Media Watch blog

In Greenspon report, corporate media blames everything but itself

Media Watch — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 23:48:56 +0000

What a difference some 50 years has made in one of Canada's most important and powerful industries!

Back in 1970, the Senate of Canada called an inquiry to investigate the exorbitant profits made by Canada's handful of media barons.

Skinflint media mogul Roy Thomson had declared that owning a radio or television station was like having a license to print money. He added that owning a newspaper was even better, because a license was not required.

Canada's media needs to get over objectivity and start practicing solidarity

Media Watch — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 17:33:54 +0000

Two weeks ago, nearly 100 people gathered outside of the Toronto Stock Exchange and marched through downtown Toronto to protest the North Dakota Access Pipeline and express solidarity with the blockade at the ancestral lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

The police were there from the get-go, corralling the group and blocking traffic. Led by a group of five Indigenous women, we waded through the streets, chanting, drumming and singing.

The media, on the other hand, showed up only after we proved newsworthy: when the rally collided with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

It started with a CP24 reporter. She showed up with a cameraperson at King and Duncan, demanding TIFF guards let us continue marching down King Street.

After Mansbridge, does the CBC have the courage to build a truly great news program?

Media Watch — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 21:13:12 +0000

The latest watercooler chat among many Canadians this week is speculation about who will replace Peter Mansbridge as host of The National. Mansbridge announced earlier this week that after 30 years as host of CBC-TV's flagship news program he will step down next year on Canada Day.

Now CBC executives say they are going to usher in "the next phase" of The National.

The face of Canadian journalism is still white -- and it's time to push back

Media Watch — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 18:49:16 +0000

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As a journalist in my mid-20s, I should have plenty to feel confident about. After getting a masters degree in journalism from an Ivy League university, I moved to China, where I worked for a national newspaper and went on to my current job as a foreign correspondent at an international news wire.

Mainstream media sucked in, reports whatever politicians or GM say

Media Watch — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 18:48:17 +0000

All the big newspapers and TV networks breathlessly reported word for word what they were told at a joint political-General Motors newser.

The Globe and Mail:

"For decades, the splashy, job-creating announcements in the auto sector in Canada have been about manufacturing jobs.

Striking Herald workers up pressure on bosses as rival publication grows

Media Watch — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 18:36:17 +0000

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Striking newsroom workers of the Chronicle Herald relaunched their free news site, LocalXpress.ca, as a non-profit organization on May 19. They made the move in order to expand news coverage and compete with their employer for ads. As a business model, Local Xpress is offering an unexpected test of worker-owned and controlled digital-first journalism.

Recalling the greats of journalism: From Walter Stewart, to Amy Goodman, to the phony Dan Rather

Media Watch — Thu, 26 May 2016 19:11:54 +0000

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Over the years I've been fortunate enough to hear some of North America's top investigative journalists speak.

New world champion squashes Western stereotypes of Muslim women

Media Watch — Wed, 25 May 2016 17:41:56 +0000

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The youngest-ever woman world squash champion is a Muslim Egyptian.

Twenty-year-old Nour El Sherbini was crowned as the new world number one player at the beginning of May. In fact, the latest ranking shows that four of the world's top 10 women squash players are Muslim Egyptians.

With terror-obsessed corporate airwaves, it falls to social media to share human stories of EgyptAir victims

Media Watch — Fri, 20 May 2016 16:22:29 +0000

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Canadians need to plan now to fund and develop dependable media for the future

Media Watch — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 19:57:53 +0000

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Canada's mainstream media are in a state of incipient meltdown. They no longer deliver the volume or quality of news that Canadians need to be informed about important happenings in their communities, let alone to participate in a healthy democratic process.

The corporations that own traditional newspapers, seeing their revenues and readership dissolve, have opted to cut jobs and slash the content that used to provide their product's value.

Unless Ottawa steps in, Canadian journalism is doomed

Media Watch — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 19:50:03 +0000

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A flourishing, capable news media is the oxygen of democracy. In Canada, our traditional oxygen-providers, the mainstream corporate-owned newspapers, are dying. We need to come up with something better to serve our communities.

