John Chuckman
SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ANDREW PORTER ON CBC NEWS
“The government just made its toxic media bailout plan even worse
“People in line for media bailout dollars shouldn't be the ones deciding who gets media dollars”
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Response to a comment:
Those assumptions about state-owned media sound good, but the reality, always, is more complicated and slippery than what is advertised.
There's little sense of genuine independence from state-owned media anywhere I that know of in Western countries, if you study carefully what they are say.
The most glaring example of all, perhaps, is the BBC, which, at least from Tony Blair's time of invading Iraq illegally and events around the death of Doctor Kelly, has been a mush when it comes to any matter concerning government policy. Literally a mush.
I feel certain in saying that all the journalists and editors on their own initiative did not decide to work that way.
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Response to a comment about these events removing our freedom of speech:
Oh, I do think that's going a bit far.
Our freedom of speech has never depended on the press, and a good thing, too.
What the press controls is the amplification of the individual's free speech so that many can hear it.
It tends universally to abuse that function.
Just one current example in the United States is the Democrats’ contest for leadership. All of the contestants are free to say what they wish.
However, there is really only one of them saying some of the tough things that really need saying, Tulsi Gabbard.
And guess which contestant is quoted the very least by the press and is frequently left completely out of articles analyzing the contest? You'd be right if you said, Tulsi Gabbard.
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"Holding power to account" has long been a fine-sounding phrase, but it is one pretty much devoid of meaning when it comes to the mainline press and broadcasting.
Instead, the press generally tends to support power, remembering corporations need to keep on the good side of government as well as on the good side of other powerful private establishment interests, and they have often misrepresented the reality of events to people.
Just as in wartime, when we know press organizations typically become propaganda outlets for the cause. It’s only somewhat less the case in peaceful times.
CBC has done a good job recently on domestic government events, however, that level of performance has not been the historical norm.
It is also not the norm even today for the country's international affairs.
I find CBC's reporting in international affairs just as lagging as that of any corporate news outlet.
And CBC, just like the corporate press, echoes our government's echoes of Washington's statements about what it is doing abroad. It investigates or contradicts nothing.
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Response to a comment about informed voters:
Informed voters can make little difference to the quality of government or democracy where choices offered by parties are limited, as they very much are in our upcoming election.
Not one of our parties is offering an inspiring, or even an interesting, candidate.
It is actually through the political parties in, for example, the US that the establishment rather closely controls affairs.
Money, really big money, completely controls both parties there, making it almost impossible for any newcomer to be heard, always being drowned out, and so when it comes to war and ugly international affairs of empire, they both function as just two wings of one party, the American Imperial Party.
They differ only on social rhetoric, but with all the wars and imperial events, there are no resources left for any of that anyway, so it remains just rhetoric.
Things aren't quite that bad in Canada, but I very much sense our momentum is in the same direction.
Justin Trudeau's foreign policy is virtually indistinguishable from what Harper's would have been. And I find that very distressing and difficult to accept, especially coming from a party that gave us Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau.
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Response to a comment saying, “If you think for one minute that this is not a political exercise as opposed to an exercise in saving the print media - notice that 4 of the 8 groups listed are from Quebec”:
I very much agree that this initiative is political. It really could not be otherwise.
Seems naive in the extreme to even suggest anything else.
However, I do not like the pointing of fingers at Quebec.
That is a highly destructive thing to do.
Highly destructive.
