Numbers show racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory found audience in Canada

Facts like Trudeau Plans Record Number of Immigrants to Canada Through 2024 - Canada, a country that relies heavily on immigration to grow its labor force, has set an ambitious plan to bring in more than 1.3 million newcomers over the next three years to support its post-pandemic growth.?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-14/trudeau-p...

You raise some good points. But it also brings to (my) mind this question: What is the definition of journalism / journlists they are using?

For me, this Jim Lehrer framework works well:

https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1

When you apply it to what the media (and gov) call journalism as of late it becomes quite obvious the media (and gov) have lost their way. It's so lazy and blatant it's Orwellian.

For me, perhaps not for all, the coverage of Covid was a great example. Best I could tell, most journalists don't understand basic math and statistics. A specific example: they don't know causation from correlation; or they do know the difference and they ignore it because it's not good for ratings, the narrative, etc.

Along with that was the shameless use of hyperbolic statistics. If sheer numbers increased the fear, they pushed those. If percentages were better for their efforts they pushed those. In both cases, rare was the refernce to the other for context. That is, "OMG cases in ______ are up 100%..." but then conveniently failed to mention ______ went from 1 case to 2.That type of emotional manipulation was consistent. It's also not how you build trust.

Finally, back to your points :)

1) As Frank Luntz says, "It's not what you say, it's what they hear." Journlists can put fist to table all they want, but unless they come to terms with the fact that they were their own undoing, their re-establishment will fail. How can we trust them when they can't be honest with themselves?

2) They need to be willing to police their own. They call out social media, Big Tech, or whatever, but rare do they lean in, report on their own, point out the journalistic failures, and then "ask" that other to do better. But this never ever happens. They want a comfortable cartel more than they want to be Trusted.

3) They need to stop passing off op-ed as journalism / news. How is they - the journalists? - don't know the difference?

Just look at this freaking graph: in the 2011 election, *immigrants born Middle Eastern, African, East Asian, American, and European all voted for the CPC more than the Liberals.*

http://ipolitics.ca/news/immigrants-are-not-a-monolithic-vot...

Doug Ford, Conservative, won the provincial election the other week because of the ethnic vote.

The Canadian Liberals got smoked in 2008 and 2011 because immigrants voted Conservative.

The only reason Conservatives lost the immigrant vote this past few cycles is because shot their own damn feet off with their "barbaric cultural practices hotline" stupidity.

Canadian voters are, by and large, not loyal to any party.

When the Liberals cock things up too much, Liberal voters vote Conservative, even though they still identify as liberal.

And when the Conservative Party fields an absolute loser of a leader, Conservative voters vote Liberal, even though they still identify as conservative.

The "Replacement Theory" is, as I said, racist and fucking stupid.

I mean, that's basically saying that it is happening, but it's not a conspiracy. "Yes all these things you fear are in fact happening and you are being replaced, but it's not a conspiracy we're doing it in the open" is not the usual retort.

And I believe the proponents of the great replacement conspiracy theory don't even call it a conspiracy theory - to them, it's just "the great replacement". "Conspiracy theory" is tacked on largely by its detractors.