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rfmcdonaldAny number of people, here and on Facebook and on my blogroll, have been linking to Robert Kennedy's Huffington Post celebration of the news that Canada's Quebecor media conglomerate won't be able to create a "Fox News Canada".
It's not nearly that simple. The proposed chain, Sun TV News, would be a right-wing populist national network--more right-wing than the public CBC or the private CTV--and has already encountered some problems, a proponent in print coming under fire for calling George Soros a Nazi collaborator and the first publicist--a man who once advised Prime Minister Harper--resigning after spamming a petition against Sun TV News for its ideological and perhaps programming links with Fox. The station, however, is not Fox News Canada. (Thank God. I still remember how Fox News mocked Canadian veterans and soldiers in 2009.)
The National Post's Tasha Kheiredden is right to note that Canadian television broadcasting is more regulated than the United States, Canada following the lead of the BBC's first director-general John Reith in creating a informative and regulated national public network with the intent of educating the citizenry.
This attitude later influenced the regulation of private television. And the role of the CBC as neutral, well, it's been contested enough. The neutrality of the whole system, actually, on first principles. (Me, I like, but I would, no?)
It's very good that the CRTC is going to keep as tight a rein on Sun TV News as it does CBC or CTV. The new channel will be more right-wing than the established networks, and will--I hope--make productive contributions to the media environment. Productive ones, I reiterate. It's also very good for people critical of biased journalism, mind, to know what exactly they're talking about.
Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.
Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast....any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."
Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.
Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons have become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News's notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.
It's not nearly that simple. The proposed chain, Sun TV News, would be a right-wing populist national network--more right-wing than the public CBC or the private CTV--and has already encountered some problems, a proponent in print coming under fire for calling George Soros a Nazi collaborator and the first publicist--a man who once advised Prime Minister Harper--resigning after spamming a petition against Sun TV News for its ideological and perhaps programming links with Fox. The station, however, is not Fox News Canada. (Thank God. I still remember how Fox News mocked Canadian veterans and soldiers in 2009.)
The National Post's Tasha Kheiredden is right to note that Canadian television broadcasting is more regulated than the United States, Canada following the lead of the BBC's first director-general John Reith in creating a informative and regulated national public network with the intent of educating the citizenry.
Within the governance of national authorities, public service broadcasting was recreated across western European democracies and beyond in various forms. At the core of each was a commitment to operating radio and television services in the public good. The principal paradigm adopted to accomplish this mission was the establishment of a state-owned broadcasting system that either functioned as a monopoly or at least as the dominant broadcasting institution. Funding came in the form of license fees, taxes or similar noncommercial options. Examples of these organizations include the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Radiodiffusion Television Francaise, Swedish Television Company, Radiotelevisione Italiana, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Australian Broadcasting Corporation. While the ideals on which these and other systems were based suggested services that were characterized by universality and diversity, there were notable violations to these ideals, especially in Germany, France and Italy. In some cases the state-owned broadcasting system became the political mouthpiece for whomever was in power. Such abuse of the broadcasting institutions' mandate made public service broadcasting the subject of frequent political debates.
This attitude later influenced the regulation of private television. And the role of the CBC as neutral, well, it's been contested enough. The neutrality of the whole system, actually, on first principles. (Me, I like, but I would, no?)
It's very good that the CRTC is going to keep as tight a rein on Sun TV News as it does CBC or CTV. The new channel will be more right-wing than the established networks, and will--I hope--make productive contributions to the media environment. Productive ones, I reiterate. It's also very good for people critical of biased journalism, mind, to know what exactly they're talking about.
