The Galloway-Kenney incident is another revealing moment for our media which is becoming increasingly marinated in right-wing douchebaggery. Even when "defending" free speech, the corporate press from the Globe and Mail to the Ottawa Citizen insult Galloway as if Kenney has a point by his shameful actions.
How did it get so bad? How has Canada sunk to becoming one of the most right-wing countries in the hemisphere if not the world?
I think the answer partially lies in that media concentration has always been intense in Canada, so like Australia, it is easy to whip the country into whatever direction the corporate masters require. Where still f'en colonial chattel.
The cover of the Glop in Pail indicates that the Commies have taken over.
Obama turns left?
Yes, I saw that front cover of the GandM. I was astonished. I saw an exhibit once that featured Globe and Mail front pages from the 50s. It was Reds this and Reds that and Reds the other thing. It was truly bizarre but at least they were talking - a lot of the time, anyway - about actual Reds. But Obama???
I don't get it?
I don't know. Do you or don't you? And what is it you do or don't get?
Meanwhile, CanWest is continuing to suffer huge losses.
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/04/09/canwest-global-loss-second-quarter.html
Canwest Global Communications Corp. lost a whopping $1.4 billion in the second quarter as the media giant said Thursday it wrote off more than half of its publishing assets because of a tough economy.
Poorer advertising revenues and other problems associated with a weak economy forced the company to absorb a $1.19 billion writedown in its earnings.
Weak economy? CanWest was struggling even when the economy was "strong". The right-wing media giants continue to put out a poor product, and suffer accordingly.
How they forget, the eastern conservative media that in the last election 26.9 percent of Albertans voted for progressive parties. That's a quarter of them. And 56.2% of voters from BC and 46.8% of people from Saskatchewan and 51.4 % of people from Manitoba. We are a varied bunch. Oh yes and the Western Arctic sent an NDP member to parliament.
For alternative approaches to media ownership check out the Tyee News.
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/canada/bcvotes2009/story/2009/04/12/tyee-donations-ele... better yet, give them some cash[/url]
The Real News is also another model that I think would be useful.
There's also a web-based media company called Rabble. They seem to be expanding even in an "economic crisis". Probably a bunch of Reds.
For alternate news also check out the Dominion. The Tyee talks about co-operatives and foundations and other models.
Can you tell the difference between a National Post columnist and a Nazi?
I could, but at 62% of the time, only barely. (I think that's why AngryFrenchGuy set the bar for passing at 70%)
69.23%
The rumors spun by corporate sponsored news media are that Obama, Ben Bernanke, and their "plunge protection team" are now red hot socialists and using Keynesian methods to save financial capitalism from rack and ruin. However, there is very little truth to this, and they are basically pouring good money after bad in some bizarre scheme for socialism for the superrich. And when socialism to save capitalism proves unworkable at some point down the road, conservative hawks will enter stage right with the real Milton Friedmanite monetarist monetarism to save America from collapse. And I think theyll be looking at full blown fascism in the US at some point. And our mirror image colonial administrators in Ottawa and the provinces will be down and dirty with that future plan for neo-nouveau classico liberal-fascist capitalism part deux, or whatever it will be referred to then.
This isn't Socialism; it's merely stealing from the poor (through taxation) to give to the rich, and we're electing the Sheriff of Nottingham.
That's really what I meant to say. What al-Qa'bong said.
I got PWNed on that quiz. You can hardly tell one from another. Sad that is one of our mainstream commentators.
Let's be realistic here - Canada does not have a right-wing media. The media in Canada is pretty Liberal in its outlook - whether it is pro-choice, pro-same-sex marriage or pro-Liberal party. Canada does not have very many right-wing pundits or stations like the U.S. does.
Apart from the last election in which a couple of news outlets like CTV were a bit pro-Conservative because they disliked Stephane Dion, most of the media in Canada is pretty critical of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. We hardly have a press that is holding them up - in fact, a lot of the press are working to defeat Harper and elect Ignatieff.
Now Ignatieff is not exactly left-wing, but there is not that much institutional or media support for the Conservatives in Canada.
Did you bother reading the thread (or the terms of service, for that matter) before adding your standard dittohead denials here?
LTJ if someone still trys to say the media is left when even the commie broadcast corporation has regular guests in CD howe, Fraser Allan Gregg, Andrew Coyne, Rex warhawk Murphy, dennis desrosier etc, then Masterbater is a good name for them. They must be getting off knowing that there is no leftwing media while the false preception they have created says there is.
Where is Dobbins, McQuaig, Walkoum hell Zerb was taken off the air. Why isn't ONE contributer to babble columns EVER see on even the supposed left wing CBC. Rightwhiners blowing in the wind like usual. How come the house didn't even mention the NDP during the course of an hour last saturday? Oh yeah becaue the left is so prevelant in the media. Even the baiter acknowledges that iggy isn't left at all.
If the media was left they would not subverting democracy.
Ezra Levant is going to be on "The Current" this morning. There's no word about the Noam Chomsky interview though.
I'm still waiting for someone not named janisse mckinnon or apparently chantal hebert to represent the left on the ceeb.
