It was announced recently that Quebecor, owner of the Sun Media chain, will launch a cable news network aimed at turning the tide of liberal mainstream media. It will be called Sun Television.

Consider a recent editorial conveniently written by one of Sun Media’s print outlets, The Toronto Sun, which summed up the malaise every Canadian conservative faces regarding the mainstream media: there are simply not enough conservative voices out there.

Again, a new media source is being created at the behest of the need to counter the barbarians at the gate known as the liberal media. But where this bleeding heart gargantuan that threatens the minds of everyone it comes across actually exists, I may never know.

It would be one thing if the extensive stretching of reality required by those who repeat the “liberal media” tactics were kept in house. It seems that this group is limited to a nonetheless boisterous group of political tastemakers tied heavily to the federal Conservatives, Albertan politics and the pages of fringe publications like The Weekly Standard, or more reputable sources such as Maclean’s and The National Post.

Now, not only do we have to hear the ever-present conservative whine, but there will soon be a television channel devoted to countering conservative fears in the explicit way that has up until now already surfaced covertly throughout the pages and television screens throughout the country.

In fact, Canadians already have a bevy of media outlets that could vaguely be termed “conservative,” or at the very least, “right-of-centre” in the Canadian political spectrum.

Consider, for instance, that 17 out of 18 major dailies supported the Conservative party during the last federal election; that Conrad Black’s media empire still bears much of its former owner’s fossilized political viewpoints; that the Aspers have been no friends of the Canadian left; or that Quebecor is about as right-leaning as major media chains come.

It is somewhat redundant to speak in terms of a left/right divide, a divide that showed its inadequacy somewhere around the beginning of the Cold War, but the constant accusations of a liberal bias in the media requires one to speak in such conceptually unclear terms.

Despite the obvious CBC target, one would be hard pressed to find a major media outlet, in television or in print, that could generally be considered “liberal.” And CBC only wins because it receives government funding and features “irrelevant” intellectual programming - a charge most often railed against it by the very same people who are launching Sun Television, which has already been overzealously dubbed “Fox News North.”

“ Unless a little racism and nonsense is thrown in at every available opportunity, I doubt that the television station will make the splash it is proposing to accomplish.

Apparently, intellectual stimulation is a realm unknown and unwanted to the common conservative media consumer. According to Sun Media, the television network will attempt to overcome this threat of intellectualism and talking heads by offering “hard news,” and the deliciously Sarah Palin-esque non-descriptor of “straight talk.”

Straight talk is a term bandied about by those who consider themselves to be politically on the right, but it has yet to be defined.

If Palin’s penchant for straight talk is any indication, straight talk is a mixture of poor grammar, pseudo verbiage and the practice of adding colloquialisms to one’s speech such as “betcha” and “gotcha” whenever possible. Oh, and it also involves a complete lack of forethought, the reiteration of talking points such as terrorism and God, and a chronic inability to form and sustain proper arguments.

Which brings up a clear hurdle that Sun Television will have to cross eventually: American conservative programming, while it is often disgusting and irrational in its content and viewpoints, nonetheless makes for extremely entertaining television.

When you watch Glenn Beck call Barack Obama both a socialist and a fascist seemingly at the same time without a whiff of a good reason for doing so, you might be appalled, but you’ll be appalled in a way that holds your interest.

Canadian conservatism, on the other hand, is about as bland as it comes. Government spending and taxes forms the basis of their ideology, and if Sun Media wishes to peddle such ratings killers on television, they might as well quit before they fail.

Unless a little racism and nonsense is thrown in at every available opportunity, I doubt that the television station will make the splash it is proposing to accomplish.

Andrew Tod is a politics student at the University of Winnipeg. During the 2010/2011 school year, he will once again be the comments editor at The Uniter.

Published in Volume 64, Number 27 of The Uniter (June 30, 2010)