It's time for Canadians to demand the local and community media policy we deserve

Media Watch — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 18:21:56 +0000

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Tomorrow is the deadline for Canadians (that's you) to tell the CRTC how it should update its local and community TV policy. TV? Who watches TV anymore? Or maybe you're asking, "Does local TV even exist? How can you hold a hearing about an animal noboby has seen in a decade?"

National online survey launched: Stewarding community media into the digital future

Media Watch — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 16:06:31 +0000

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The Globe and Mail continues habit of ignoring public opinion

Media Watch — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 18:34:14 +0000

Ottawa Globe reporter Campbell Clark penned an article on August 18 that is a textbook example of how the mainstream media ignores and marginalizes the public in key debates that are clearly in the public interest.

Here's what practically all established media do now: they ignore public protest and opinion on key issues, and later, when doing a half-baked analysis of issues, say there's no response or concern from the public.

Clark wrote: "The long-awaited text of the Canada-European Union trade agreement was leaked, to deafening silence. Industry groups and political parties yawned and blinked and didn't find much to say."

Apparently the public opposition to CETA merit even a mention.

The power of propaganda from Canada to the U.S. to Ukraine

Media Watch — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 17:20:10 +0000

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Hanna Arendt describes a peculiar dynamic of mob mentality in her classic The Origins Of Totalitarianism that resonates with the world today.

Challenging Peladeau's Quebecor for control of Community Television

Media Watch — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:08:20 +0000

Citizens have a chance to make Independent Community Television (ICTV) a reality in the greater Montreal area. ICTV is attempting to liberate public funds earmarked for Community Television production from the clutches of media mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau owner of the Quebecor empire. Up until April 22, the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) is accepting public comments on whether Videotron stands in non-compliance with the guidelines for running a community station.

Corporate media and its self-serving interests

Media Watch — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 20:06:28 +0000

Corporate media can't be all things to all people, but its ability to set the agenda for self-serving interests shouldn't be underestimated, since it inflicts great harm on the world. Its selective coverage deliberately veils windows to the world that need to be exposed.

For example, when Canada announces that it is ramping up its arms dealing to Colombia and Saudi Arabia, the media coverage is accurate in the details, but conspicuously absent in comprehensiveness.

How the right-wing wins

Media Watch — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 14:36:41 +0000

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In our day we have witnessed the elections of staunch right-wingers like Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. According to polls, they do not represent Canadian majority public opinion. Why then do they win political battles? One way is by taking advantage of crisis.

Like us on Facebook! A new kind of political donation is emerging in Canada

Media Watch — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 18:21:59 +0000

A new kind of political donation is emerging in Canada. It's called the Facebook like, and it's changing the way politics and social change operate.

Over the last few years, Facebook has begun charging organizations to share their content on the news feeds of their followers and their followers’ friends.

The cost of airing a TV commercial is between two and five cents per estimated viewer. The cost of advertising on Facebook is about the same.

However, content can still be shared on Facebook the old fashioned way. When a friend likes your post, your post is more likely to show up in your friend’s feed, and the feeds of your friend's friends.

Broadbent Institute launches new political blog and news site: Press Progress

Media Watch — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 18:00:28 +0000

In a model drawn from the popular US site, Think Progress, the Broadbent Institute today launched Press Progress:

"Advancing progressive solutions for Canada with hard-hitting news and analysis, PressProgress cuts through the day's political spin with facts and an informed point of view. From punchy blog posts to a daily web roundup to spread news and views, PressProgress is a must-read to spur positive change."

Their website promises daily news and analysis features such as:

War hawk John Kerry makes the media rounds pushing for Syria intervention

Media Watch — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 16:08:22 +0000

Secretary of State John Kerry continued to push for military force against Syria on Sunday, appearing on a series of talk shows to make the case that sarin gas was used by the Assad regime, and that he is sure Congress will support the use of strikes sought by President Obama.

Speaking on "This Week," Kerry predicted that Congress would support a military strike, saying, "We are not going to lose this vote." Asked what would happen if it didn't receive congressional support, Kerry said he "doesn't contemplate" that.

