They've taken over in the States and they've done the same thing in Canada. In both countries our democracy is in peril due to the ascendancy of media giants pursuing corporatist agendas. The media that is supposed to serve the public as the watchdog of government instead betrays the public to become the government's lapdog.
The next government of Canada, be it NDP, Liberal or a coalition, must move to pry loose the chokehold that the corporate media has at our public's throat. We must break up these cartels and force divestiture if we're to have any hope of shoring up real democracy in Canada.
4 comments:
While I hope you are wrong about a NDP government in the future I absolutely agree with you about the concentration of today corporate media is bad for freedom and democracy in Canada.
Wow ! On this subject we apparently agree.
Why does that scare me? :-)
Deno
I hope your right about the next gov being NDP, in fact its looking likely.
I agree about media, but recently its come to my attention that in part it maybe a self correcting problem, at least partially. Many of these media giants are going t**s up, includingPpp the owners of the Globe and mail and the National Post. Of the national papers only the Toronto Star is doing well, possibly because its not fighting for the same idealogical space that,all the other major news outlets are. Also Torstar hasn't overstretched itself. I wouldn't mind seeing Torstar buying the Citytv chain of stations off of Rogers and rebuilding the chum network, I really miss it.
Also of note is the Toronto star is moving to
aligning itself with the NDP then the liberals as they have previously had a history of doing. They know a winner when they see it.
Interesting point, Anon. I have noticed that PostMedia, successor to the far-right CanWest, seems to be figuring out the angles. PM is beginning to provide more balanced coverage which, for that bunch, is a serious shift back toward the centre. NatPo remains full of the usual hacks but some papers, like Victoria's Times-Colonist are routinely critical of the Harper government, the bitumen pipelines, the complete absence of bitumen-spill protection for coastal BC, Harper's gutting of our coastal environmental protections and fisheries regulations and so on. At the moment the Times-Colonist, while remaining somewhat centre-right is decidedly anti-Harper.
Canada is in a much worse position than the US. Bruce Livesey's book "Theives of Bay Street" lays it all out. In Alberta everyone is having a hissy-fit regarding the remarks Mulcair made. He is absolutely dead on. High oil prices causing a high dollar as well as all the payouts to CEO's causing lay offs and the death of steel manufacturing to name one has managed to get rid of 700,000 manufacturing jobs...the truth is the truth. Now..here we are in Canada importing lower grade steel. Ya just cannot continue to try and make money from money without products.
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