CBS commentator Andy Rooney, famous for his humorous approach to hard truths, had this to say during his "60 Minutes" commentary on November 7, 2004. "I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush."_ Things haven't changed much, either in the U.S. or the Canadian media.

Every journalist - including this one for sure and every news outlet has a bias. That's a given.

And the vast majority of them - media surveys suggest 85 to 90 percent of them - have a bias toward the small "l" liberal side of the ledger.

Even so, a truly professional journalist and/or media outlet, will give its best effort to at least present a relatively balanced picture to its readers/viewers/listeners, even if it tends to be tilted in one direction.

Unfortunately, even some of our most respected journals seem to have stopped trying to be fair, let alone balanced. Or at least they don't try as hard as they once did.

Take a "news" story - more like a propaganda piece - in The Globe and Mail this week, for example.

Headlined: "Canadians dismayed by Ottawa's record on climate change," it had a smaller subheadline underneath hat declaring that, "Poll finds three quarters of public are embarrassed that country hasn't taken international lead on cutting greenhouse gases."

Well, not exactly. Not once you get into - and past - the propaganda.

It may be that many Canadians think the government should be doing more to cut greenhouse gases. But you couldn't get a clear picture of how deeply held that feeling is by reading this particular Globe screed.

It is based, incredibly, on a "poll" conducted by one of the major pro-global warming activists on the planet, a Vancouver-based public relations firm Hoggan & Associates, a man who, as the National Post has pointed out, "is also responsible for a website that specializes in smearing climate skeptics..."

He also co-authored a book called Climate Cover-up, pushing the demonstrably absurd notion that there is a massive industry-based campaign to discredit the climate "science." The truth is, there is a massive - and highly successful campaign in the media, academia and yes governments to discredit anyone not worshipping at the self-serving altars of David Suzuki and Al Gore. But there you have it.

Speaking of Suzuki, the Globe story did have the decency to point out that Hoggan is also chair of the Suzuki Foundation, quickly followed by his observation - uncontested of course - that the Conservatives "have been out of step with public sentiment on climate change virtually from the moment they took office in 2006."

Judging by the Globe pronouncement that 75 percent of us are "embarrassed" by Tory inaction, perhaps Hoggan has a point.

But, alas, there's the rub.

In fact, poll respondents didn't tell Hoggan that they were "embarrassed." His poll asked them if they were "embarrassed," a loaded question that a professional pollster should be ashamed to present as scientific evidence of anything beyond the power of suggestion.

But it gets worse. Hoggan's - as the Globe did point out - conducted two polls, one of the great unwashed and another - how convenient - of about 1,000 handpicked people it termed "thought leaders" in business, universities, government and the media.

The general public - which obviously can't be trusted to have an opinion, and isn't worthy of scary headlines - in fact told the pollster that the environment - which includes a lot more than global warming - was a distant third in the "top issues" facing Canada, at a mere 12 percent, miles behind the economy at 39 percent and health care at 22.

And just as Hoggan wouldn't want to focus on such a poor result, the Globe too virtually ignored that, focusing instead on the results of the select elites who - surprise, surprise - picked the environment as the number one issue.

This isn't to fault Hoggan and his crowd. If he can get a major newspaper like the Globe and Mail to swallow his propaganda campaign, why not?

But it speaks poorly of our self-declared "national newspaper" that it would present such a distorted view to its readers.

Ask yourself this: if Shell Oil conducted a survey and passed it along to the Globe as evidence that everybody loves the oil companies, do you think the Globe would accept it without hesitation?

Not bloody likely. And it's to their shame that their experienced "environment reporter" Martin Mittelstaedt wrote the story he did about Hoggan's public relations effort.