Quite the brouhaha, between the CJC and Levant, eh? Wonder if he is going to continue his assault against them, on The Current too?
"the CJC wanted to bring in political censorship laws and I believe they needed to build up the threat to persuade Parliament to abridge Canada's freedom of speech."
And who would that be?
Noam Chomsky.
Lets get for example Naomi Klein there.
Has the right captured our media ?
No.
But I picture a room full of Canadian journalists (say about 90) sitting in chairs facing a giant screen that has a modern version of a 1950's government sponsored newsreel with headsets on and pens in hand. Owing to their headsets they cannot hear the pounding on the doors from the 10 uncompromised journalists outside.
Somewhere recently I saw a marvellous graph that showed the creep towards the right in people's perceptions. Was it here ?
The truth is that the center is far far to the right of where it was twenty years ago and rightists should be rubbing their hands in glee.
Well, there are also positive signs. For instance:
"
Rogers Communications first-quarter profit off 10%
Last Updated: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 | 8:07 AM ET
The Canadian Press
Rogers Communications Inc. said weak advertising revenues in its media division cut into its profits in the first quarter of 2009.
The Toronto-based telecommunications giant reported net earnings of $309 million or 49 cents per share for the quarter ended March 31, down 10 per cent from year-earlier net income of $344 million or 54 cents per share.
Quarterly operating revenue rose five per cent to $2.75 billion from $2.61 billion.
Rogers reported adjusted net income of $256 million or 40 cents per share, down from adjusted profits of $270 million or 42 cents per share recorded during the same quarter the year before.
The global economic downturn continued to sap advertising revenues from Rogers' media division, which reported a 73 per cent drop in its operating profit to $6 million.(...)" (CBC )
Could there be a link with the disastrous ideological makeover of Chatelaine magazine last Fall? The brass has just quietly sacked anti-feminist and Harper groupie editor Lise Ravary, who had gone so far as to personally petition the Quebec government to shut down the Quebec Status of Women council last August. Readers yelled murder, Ravary left her blog in a huff... and now the magazine.
There has got to be a few good news now and then.
Canwest is going down, and now Rogers, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....boycotts of sponsors may just be working against their anti-democratic actions.
hey, al'Q did Levant unload against the CJC on the Current?
Nope, just Muslims and the legal system. He had me on his "free speech" side until he started bashing Islam.
Hmmm, commonalities and shared ideology apparently override his move for free speech and exposing how section 13 came about then.
I was shopping for dinner yesterday, and was approached with an offer of a free 6 month subscription to the 'newly-redesigned' Toronto Sun. In return for my acceptance of their free offer, they had gifts: a $10 grocery shopping card, and a pair of "$70" binoculars. My obligation was supposedly only to tell them what I thought of the new design, and to pay for the weekly subscription after the 6 month freebie - though it could be cancelled at any point, even next week, with no obligation.
I inquired as to whether the re-design included the wholesale firing of their editorial staff, as that was the only change that would possibly interest me in the paper. As she told me it did not, I told the poor young woman that it would not be worth my frustration to accept it, nor a good use of tree pulp.
How desperate must they be to be paying people to take their paper? It would seem that the right-wing capture of the media is a tremendous business disaster, isn't it?
By the way, she gave me a copy of the paper 'to check out', in case I might reconsider.
And sure enough, this fascist fuck convinced me that I couldn't care less if I never saw their filthy rag again...
OMg, let's overlook the fact that neo-con Christians take their children to the streets to protest against wome's rights, all the freakin time, or that children were present in BC at environmental protests against clear cut logging and destruction of habitats.
Moreover, I organized a huge rally against the first gulf war and many people brought their children.
And this fuck wad wants Ontario Children's aide to go in and take Tamilis children away from them?
That's because it was a successful demo. When we do our demos we don't get in the way of peopes lives. THESE CHILDREN ARE IN DANGER! Yes yes cry your crocadile tears while their 5 and 6 year old cousins are butchered in a far away land. Who is in more danger? Discusting to say the least.
The WIndsor Star continues to offer me free papers. I asked the same question. "Have you got rid of this guy or that guy? No, then I'm not at all interested." I will use capitalism againt them. Sometimes something cheap isn't a great value. Sometimes you need to help out those aroudn you, even if it costs more.
As the regular media goes bankrupt, the Internet will be the battleground we have to have the major toehold in. The anti worker rhetoric being spouted despite the recession is evidence of how entrenched the right is in the minds of the low attention span public.
Comrade Ralph on the ever-rightward slide of US media:
Mainstreaming the Extreme Rightwing
Does anyone else giggle when someone calls The New York Times a leftwing paper?
quote: "Does anyone else giggle when someone calls The New York Times a leftwing paper?"
It's really what Einstein meant in his explanation of relativity...from the position of "the observer," the world in which the NYTimes functions has shifted that far to the right.
Why make excuses for them? The New York Times isn't an innocent bystander, it's a participant. Take Judith Miller's work in convincing the US populace that it was a good idea to attack Iraq. Moreover, publishing paens for racists such as Pamela Gellar puts the USA's national newspaper of record right up there with Der Stürmer.
