If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Anything that has a market should be allowed to remain in business. But that's the problem: Sun News doesn't have a market even though, contrary to the misinformation peddled by the broadcaster, it is literally available to any Canadian who's willing to subscribe to a cable or satellite service that carries the channel
Tuesday marks the opening of another critical public hearing at the CRTC. It will be considering applications to expand the mandatory distribution of channels on the basic TV service. But, bottom line, if our own federal government refuses to kick in a few more million a year to show just how important Canadian culture is, then why should the rest of us?
In his April 11 show, "The Arab Underground," conservative political activist Ezra Levant interviewed a former Israeli army officer to highlight the imparting of homophobia in the government funded Edmonton Islamic Academy. Conservative Muslim parents need to be concerned whether their children are being taught values of tolerance or exclusion.
As a supporter of diversity in (news) media, and sometime collaborator with Sun News Network, it pains me to write this, but I don't think that the CRTC should give in to this application for mandatory carriage. If it wants to have a shot at greater viewership, Sun News will have to look closely at what it means to be conservative in Canada, and then adapt its style accordingly.
The folks at Sun News are begging to escape this ghetto of being broadcast on the high-800 channels by petitioning the CRTC. Winning this prize would not only ensure more Canadian eyeballs, but also give those eyeballs a cable bill hike of around $4. In a country as stiff and staid in its defence of conventional wisdom as ours, it's hard not to be impressed with the sheer vigor of Sun's contrarian spirit. Whether that's worth a $4 national tax is a tougher question.
As we may recall, a couple days ago good ol' Ezra Levant was having quite a snit over the fact that outgoing Globe and Mail web editor Stephen Wicary was emigrating to Cuba, in theory because that's where his wife works, but probably because he's a goddamn commie.
...not. Got your attention though didn't I? The old saying "No news is good news" was never said by a journalist. No news = no customers. We feel like bored salespeople, constantly re-arranging the goods in the front window. This isn't to say we wish ill or disaster upon the world (not openly anyway). But is it wrong to wish for more than, say, the Tony Clement/Ezra Levant/Norman Bethune controversy?
Will he or won't he? Critics agree Justin Trudeau's decisive positions on looking dreamy and punching people obviously make him an ideal leader to spice up the stagnant third-place party everyone's grown sick of writing about. In Meta-media news, Ezra Levant has been reprimanded for using what's been described as a slur (but not by him) on TV.
Compared to CBC's The National, CTV offers a cleaner, neater, tighter, better paced, and better-written news program. Even so, there's too much narrating over edits and when that's done, we stop listening to the words for a moment.
For those of you looking for a simple way to represent these ties, here is a graphic that tries to capture some of the main ones uncovered so far. Please pass it around so that some daylight shines into this dirty business.
My community that lives in the Kitimat Village's decision to support natural gas development and oppose a tar sands pipeline is a considered and informed. It is consistent with our ancestral responsibilities as First Nations who have never surrendered title to these lands.
The question of Section 13 of Canada's Human Rights Act (CHRA) dealing with hate speech has come to a head over the case of Marc Lemire, who was the last president of the neo-Nazi white supremacist group, Heritage Front, and is now a webmaster of a controversial site created in the name of free speech.
The rules of diplomacy say that the Conservative government cannot directly attack Canada's oil competitors -- particularly the ones it finds distasteful -- so did it prime an outside entity to do so?
Apart from the CBC's penchant for secrecy on how it spends the $1.1 billion of taxpayers' money it gets from the government, what I find unacceptable and disgraceful, is the CBC bidding on programs that the private sector would run, but can't match CBC funding which is given to them, rather than earned by them.
Ezra Levant acknowledges that exploiting and using fossil fuels has environmental impacts. Does that mean there is a hierarchy of ethical practices or that one ethical practice cancels out other unethical activities?
Konrad von Finckenstein has a pretty good resume for someone who's looking to prove their independent thinking, which is a good trait if you're an entrepreneur, but not so much for a government-appointed bureaucrat. The fear now is that the prime minister will move to install a CRTC chair who is more subservient.
