If I lived in Canada, I would watch Canadian news, especially with the announcement that "The National" — CBC's nightly newscast — is being revamped with the debut of its new format tomorrow night.
Canada's PM Stephen Harper lives in Canada, but says he doesn't watch Canadian news. Instead, he watches U.S. news.
Unfortunately, we don't know which news channel Harper watches. Given his Conservative Party leadership, he could watch Fox News Channel. But he could watch CNN. I don't think MSNBC gets much if any play in Canada, and probably isn't Harper's cup of tea.
The one issue that Harper ignores in not watching Canadian TV news is that Canada media outlets cover the world much better than U.S. news. Even "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" can't hold a candle to regular Canadian news.
Stories that would never see the light of day from all around the world regularly show up on Canadian TV newscasts. This isn't liberal or conservative; people of all political stripes would agree that U.S. news does a lousy job of covering the world around them.
However, on a political tone, conservatives by and large are more afraid to watch anything they might disagree with, a tone that doesn't bode well in society, but is rather appalling for a country's leader to avoid watching because he may not like some things.
"It’s a strange signal to send to the public at a time when Canadian networks, aside from covering this country, which U.S. networks don’t, also spend considerable resources, and some of their correspondents literally risk their lives, to bring the Canadian perspective on international stories home from places that some U.S. networks ignore," Peter Mansbridge, CBC's national news anchor on "The National" told The New York Times.
The idea that Canada's leader would find the U.S. news perspective to be sufficiently homogenized enough for the Canadian perspective is rather startling. Watching a helicopter follow a car chase in Southern California is rarely relevant outside the LA area, yet it still makes its way onto U.S. newscasts. Watching all of this in Ottawa would be even less relevant.
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