It's long overdue, it would be great for the country and our democracy and, best of all, it wouldn't cost the taxpayers an arm and a leg.
Break up Canada's media cartels. No more cross-ownership of media outlets. One news vehicle per market. Want a newspaper? Fine, but no television or radio station in that same market. Want a television licence? Fine, but no newspaper or radio operation in that market.
Break up CanWest-Global. Break up Bell-GlobeMedia. End the media stranglehold that leaves media cartels beholden to political friends. Broad ownership, diverse opinions. If the National Post wants to be a propaganda arm for arch-conservatives, great. But it doesn't get to proselytize through monopoly control of small newspapers or by linking its views to a television network.
Let's have fresh voices, new perspectives from the centre, from the left and, yes, from the right too. More voices, more diversity, more democracy.
Why not put that right up close to the top of the list?
Good idea but that goes for Liberals, the NDP and any other party in Canada not just Conservatives. By the way, is life in Canada so freaking boring, Parliment has to reve it up? All parties are to blame for what is going on right now. It makes me want to vomit. All parties have been acting like uneducated, disinterested poops for two long. A. Morris
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Something has to be done to democratize the media. Why should the 63% of the population who don't vote for the Cons be subjected to an endless barrage of pro-con media spin and bias? The mass media should better reflect the views of the people and not be used to brainwash them.
ReplyDeleteWell, AM, of course that goes for the Libs too. I actually studied this question during my journalism undergrad and, strangely enough, many years later in law school. In this age of Facebook, few understand that the right of privacy is pivotal to each and every one of our other rights just as few grasp that a truly independent, diverse and outspoken media is fundamental to the health of democracy.
ReplyDeleteI was working for the feds, cultural industries, when media concentration was beginning to ramp up hugely. Ironically, all our effort was focused on the WTO split-run magazine battle. Here we were trying to protect diversity of expression by going to battle for Canadian publishers against US media giants, not recognizing that we were doing nothing to stop our own media giants from taking control of our news stands and airwaves.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of stopping cross-ownership. The Aspers and Ted Rogers were probably the first to try to mimic their US competitors whose interests spanned into sports franchise and amusement parks.
This is a good idea, but I wouldn't mind seeing proportional representation and Condorcet voting schemes implemented as well.
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