Doug Ford’s recent electoral victory across the river highlights some glaring flaws in the democratic process and the media in this country, and probably foreshadows what will happen this October in Quebec.
All the Progressive Conservative party of Ontario needed to do was win 40 per cent of the 43 per cent of the Ontarians who showed up to vote to clinch absolute legislative control over the province.
This came after months of the media-hyper focusing . . .
on polls-pronouncing Doug Ford’s victory as inevitable.
Polls, despite more often than not being a fairly accurate indicator of how elections will turnout, are horrible for democracy. The constant reporting on polls turns political journalism into sports journalism, constantly reporting the “scores” of politicians until the big game, election day. This, instead of focusing on what parties and politicians stand for: their philosophy, what their policies are and their record.
Polls feed narratives, and while narratives are great for politicians (who are ahead), they are terrible for ensuring voters are informed in the way they need to be for proper civic engagement.
All of this reduces the quality of our political discourse right at the time where it should be the most informative.
The fact that market research companies are behind polls points to why they are so corrosive to our democracy. Marketing is all about selling something, and democratic participation should be about a lot more than falling for an advertisement.
In Ontario, the narrative the media focused on for months before the election was Doug Ford is going to win and the opposition Liberals and NDP are competing for second place. Why pay attention and take your time out to vote if those are the stakes? What’s the point if the outcome is already widely being reported?
In Quebec conditions aren’t shaping up to be that different. The CAQ has a big lead in the polls and none of the opposition parties are close enough to challenging that lead.
The way the media as a whole reports on polls during elections creates self-fulfilling prophecies. By repeating over and over again that one party will almost certainly win, the media discourages turnout, creates a bandwagon effect (because people love winners) and encourages people to focus on the superficial over the substantive.
This is not to say that the way reporting on polling distorts our elections is the only, or even the worst, problem affecting our democracy. THE EQUITY will have plenty more to say about those other problems in the coming months. However, reporting on polling is something that the media as a whole is the most responsible for, and something that we can take direct action on.
Journalists should at least heavily de-emphasize polls, if not completely stop covering them in order to improve the discourse and meet our responsibilities.
For our part, THE EQUITY hopes to provide an in-depth look at what parties actually stand for and how they plan on serving their constituents instead of just reporting if they are winning or not.
Journalism should not be about serving narratives, and the industry as a whole needs get better at avoiding this pitfall.
Brett Thoms
