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Tyee Poll: What Does Media Concentration Look Like?

Everyone talks about media concentration but what does it look like in reality? Let's take the last election as an example.

Correct Answers

According to the Canadian Media Concentration Project at Carleton University, of all newspapers who endorsed a candidate for PM, 95 per cent of them endorsed Stephen Harper.

In that same election, 24 per cent of the eligible electorate cast votes for Stephen Harper's Conservative party. This is different than the oft-quoted 39.62 per cent because it includes people who voted by not voting. In other words, of the 24,257,592 people who were eligible to vote, 5,832,401 cast votes for the Conservatives, which equals approximately 24 per cent. Factoring out those who didn't vote, the Conservatives garnered 39.62 per cent of the popular vote.

The issue here isn't Stephen Harper. The issue is media concentration. When 95 per cent of Canada's newspapers endorse a man that only 25 per cent of Canadians ended up voting for it means that Canada's major newspapers are not doing the job of representing the broad and diverse views of Canadians.

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