Jack Layton, the Toronto Sun, and a rare moment of nonpartisan candor

In case you didn’t see it, the Toronto Sun ran an editorial last week lauding NDP leader Jack Layton. The paper backed his current call for the Harper government to cut its 5% tax on heating fuel, knowing that the winter months are about to hit Canadians hard. They even cited his proposal as a sign that Layton “has obviously moved from climate-change fanatic to a realist.”

If that sounds like backhanded praise, consider the source. The Toronto Sun is typically the last place you’d ever expect to read something positive about Layton or the NDP. “Because he is what he is,” they acknowledge right off the top, Layton “is usually getting the slap upside the head from us, not a pat on the back.”

Now, obviously, that’s not just because of what Jack Layton is. The Sun’s generally predictable coverage of Layton has just as much to do with what they are: a right-leaning tabloid that doesn’t take kindly to left-leaning, tree-hugging, “tax and spend” notions of how to run this country.

I mean, the headline on the cover of today’s issue is “Where’s your poppy?” That’s today’s top story in the Sun. At that point, you might as well go with “Why aren’t you going out of your way to prove you love this country and its veterans as much as we do?”

Sure, it’s a little bit wordy, especially for Sun readers. But it gets to the heart of the matter, and it does so without even having to acknowledge any actual unpleasant news about our armed forces. Like Harper’s announcement yesterday that he’s thinking of reversing Canada’s pledge to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, which is getting heavy coverage in other, more reputable newspapers.

See what I did there? Jack pushes for environmental and economic reform because that’s who he is. The Sun mocks him for it because that’s who they are. And I run around acting like I’m too good to read the Sun, because that’s who I am. It goes both ways, and it really limits the number of people we talk to, ideas we share, and things we learn.

For a moment, to their credit, the Sun rose above the usual routine. They had to convince their readership that they still generally disagree with Layton in order to do it, but they did it. And I read it as a result, acknowledging their point of view in the process. By the end, I’d learned a thing or two about a vital issue – and I’d learned it from the Toronto Sun.

Let’s have a lot more of this! Let’s have more newspapers and TV networks acknowledging the good ideas coming from across the aisle. And let’s have more media consumers who are open to hearing about them from a source they’d usually ignore. Even if we only did it on occasion, there’s no telling how much perspective we could gain.

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