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Can Canadian Media become as bad as this in the U.S. ... Why/Why not?...And how close are we?
Fri, 2009-08-14 07:51
#1
Can Canadian Media become as bad as this in the U.S. ... Why/Why not?...And how close are we?
Fri, 2009-08-14 07:55
#2
Paul Krugman in the NY Times today:
"Sure enough, President Obama is now facing the same kind of opposition that President Bill Clinton had to deal with: an enraged right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency, that eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media complex.
This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda.
But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing.
Right now, the charge that's gaining the most traction is the claim that health care reform will create "death panels" (in Sarah Palin's words) that will shuffle the elderly and others off to an early grave. It's a complete fabrication, of course. The provision requiring that Medicare pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling was introduced by Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican - yes, Republican - of Georgia, who says that it's "nuts" to claim that it has anything to do with euthanasia.
And not long ago, some of the most enthusiastic peddlers of the euthanasia smear, including Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, and Mrs. Palin herself, were all for "advance directives" for medical care in the event that you are incapacitated or comatose. That's exactly what was being proposed - and has now, in the face of all the hysteria, been dropped from the bill.
Yet the smear continues to spread. And as the example of Mr. Gingrich shows, it's not a fringe phenomenon: Senior G.O.P. figures, including so-called moderates, have endorsed the lie."
I can't think of anything this close to national media collusion in a lie in Canuckistan.
Fri, 2009-08-14 08:05
#3
I think here the collusion is about what isn't said, not so much what is said. Stories that don't get covered, or get perfunctory coverage. Things that are made a big deal over, and things that ain't.
You have to give as much importance in listening to what they don't say, as much as what they say.
Now, I suspect the only reason why this is so, why our media is not as overt as the U.S. media is because we haven't really pushed them to it yet, here.
Fri, 2009-08-14 08:11
#4
Who hasn't pushed whom, TP? And aren't ownership and legacy, factors?
Fri, 2009-08-14 10:35
#5
Frustrated Mess
I agree with Tommy. I think a good example is Honduras and Iran. In Iran, an election was or was not stolen. We really don't know. Persons were arrested for protesting, one young woman lost her life. She has been immortalized as a martyr. The media coverage of Iran has been daily with every protest of the opposition dutifully reported. Meanwhile, in Honduras, a democratically elected president was deposed, a number of protestors have been murdered none worthy enough of mass media attention, and just this week tens of thousands marched and were confronetd with repressive violence. As well, untold numbers have been taken by security forces. The recent march noted not a word in Canada's MSM nor heard a word from Canada's national broadcaster. The Honduras story is already on the way down the memory hole.
As for similar reporting to what we see in the US, it is not yet on the same scale, but I give you Sun Medias shrill and hysterical "WAR ON CARS" in response to a single lane on Jarvis being devoted to bicycles. And, perhaps, a better example, the outrageous media performance full of fury and lies, that arose with the threat of a coalition just last year.
Fri, 2009-08-14 10:35
#6
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
I note that our media fell swiftly in line to parrot the big lie that forming a coalition government of the majority of our duly elected Parliament was somehow an undemocratic 'coup'. I don't doubt for a second that our media is on the same path as their American counterparts, if perhaps a few steps behind.
Fri, 2009-08-14 10:37
#7
Frustrated Mess
It is worth noting, however, that it can very difficult separating the satire of the Onion from "legitimate" US cable news broadcasts.
Fri, 2009-08-14 11:53
#8
The left, or the people in Canada have never really threatened the establishment, or, more correctly, the establishment in Canada has never fealt threatened the way the establishment in the States feels threatened by Obama, and earlier, Hillary Clinton.
When Canada's establishment feels threatened, they are every bit as bad or worse than what you see in the States.
Even to this day, the media marches in lock step with the idea that Martial Law in 1970 was neccessary.
And, as soft as we think of the first NDP government in Ontario, it was enough for them to start running posters of Bob Rae and Carl Marx together.
If only.
Here, pharmacuetical companies know they can get whatever legislation they want. In fact, they even wrote actual passages for Mulroney when he re-did the Drug Patent Act way back when.
Threaten that priveledge, and see what happens in the media here.
ETA: A couple of months ago, an astonishing report came out of the government of Ontario about pharmacuetical companies and some retailers ripping off the taxpayer, and in the process endangering the public because the fraud compromised drug traceability.
Burried story, so deep you'd have to have a geology degree just to describe where it is.
Fri, 2009-08-14 23:59
#9
Don't forget the government's, the military's and the mainstream media's (all in collusion) 'wag the dog' approach to the biggest lie of them all: the Afghan war.
Sun, 2009-08-16 08:44
#10
Diogenes
I think our mainstream media is already as 'bad' as the US media, if not worse.
Canada's media ownership is already much more concentrated than the US.
Canwest, our largest media outlet, had scant coverage of the Abdelrazik and Suaas-Mohamud affairs, but they were like a pack of rabid dogs in their coverage of the United Church Of Canada debate on a boycott of Israel. This outrageous bias and one sided coverage does not seem to matter to most Canadians because they simply don't know how pervasive it is.
Die Canwest, die.
Sun, 2009-08-16 09:56
#11
it is easy to blame all of our ills on canwest but they are not the only danger. all of our media is owned by conglamorates. we have lost the local independance for national ownership. can west is but one of the problems -- corus, torstar, rogers, ctv bell globe, to name but a few
Mon, 2009-08-17 19:05
#12
But, of course, there is the CBC (rapidly being corrupted) and in the U.S. PBS and public national radio. They try to do a bit better.
Mon, 2009-08-17 20:28
#13
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
CBC: compromised by conservatives
Mon, 2009-08-17 21:00
#14
'Fraid so, LTJ.