Pro-life and pro-family advocates who have long felt they’ve been getting a raw deal from the mainstream news media received ample support for their views from most of a panel of journalists at the recent Ernscliffe College Media Seminar in Toronto.

Panelists including McLaughlin Group debater Fred Barnes, Canadian Press general manager James Poling and Canadian Society of Magazine Editors president Alex Farrell suggested the media are out of touch with the public they purport to serve.

A dissenting view was provided by Andy Barrie of CBC Radio’s Metro Morning program, who said he wonders whether media people are getting the audiences they deserve.

“The audience frequently chooses not the most responsible journalism, but the trashiest,” said Barrie, reminding everyone that media are only responding to the marketplace via advertising.

But keynote speaker Barnes, executive director of The Weekly Standard opinion magazine and a regular guest on CNN Crossfire and CBS This Morning, countered with the argument that media people tend to be lopsidedly liberal and secular despite a general population which is conservative and religious.

As a result, “If you’re religious conservative, you’re cast as intolerant,” said Barnes. He cited studies which show media personnel are liberal in orientation by a 3-1 margin, while the general population is conservative by a similar ratio.

Barnes said all of this is a change from when he entered the journalism field 35 years ago. Back then, journalists exhibited a cross-section of educational and economic backgrounds.

Today, the increasing influence of women and minorities, a news reporting approach which emphasizes analysis and commentary over hard facts, and a trend toward public interest journalism have altered things.

Farrell, a former editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest magazine, pointed out that the distinction between reporting and commentary is becoming more blurred as journalists increasingly place their imprints upon the interpretation of events.

Poling, who has been with the recently-slimmed-down Canadian Press since 1969, said the fact media are out of touch with ordinary Canadians is borne out by how the later are tuning out the news by the thousands. He pointed out that journalists today are still dedicated to telling the truth, but they are not “tuned in” to the readers, viewers and listeners of 1990s.