was rather a cycle, much of it beginning with the parties themselves, turbo-charged by the media, spun through social media, then picked up again and further amplified by the politicians. This cycle could have been broken had the parties presented big ideas or divided more clearly on issues of principle or policy, but for the most part they chose not to. And there were signs of resistance in the media \u2014 reporters and columnists who worked mightily to bring us back to what mattered, or should matter: climate change, the economy, taxes and deficit, systemic racism, the scandal of the condition of Indigenous people, foreign policy even. But in the end, all their efforts to save us from this dismal election were in vain.<\/span><\/p>\n

This article is part of\u00a0The media and Canadian elections<\/a>\u00a0special feature.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, right, and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau gesture to each other as they both respond during the federal leaders debate in Gatineau, Que. on October 7, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Justin Tang<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Do you have something to say about the article you just read? Be part of the\u00a0<\/i>Policy Options\u00a0discussion, and send in your own submission.\u00a0Here is a\u00a0<\/i>link<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0on how to do it. |\u00a0Souhaitez-vous r\u00e9agir \u00e0 cet article ? Joignez-vous aux d\u00e9bats d\u2019<\/i>Options politiques\u00a0et soumettez-nous votre texte en suivant ces\u00a0<\/i>directives<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is hard for outsiders to understand how gruelling, exhilarating, exciting, frustrating and physically demanding it can be for journalists covering an election. In the modern multi-media, multi-tasking universe in which journalists live, reporters on campaign planes may be tweeting, doing live interviews and writing several stories in the course of 18-hour days, often eating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":241538,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-10-08T02:42:27Z","apple_news_api_id":"7953e76e-610f-4254-974c-85e411d739cd","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-10-08T02:42:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AeVPnbmEPQlSXTIXkEdc5zQ","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[9385,9358,9372],"tags":[8478],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[4250,4295],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[7136],"class_list":["post-267620","issues","type-issues","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medias-et-culture","category-politique","category-recent-stories-fr","tag-canadian-elections-fr","irpp-category-democratie","irpp-category-politique","irpp-tag-medias-et-culture"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe parties went negative, and the media enabled them<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The parties went negative, and the media enabled them\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is hard for outsiders to understand how gruelling, exhilarating, exciting, frustrating and physically demanding it can be for journalists covering an election. In the modern multi-media, multi-tasking universe in which journalists live, reporters on campaign planes may be tweeting, doing live interviews and writing several stories in the course of 18-hour days, often eating […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Policy Options\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IRPP.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-08T02:42:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Adams-graph1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"468\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"263\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@irpp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/\",\"name\":\"The parties went negative, and the media enabled them\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Adams-graph1.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-23T19:15:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-08T02:42:25+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"fr-FR\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"fr-FR\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Adams-graph1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Adams-graph1.png\",\"width\":468,\"height\":263},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The parties went negative, and the media enabled them\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/\",\"name\":\"Policy Options\",\"description\":\"Institute for Research on Public Policy\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"fr-FR\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The parties went negative, and the media enabled them","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/","og_locale":"fr_FR","og_type":"article","og_title":"The parties went negative, and the media enabled them","og_description":"It is hard for outsiders to understand how gruelling, exhilarating, exciting, frustrating and physically demanding it can be for journalists covering an election. In the modern multi-media, multi-tasking universe in which journalists live, reporters on campaign planes may be tweeting, doing live interviews and writing several stories in the course of 18-hour days, often eating […]","og_url":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/","og_site_name":"Policy Options","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IRPP.org","article_modified_time":"2025-10-08T02:42:25+00:00","og_image":[{"width":468,"height":263,"url":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Adams-graph1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@irpp","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/","url":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/","name":"The parties went negative, and the media enabled them","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Adams-graph1.png","datePublished":"2019-10-23T19:15:41+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-08T02:42:25+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"fr-FR","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"fr-FR","@id":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Adams-graph1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Adams-graph1.png","width":468,"height":263},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/the-parties-went-negative-and-the-media-enabled-them\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The parties went negative, and the media enabled them"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/#website","url":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/","name":"Policy Options","description":"Institute for Research on Public Policy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"fr-FR"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues\/267620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/issues"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267620"},{"taxonomy":"article-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-status?post=267620"},{"taxonomy":"irpp-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/irpp-category?post=267620"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=267620"},{"taxonomy":"irpp-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/irpp-tag?post=267620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}