Who's making excuses for them? One accepts half a publishing loaf in a society that is otherwise in the pocket of radio show hosts.
When they were threatened with being taken over by the owner of Fox, all of America (and a little bit of Canuckistan) trembled. Remember? Or are you ready to say that the precarious state of the last centre-right voice does not matter?
What else is saying that "the world in which the NYTimes functions has shifted that far to the right" if not an excuse? Either you're saying that they are standing still, while all about them is moving to the right, which doesn't appear to be the case, or they are moving to the right along with everything else.
Call me a radical card-carrying loony-leftist, but I doubt if Einstein would have looked at Der Sturmer and concluded that the Völkischer Beobachter was a quality journal in comparison.
Good Gaia, nobody but a looney, Teapartying rightist could call you that, al.
But you do leave yourself open to being called a fellow who can't discriminate between honest appraisal and the ranting, normative nonsense that you engage in and assign to others.
I just picked up from the library Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land, which came out in February. He calls for the U.S. to consider social democracy...an indication of his valiant nature. He has written or edited thirteen books in all, including one which was one of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2005, a Pulitzer finalist.
He is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books and The New York Times.
The books he has written or edited include The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century; Marxism and the French Left: Studies on Labour and Politics n France 1830-1982; Resistance and Revolution in Mediterranean Europe 1939-1948; Socialism in Provence 1871-1914; La reconstruction du Parti Socialiste 1921-1926.
The readers of the New York Times have been exposed to a variety of such nasty folk over the years, but thanks to such discriminating lefties as yourself, may soon lose that freedom under Murdoch.
No, al, the NYTimes used to be just another nationalist U.S.institution that was depended on to wave the flag of empire.
But times are a changin', and people of the left who are writing in the U.S., depend heavily on the Times for a voice that will be read by the sane remnant. BY THE WAY, the Democratic nominee for NY governor is way ahead of his nutbar Republican opponent in the polls...and one has to conclude the Times has a hand in that.
The View had O'Reilly on it the other day, and Whoopi and Joy walked off in anger at his words,.
Barbara chastized them yesterday on the show for doing so. And apparently O'Reilly was delightfully covering his actions on his show last night, which I have the great pleasure in not being able to see.
However, I heard that Rosie O took Barbara's actions to task, on her radio show, and basically stated how dare Barbara chastize Whoopi and Joy.
Did you write that with a straight face?
Robert Fisk: They're trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge again
This is a sampling of right wing commentary frequently found on UK media sites. Some of it is seen in our news sites as well.
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2008/08/10/a-z-of-right-wing-online-comment...
Interesting. I thought the English retained the traditional, laissez-faire definition of liberalism. Apparently yankhead is taking them over.
As for the rightwing capture of the media:
Amy Goodman
Don't forget LAW ABIDING CITIZENS
Law Abiding Citizens - would that be those who have now been sanctioned to take law into their own hands? Those "walking tall" to make sure that petty criminals don't get away? The same law abiding citizens who witness and ignore a gang rape?
Brace yourselves Friday media dump and we get the lie machine getting a big OK from CRTC. I have no problem with this channel except every falling off the world righty will sight it for their proof of whatever lie is being spun by corporations. Like there is no climate change because Sun found an electrical engineer with a doctorate that doesn't believe it-but he was a doctor and had an opinion on the subject so it must be truth.
That is what we will face. Right now we can argue by siting media sources and statscan facts. Since they have eliminated facts and now will be making up new ones, we will see all kinds of falsehoods put forward. Just like how CBC said Don Cherry is only a commentator and not a news personality so his endorsement of Fantino doesn't relect on the CBC. Damn right it does. and this week I will be calling Moore's and telling them I will stop buying form their stores because of what cherry is and does. Being they are his advertisers.
The CRTC announced on Friday that it has granted the forthcoming national news service approval to broadcast as an English-language, Category 2, specialty TV channel.
In its statement, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission reiterated "the importance of maintaining and enhancing the plurality of editorial voices in local and national markets and ensuring that Canadians are exposed to an appropriate plurality of those voices."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/11/26/crtc-sun-tv-licence.html#ixzz16Pbm16J1
Skinhead Michael Coren, who's banished to xian fundy tv now, had tarek fatah and the new mayor of Calgary on his program, and asked both Muslims : "what are you, a Canadian or a Muslim first?' The new mayor explained he was both and wanted to devote energy to fighting prejudice etc (tarek Fatah, natch, being a hireling of rightwing press, said he canadian first, and foremost)
next day, jim richards on CFRB was discussing how fatah was 100 percent right, and he went into how immigrants must accept culture before coming here etc. I wanted to call in ask him better question for coren to ask was: What are you, a white person or a Canadian fiirst?" but i do not have cellphone, and could only rage! Fortunately! Dianne Francis was on jon oakley show earlier in week and was saying among other things that Saddam Hussein "pretended' he had WMD, which caused innocent west to invade/ occupy Iraq etc! poor old USA! The crazy media professonal never heard of military budgets, and how military budgets generally indicate military strength etc! A pretense is good enough for her!
Thanks for allowing me to get this off my chest...
Pages