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Why not? We have another governmental body, the CRTC, that regulates what goes on the public airwaves.
I don't understand this fear of government you are displaying. Whatever happened to that "We the people" jazz you yanquis profess to revere?
http://www.corporations.org/media/
I think that's true. I don't watch TV "news" because it's basically garbage. The place to get opinion, news, and information is on the Internet, where diverse and free-flowing information is widely available.
Turn on the tube and, at best, you get pablum. Although, even I must admit that TV is okay if you're in a coma.
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
You're lookin' at it.
It's rabble.ca, The Nation, Der Spiegel, Mother Jones, Wikipedia, countless blogs, and roughly...oh...about a million other sources of information.
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
This discussion sounds vaguely like conservatives complaining about sex and violence on TV (only the complaint isn't about sex and violentce it's about "corporate media"): "Where's that good ol' wholesome TV we need? You know, that honest to goodness publicly supported TV?"
Here's my advice to people who hate what is on TV (whether it's sex, violence, "corporate news," or what have you): Turn the fuckin' TV off.
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
I'm referring to radio, mostly. TV has been a wasteland ever since about 1952.
By the way, I've been a community radio host for 15 years. The CRTC has had its eye on me the whole time.
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
Second headline on the Star right now, right after .78c dollar:
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/598900
FM:
"So where was the critical analysis? In the global media readily available on the Internet."
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Yep, the analysis was there, but where were the people lapping it up?
If only we could connect Jefferson's ideal and his people. But remember his other requirement...people who were free of congenital ignorance.
And then there is always the danger of babel...seen by Jefferson in 1785:
"[The] literati [of Europe are] half a dozen years before us. Books, really good, acquire just reputation in that time, and so become known to us and communicate to us all their advances in knowledge. Is not this delay compensated by our being placed out of the reach of that swarm of nonsensical publications which issues daily from a thousand presses and perishes almost in issuing?" --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Bellini, 1785. ME 5:153, Papers 8:569
Bravo! And supporting local, community radio is where the left ought to be. Fram Punk and I, for a very low cost and using readily accessible and often free technology, could quickly launch a community radio station but what stands in our way is the public regulator protecting the anti-competitive interests of the media oligarchy.
I don't follow you George. Are you arguing the CBC is only giving the market what it wants?
Thomas Jefferson: "The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter".
Somehow, I doubt that Jefferson was talking about government-funded newspapers, George.
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632
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No, Sven, he was most concerned with "the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper, " silly people, like yourself, who took Dubya to heart and left us all open to an economic armageddon. A "free press" that in its desperation to survive as businesses, wasn't free at all.
Enough of your cloud cuckooland bullshit, Sven. Get real. Look around. Real people getting really hurt while you repeat your grade school "principles".
But don't stop posting. You are a perfect example of how deluded Americans think, could bring us asset backed commercial paper, could sell Brooklyn bridges to the poor trying to put a roof over their heads. You are needed here as a template for others to understand the meaning of mammon.
Again, would his solution have been government-funded newspapers?
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
You, Sven, seem to take issue with public/private ownership of media. Your own nation demonstrates better than anything I can think of the falsehood of the belief that private media will deliver the goods - objective, thorough, and critical news reporting - better than public media.
The issue, for all of us, ought to be the quality and thoroughness of the information we recieve, and the inclusion of our own voices in the public debate over ideas.
The latter is critical, absolutely critical, to true public debate and that is the issue of utmost importance to me in this argument. I really don't care, and neither should anyone else, if the information we recieve comes from a private or public news source so long as it is objective, thorough, and the public debate is as inclusive as possible. And to me, in Canada, that criteria is missing from both public and private broadcasters.
And please note I don't say balanced. I say inclusive. They are different words and mean different things. The word "balance" in news reporting is a lie.
ETA: For anyone interested in quality journalism, please visit here: http://www.medialens.org/donate/
I agree with much of what you wrote there, FM.
But, I think the focus is too much on TV and radio. That's not where good information is (usually) found. The Internet is where to go to find the best and most diverse range of information and opinions.
There are tens of thousands of websites which, across the spectrum, represent every conceivable political viewpoint. Now, a person can't be lazy and expect to be spoon-fed information. A person looking for information and opinions on the Internet needs to be proactive...have some initiative. But, that's always been the case. Look at libraries...there are vast swaths of the population who have never voluntarily stepped into a library. And I suspect that few people do any serious reading (most reading tends to than popular novels and People magazine). That's always been the case and will likely always be the case.
But, for people who are actually interested in learning about current issues, there is more information available today than there ever has been and if there was ever a need for government-funded media, there certianly is no need for it today.
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
Why do you engage with someone whose debate strategy hopes that putting 'government' in increasingly scary formatting (from italics, to bolding, to underlining, and doubtless eventually to larger and greater font sizes, with up to five times the usual number of question marks) will lend force to his argument?
Your country get the guv'mint" handouts through the "private" media for the whole of Dubya's reign, Sven.
Are you missing it?
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Yeah, Catchfire, I have this masochistic streak
But notice my controlled expletivs....like I say, we need this slice of Americana to see what to avoid this side of the 49th.
