CBC has been the subject of much unfriendly chatter on Parliament Hill of late.
mainstream media
Empowering young people to define themselves and their communities
When you ask youth about their place in society and they respond by telling you that the media is what negatively impacts them and stops them from feeling a sense of belonging in the broader community, you (should) pay attention. Maybe even do something about it.
That's the basis of a new project, the Multimedia Multicultural Initiative (M&M), now operating in seven cities across Canada. It is run by the United Nations Association in Canada (UNAC). While not the actual UN, the organization is part of a federation of United Nations Associations around the world that promotes and educates around the broader mandate of the UN, issues like good government, equality, diversity, and human rights.
CUPW: A cautionary tale of union-busting, with a little help from the media
With 16 straight years of profitability, including record profits in 2009 and postage rates lower than almost all other industrialized countries, the Canada Post negotiations should have been relatively easy. But it's Tory times in Canada and what better way is there for a right-wing government to attack the labour movement than by going after the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, a national and historically militant union?
The trouble with journalism
I have serious problems with the direction taken by Canadian policy and politics in the last five years. But as a now former CTV reporter, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath.
Related rabble.ca story:
Maclean's and The Toronto Star: The Asian invasion of higher education
In 1979, Canadian students produced a TV program called Campus Giveaway against what they called a "foreign" (i.e. Chinese-Canadian) takeover of university campuses. Chinese-Canadian students protested the equating of "Chinese" with "foreign" and challenged the exaggerated statistics used to justify the arguments of the program.
To me, the 'too Asian?' controversy is unwarranted
I must admit that I learned about the criticism of the "Too Asian?" article in Maclean's before I actually read it. I received emails asking me to write letters of protest to universities that were warning of an "Asian invasion," help with community outreach, and was later invited to two "Youth Coalition Against Maclean's ‘Too Asian'" meeting in Toronto and Waterloo. The Chinese Canadian National Council also condemned the article for fostering an "us versus them" mentality.
Ezra Levant ordered to pay $25,000 for libel
A judge has ordered controversial blogger Ezra Levant to pay $25,000 to Giacomo Vigna for libel, citing his "reckless indifference" to the truth while writing blog posts about the Canadian Human Rights Commission lawyer.
Levant accused Vigna of lying to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, tampering with evidence, and suggested he'd been fired, the National Post reports. Justice Robert Smith ruled that Levant "spoke in reckless disregard of the truth and for an ulterior purpose of denormalizing the Human Rights Commission across Canada which makes his statements malicious in that sense."
A coffee table display for the rich: The Globe and Mail
The new tarted-up, glossy, all-colour Globe and Mail is many things, but it is not a real "news paper."
It has been "dumbed up" and robbed of much of its news content.
The result is a hybrid never before seen in North America. It is some of the old Globe of course. But is also part Maclean's magazine and The Economist. It is part National Geographic, Sporting News, Vanity Fair, and Women's Wear Daily.
How Fox North became Harper's priority
Remember the attack ad the Paul Martin Liberals used in the 2006 federal election campaign that backfired so badly it helped galvanize Canadians to turf them out instead?
Aimed at terrifying Canadians about the militaristic and undemocratic impulses of Stephen Harper's Conservatives, the Liberal ad intoned over a war drumbeat: "Soldiers with guns... In our cities... In Canada... We did not make this up."
Today the tables could be abruptly turned on the Conservatives with this far more sinister message: "The prime minister's office. In a first-world democracy. Controlling a major media network. We did not make this up."
Harper's Fox News luncheon
My guess is it's pretty easy to arrange lunch with the Prime Minister. No doubt Stephen Harper often lunches with labour leaders and advocates for the homeless.
So it should be considered no big deal that, among those the PM has lunched with, is U.S. media billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who has probably done more than any single individual in recent years to push American politics sharply to the right.
It's interesting to imagine, however, why our Prime Minister would want to meet with Murdoch, whose Fox News TV channel has poisoned U.S. political debate and nurtured America's extremist right-wing Tea Party movement.
