Canadian Media

[Andem]

I didn't really notice it much before, but today it came to me. The Canadian media is moving closer to the american media which fills it's viewers with hate for whatever they want. In this case, it's hate for Iraq and Iraqis.

What tipped me off was this:

Last week, I was watching CBC news when this male reporter started describing the Iraqi regime. He actually called it a Stalinist state..... Uhhh, hi? Stalinist? no.

Today, I was watching CBC news... That same male reporter started describing the Iraqi regime as a nazi-like state. Thanks for coming out CBC, but the nazi and stalinist states were nothing alike. How can you call Iraq nazi and stalinist? They are both polar opposites.

It doesn't stop there. Turn on any north american news station, and you'll likely seem to fill with hate for the people they are portraying as the bad guys. If you can call names which conflict with each other, it's obvious you aren't trying to provide unmoderated news coverage. So you should just join in on the CNN wire to pentagon.

 

[Stretch]

I always turn off the TV as soon as any war propaganda comes on....
I sent an email to cbc the other night when they said that a chemical factory had been found in iraq...insinuating it was the evidence that the US required....I gave them a link to a pentagon press release saying it was too early to sya what the factory was used for...as it turned out they have known about the factory for 12 yrs.....

the only good thing about the news on TV is that there are some good adverts during it

never let the truth get in the way of a good story, eh guys!

 

[Andem]

Nice.

Did you get a reply from CBC?

 

[Stretch]

no nothing

 

[Andem]

Ahh, sort of typical. Sometimes they will post your email on the air, but I guess they get so many, the chances are probably slim to none.

 

[Twila]

There is no money in telling the truth.

There is only jobs and money in forwarding the ceo's of media station political views.

It has been this way for a long time.

Whoever controls the media controls the minds
Jim Morrison

Freedom of the press is limited to those who own it
Henry Louis Menken
Censorship in media
http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Iraq.asp

 

[Stretch]

this from back in the early 1900s......

There is no such thing, at this date in the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.

There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.

I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street looking for another job.

If I allowed my honest opinion to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

You know it and I know it.

And what folly is this - toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.

We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance.

Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.

We are intellectual prostitutes.”

John Swinton - New York Times - New York Press Club
*********************

"News is what someone wants to suppress.
Everything else is advertising."
~~former NBC news prez Rubin Frank

"We tell the people what they need to know,
not what they want to know." ~~Frank Sesno, CNN News

"Our job is to give people not what they want,
but what we decide they ought to have."
~~Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.
********************
"Public sentiment is everything.
With public sentiment nothing can fail.
Without it nothing can succeed.
He who molds opinion is greater than he who enacts laws."
~~Abraham Lincoln
********************

"I feel sorry for the man who,
after reading the daily newspaper,
goes to bed believing he knows
something of what's going on in the world."
--- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

 

[Andem]

"I feel sorry for the man who,
after reading the daily newspaper,
goes to bed believing he knows
something of what's going on in the world."
--- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

I like that quote a lot. It sums up what the American public thinks of everything, especially this war.

 

[Stretch]

yea exactly......scary eh?

 

[czardogs]

Canadian media on the whole is still much further ahead in being free and unbiased as compared to some other democratic nations.

Though disturbingly there is a quick shift towards media conglomerates in Canada. this is not good for the future of open discourse and public good.

For example:

One perspective is enough, says CanWest

By James Winter

A dispute between Canada’s largest media company and its journalists has put media concentration on the political agenda as seldom before. In January, organizations representing journalists across Canada called for a parliamentary inquiry into media concentration, especially at CanWest Global Communications. The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) and the Quebec Federation of Professional Journalists (QFPJ) denounced actions of the media giant as "a disturbing pattern of censorship and repression of dissenting views."

CAJ vice president Paul Schneidereit said the federal government needs to examine the issue of media ownership concentration. "We feel it’s time for the elected officials of this country to be looking at what the repercussions [of media concentration] are for the general public," he said. The Quebec provincial government has said it might introduce legislation to force "a plurality of opinion" and diverse sources of information, according to culture minister Diane Lemieux.

The Newspaper Guild of Canada demanded that CanWest "immediately cease its attack on divergent opinions." The Guild--the largest journalists’ union in North America--called in February for the Winnipeg-based media conglomerate to adopt principles that would respect the editorial autonomy of each paper and its columnists, and allow editors, rather than corporate headquarters, to make news judgments.

Buying the chains

In 2000, CanWest bought up the Hollinger and Southam newspaper holdings from conservative media mogul Conrad Black (who was profiled in Extra!, 11-12/96). In 2001, it acquired majority control of Black’s National Post, a Toronto-based Canada-wide daily.

In addition to the National Post, CanWest now owns 14 large city dailies, 120 smaller dailies and weeklies, and the Global TV network, Canada’s second-largest private broadcaster. The company also has private TV networks in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, among other holdings.

CanWest set off the media furor in December with its a decision to require all of its daily newspapers to run corporate editorials produced in its Winnipeg head office. Initially, the company sent out one editorial weekly, but said this would increase to three times a week. The company also said locally-written material should not contradict the party line handed down in corporate editorials. Ownership and management have clashed with journalists and columnists who’ve cringed under the new controls.


We must challenge any further erosion of the media. How you say?

Well go out of your way to frequent alternative news sites on the web and fork out some dough for the small runs.