When ‘conservatives pounce’: The right finds its cautionary tale of subtle media bias

Always find MacDougall’s comments reasonable and balanced:

“I can think of no reporters I’ve ever dealt with who had it out for a party or a worldview. Most were trying to do the job in the fairest way possible,” said Andrew MacDougall, who was director of communications for former prime minister Stephen Harper and is now a director at Trafalgar Strategy.

“But like all biases, you’re not really aware of them until somebody points them out. If you’re university-educated and urban-living, you tend to have a worldview that is different from somebody who isn’t — and it takes a lot of effort to open your eyes up,” said MacDougall….

While MacDougall agrees that conservatives generally have to work harder to get a fair shake from the media, he also warned people on the right not to get too caught up in playing the victim. He pointed to the current controversy around Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent free luxury holiday in Jamaica as proof that, above all, the media craves juicy stories.

And when conservatives govern, he said, there are times when the negative reporting targeting them is just proper reporting.

“The hardest thing in government to do is to distinguish between the fact that you’re getting heat for being in government versus for being the party that you are in government,” he said.

Source: When ‘conservatives pounce’: The right finds its cautionary tale of subtle media bias