To the Editor: When we refer to "media" in Canada, we usually mean things like television, radio and newspapers. Many also mean growing social media through the internet.
Throughout history the media has played an incredibly powerful role in society.
The media provides the raw material upon which people form their opinions and how they act. This applies whether the media reports correctly or not, whether the media reports honestly or not, and whether the media injects its own attitudes and beliefs into what and how it reports or not. The media determines the public agenda.
Therefore and by extension the media is the biggest influencer of public policy (the general attitude of a population), and public policy is the basis on which democratic governments usually form laws and regulations. Many say that the media can make or break governments and that's why governments, regimes and even large corporations around the world try so hard to control and manipulate the media in order to influence public opinion in their favour. Sadly in many instances, they do manage that.
Just look at how hard the recently ousted Egyptian President tried to control the media when citizens of Egypt rose up in protest. Look at how the People's Republic of China maintains absolute control of the media and makes sure its citizens are informed only as it - the current People's Republic of China regime - wants them to be informed. Look at how British Petroleum tried to dodge responsibility for the Gulf Oil spill disaster through its spin of the facts, and how our corporations and local governments right down to urban school boards and other similar entities employ media-relations personnel to make sure that their "spin of the facts" presented to the media shows those entities in the best possible light, no matter what those entities have done or not done.
Unlike other countries including the United States, the media is somewhat independently controlled in Canada by a body known as the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission). Until recently, many of us viewed the CRTC as an arms-length and more-or-less independent body able to make sure that high standards were maintained by the Canadian Media and that what and how the media reported to the Canadian public was fair, balanced and honest.
However, many of us have noted with some degree of alarm recent steps by the Canadian Government to control and undermine the CRTC in an unprecedented fashion. Through the current Canadian Government, forces outside and within the CRTC have been trying to weaken Canada's media standards by overruling CRTC decisions. If these forces acting through the current Canadian Government are successful, Canadians could end up with a Media that is an overwhelming arm of the current Government and its powerful allies such as big international business i.e. like those currently exploiting Alberta's tar sands.
Interestingly, these steps to control and undermine the CRTC coincide with a plan to have "Fox News North" hit the Canadian airwaves. If "Fox News North" turns out to be even remotely similar to "Fox News" in the United States, we in Canada would end up with the most extremist, neo-con, semi Nazi, and in the opinion of many "dangerous" media network anywhere.
We must speak out in favour of balanced and fair media reporting by speaking out against this possible development.
Denis Hall, Saskatoon, SK.
(306) 931-4040 [email protected]