And this goddam program has just stopped functioning, entirely. Won't accept editing this a.m.
I agree with that. The Internet is also where we find a diversity of voices. But radio also serves an importnat niche especially for community news and information that just isn't available elsewhere and for which there simply is not the critcal mass of interest for web based publishing.
I have argued that for years that the elimination of voices and the homogenization of news and information would be the undoing of print media.
In a city like London, Ontario, for example, where a local paper competes with major dailies, including two national papers and one parent publication, if in the local paper I find the same stories and voices as the parent why should I buy the local paper? And if the parent is little different in coverage and opinion than the other dailies or the nationals, why should I buy that?
As a person who once purchased four or five newspapers every day, I, today, buy none. Why should I? I know what they say before I even turn a page. I can expect little in the way of independent analysis and I can expect even less that challenges the corporate status quo.
Today, the same disease is now impacting broadcasters. It is as if the MBAs they hired to manage lack any sense of foresight or even the markets of which they claim to be experts.
Take London's A-Channel. The A-Channel through mergers and acquisitions kept changing hands. In the past years, it decided to foresake local advertizers to chase after national advertizers and it cut costs by cutting programming and in particular news and information which tended to be local and regional.
As a viewer, why watch A-Channel when you can get the same programs anywhere else? It is not a matter of actually moving away from A-Channel so much as it is a matter of knowing whatever you want there can be found anywhere with some channel surfing.
And if you are a national advertizer (and our economies have pushed out local businesses to the point where almost all are national, or at least large regional, advertizers) why advertize on the A-Channel when you can reach a larger audience, including local viewers, advertizing on the parent station?
And as both you and I demonstrate, and I am sure many others, if we, as media consumers, and we are, can't get information we value and trust from the traditional sources, we will go elsewhere.
What is interesting, though, is that the media conglomerates don't really care. They will squeeze every last penny out of traditional media and then they will use their political and lobbying influence to regulate the Internet to force us onto their online portals and web sites.
The challenge for the left and the principled right (such a small group) and anyone who values open expression and the free flow of thougts and ideas is keeping the Internet open. Already the corporate lobbysists are salivating as government regulators are bought and paid for.
As a person who once purchased four or five newspapers every day, I, today, buy none. Why should I? I know what they say before I even turn a page. I can expect little in the way of independent analysis and I can expect even less that challenges the corporate status quo."
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You can participate in municipal elections as an enlightened citizen without a local paper FM? I guess backfence gossip and knowing some folks will inform you. I still need two delivered to the door.
And I find Krugman enlightening (and have you seen Brooks' columns the last couple of days) from NYTimes postings? BBC less so.
But I can't imagine knowing what makes our society (and world) tick without the Globe's business perspectives.
I'm not sure what municipality you live in, but most have little to none in the way of civerage of local politics. It is why the most valued political asset at the local level is "name recognition". But I will accept your condescending observation and raise you another: Want to be informed of local government? Get off your ass and attend the meetings with the other half dozen concerned citizens.
I don't attend sporting events just for the cheerleaders either. I can't think of a greater contradiction than business journalism other than perhaps business ethics.
I recommend you read and consider FM's post above.
ETA: Nevermind (I forgot to hit the "Post comment" button after writing the above immediately after reading FM's Post #78).
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
Although you didn't mention it here, you have mentioned a concern about "Internet neutrality" in other threads. For those of us not entirely familiar with the issue (including me), can you summarize your concern? It seems to me (perhaps naively) that the Internet is very free flowing and that people (other than those in certain countries) can freely read and write whatever they want on the Internet, which I think is a vital right to maintain and protect. So, what is the threat that you foresee to "Internet neutrality"?
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
The internet is very "free flowing" Sven.
Some flows freely to the dogmatic right.
And some flows freely to the dogmatic left.
And some is just confused an meaners off into the marshes, or is blocked and locked away.
And in this way, we will find ourselves on an island of moderation in between the channels reason and understanding.
(And is FM now posting for you?)
By the way, I don't read business pages out of love for the folks who feed there, FM. Quite the contrary.
They depend on these fellas too much when times get tough:
What's that supposed to mean?
But, more substantively:
This brings us back to the original question: Will this change with government-funded media?
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
"Why do you engage with someone whose debate strategy hopes that putting 'government' in increasingly scary formatting (from italics, to bolding, to underlining, and doubtless eventually to larger and greater font sizes, with up to five times the usual number of question marks) will lend force to his argument?"
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Insistent like Johnny one note, but not gargantuan yet, Catch.
I get the sense that many people are uncomfortable with the rough-n-tumble “marketplace of ideas”— with information, opinions, and ideas simply popping up and sprouting all across the political spectrum, with some surviving and gaining strength and others withering.
Instead, they seem to pine for order and the steady hand of government to guide “the masses” in their thinking about the issues of the day and believe (in a conveniently unarticulated way) that government-funded media can successfully cull the information wheat from the information chaff.
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
Shurely you mean "winnow" or "thresh." "Cull" is more of an animal husbandry term.
In the right context, the "marketplace of ideas" is rather interesting. The Age of Persuasion does a nice job of exploring it.
Surely you mean "surely". "Shurely" isn't even a word in the English lexicon.
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!