mainstream media

Bell Media acquires rabble.ca in bid to woo progressive audience

Editor's Update: noon PST: Wishing rabble readers a Happy April Fool's Day!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BCE Inc. (Bell) Friday announced its acquisition of leading Canadian left-wing news website rabble.ca in order to access the "burgeoning Canadian progressive market."

BCE Inc., whose holdings include Bell Canada, CTVglobemedia and Astral media, outbid Rogers Communications to purchase Canada's most-read online source for progressive news and opinion in an undisclosed deal, which includes all of rabble's ancillary media brands, including rabbletv, rabble radio and babble, its online discussion board.

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media reform Bell Canada mainstream media alternative media rabble.ca april fool's

Something I Hate

When referring to/promoting a television or radio program that features several or all women panellists, most of whom are noted for having 'strong' personalities, it is completely acceptable for the male anchor to say a sentence that ends 'and the fur really does fly!' This is what I call 'casual sexism.' The anchor may be prima facie unaware of his sexism, as is the majority of the audience may be.

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sexism women's rights feminism mainstream media

rabble interview

Media Democracy Days: MPs May and Davies discuss the need to democratize media

In 1996, a coalition of citizens, researchers, academics, and activists in Vancouver emerged in response to the takeover of much of Canadian Press by Hollinger's Inc. The coalition, later re-named Openmedia.ca, started a one-day event called Media Democracy Day in 2001 where issues including the impact of the concentration of media were discussed.

Now in its 10th year, Media Democracy Days has evolved into a three-day event in three different locations, allowing different communities and panel speakers to tackle topics such as copyright policy, media representations, and documentary film productions.

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media democracy mainstream media alternative media elizabeth may Libby Davies open media media democracy day

in his own words

Creating the CBC in order to build a nation

The hoopla surrounding the 75th birthday of the CBC last week provides a good occasion to recall how and why Canada got a national public broadcaster in the first place.

Radio was a new technology in the early 1930s -- about as young, exciting and full of promise as the Internet is today.

In Canada, politicians, educators, business people, labour leaders, women's groups farmers' associations -- you name it -- were thinking about the best way to organize this new and dynamic form of communication.

The country, and the west in general, were in economic turmoil and social unrest was beginning to make itself felt. Much like today. Oh, and in Ottawa, a Conservative government was in power.

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media mainstream media CBC canadian history cbc 75th anniversary cbc history

Occupy Canada: Media pundits vs. reality

Robert Hackett

| November 4, 2011

The Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Canada protests seem to be occupying -- and perhaps unhinging -- the minds of media pundits -- at least, those who are mired in the dogma of "free market" fundamentalism.

One recent example from CBC Television came in the form of a personal attack on author Chris Hedges. A well-known American writer, Hedges had agreed to appear as a guest on the Lang O'Leary Exchange to discuss the Occupy movement. He was in the process of calmly and lucidly explaining that movement's rationale when interviewer Kevin O'Leary interrupted to dismiss Hedges as "a leftwing nutbar."

Occupying the Lang and O'Leary Exchange

Armine Yalnizyan

| November 4, 2011

Starting today I will be on a regular weekly biz panel for the Lang and O'Leary show, every Thursday night.

The panel will take on two six-minute segments to discuss the big economic stories of the day. Today's proposed topics -- the Eurozone mess, whither Canada's GDP, is Occupy a media invention/will it hold without media attention, upcoming job market numbers.

A cool opportunity to bring a progressive perspective into perhaps the most neoliberal -- and watched -- Punch and Judy show in the business news universe, at least in English-speaking Canada.

The show airs daily on CBC News Network, between 7 and 8 p.m. (EST, but I think everywhere same time slot). The biz panel segment will be in the second half of the show, after 7:30.

CBC and Sun TV get hitched

Gerry Caplan

| October 15, 2011

In a bold initiative to continue making conservative values Canadian values, this column can breathlessly reveal that Stephen Harper has come up with his masterstroke. When future historians look back on the Harper years, they may well consider this his most sublime move ever.

O'Leary breached CBC standards, ombudsman rules

Ben Parfitt

| October 15, 2011

It took just a week following the airing of an "interview" on CBC television's The Lang & O'Leary Exchange for the public broadcaster's ombudsman, Kirk LaPointe, to rule that the public broadcaster's journalistic standards had been breached.

For all those who saw the segment on the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations -- either when it aired on October 6 or, more likely, after the fact as the segment was posted and viewed on various websites -- the verbal utterances of the show's co-host, businessman and entrepreneur Kevin O'Leary, were jaw-dropping in their insensitivity.

CBC's Kevin O'Leary gets schooled on #Occupy Wall Street movement by Chris Hedges

In a Sun TV worthy interview, CBC's Kevin O'Leary gets schooled on the #occupy Wall Street movement by Pulitzer winning journalist Chris Hedges. Watch the video on CBC here. For a full transcript of the interview, visit Creekside's blog.

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media mainstream media CBC Chris Hedges #occupy Kevin O'Leary

Columnists

The NDP and its enemies

It would be nice if politics were a polite discussion conducted to help the public make up its mind, but that is not how political life works.

In battling the Liberals, Stephen Harper proved adept at defining his adversaries for the Canadian public. Neither Stephane Dion nor Michael Ignatieff ever recovered from high intensity negative Conservative advertising campaigns conducted before an election was called.

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NDP mainstream media corporate media corporate agenda NDP leadership

mainstream media

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