Bias and Expertise in Canadian Media

This article contributes to the characterization of media bias by analyzing how Canadian news media select and contextualize messages originating from think tanks, an influential yet ideologically marked form of expertise. Drawing on a large media corpus (2017–2020), it shows that journalists make relatively limited use of textual indicators of credibility, but that these indicators systematically reflect the ideological preferences already evident in source selection. Think tanks that are more frequently solicited thus benefit from more favorable contextualization, corroborating the hypothesis of a doubly preferential treatment. The study concludes by discussing the normative implications of these practices for journalistic impartiality in the face of contested expertise.