Mainstream media 'beats the drums' for U.S. bombing of Syria

Media Watch — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 19:21:21 +0000

What the U.S. media still doesn't know about the use of chemical weapons in Syria last week has done little to keep it from accepting statements from the U.S. government with barely a whiff of the skepticism one would expect after the colossal -- and well-documented -- media failure that preceded the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

And if there were voices cautioning against a volly of U.S./NATO airstrikes (note: there are), most media consumers scanning the front pages of top news websites wouldn't know it.

CRTC says 'No' to Sun TV: Right-wing network's bid for mandatory cable spot rejected

Media Watch — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 17:17:45 +0000

The CRTC has rejected the application from Sun News for mandatory carriage on cable television, a major blow to the struggling right-wing network.

We will share reaction to this news, as it comes in today. The Broadbent Institute has compiled some of the 'greatest hits' in the brief history of the money-losing TV network, which has frequently featured racist, offensive and extreme right-wing views.

Open letter to media reporting on Edward Snowden, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia

Media Watch — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 16:17:42 +0000

The supposed “irony” of whistle-blower Edward Snowden seeking asylum in countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela has become a media meme. Numerous articles, op-eds, reports and editorials in outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and MSNBC have hammered on this idea since the news first broke that Snowden was seeking asylum in Ecuador.

Action needed to stop 'climate deniers' from winning the information war

Media Watch — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:26:32 +0000

The global warming deniers are at it again, and it is high time that the environmental movement in Canada and the United States launched an organized campaign to expose these scientific community charlatans.

The mainstream business media, which bows to corporate interests in both countries, is quick to publish interviews and opinion articles by the tiny percentage of scientists who deny that global warming exists. Some say that it has not been proven that human activity damages the environment. Some bizarrely claim that emissions of carbon dioxide are beneficial to the planet.

World media reports on Harper government's growing Senate expense scandal

Media Watch — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:31:56 +0000

It's been a busy long weekend for Canadian political news. The resignation of Stephen Harper's Chief-of-Staff Nigel Wright, and the growing Senate expense scandal, has even made worldwide headlines.

BBC News reported: "Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's top aide has resigned over his role in a growing expenses scandal. Nigel Wright quit after revelations he had secretly given a senator a C$90,000 (£58,000; $87,000) cheque to help repay improperly claimed housing expenses. The conservative prime minister said he had accepted the resignation of his chief of staff 'with great regret.'"

Media Watch: About those corporate media editorials endorsing the BC Liberals

Media Watch — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:59:51 +0000

It's Election Day in B.C. and the NDP is widely expected to end a dozen years of rule by the BC Liberals. As usual in B.C. elections, major corporate-owned newspapers have come out in favour of the corporate-backed Liberals. But the editorials are less than ringing endorsements and -- in the case of the Globe and Mail -- less than totally accurate. And there's one big editorial endorsement missing.

The Vancouver Sun editorial board has -- in an unusual move for them -- declined to issue an election editorial endorsement. This can be read as a lack of confidence in Christy Clark and the BC Liberals.

'Free speech,' 'freedom,' the CRTC and Sun News

Media Watch — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:56:36 +0000

By 'free speech' some folks mean not 'freedom', or more specifically the ‘freedom to speak to power’, they mean speaking without constraint: saying whatever you want, whenever you want, about whoever you want, wherever you want.

Relentless disrespect to Venezuela and its departed president on CBC

Media Watch — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:15:08 +0000

Just when you thought CBC's disrespectful and biased reporting of Venezuela on the occasion of the death on March 5 of President Hugo Chavez couldn’t get worse, it did.

All week on CBC Radio One, the network has been promoting a story on its Saturday morning newsmagazine Day Six arguing that Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution he led has fraudulently appropriated the political legacy of Simon Bolivar, the legendary leader of the anti-colonial struggle in Latin America of the late 1700s and early 1880s.

Stop 'Fox News North'

Media Watch — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:17:48 +0000

The CRTC could make us all pay for American-style right-wing media as part of our cable packages -- unless we stop them.

Quebecor created a "Fox News North" to model the kind of hate-filled propaganda with which Fox News has poisoned U.S. politics. The channel is run by PM Harper's former top aide and so far it doesn't have enough of an audience to survive. But now it's applying to the CRTC to be forcibly added to all of our basic cable packages!