Creating Counterweights to Big Media --& -- Patrick Watson Wants a CBC / Government Newspaper? Read on!

When you have finished with the following, there are several recent compilations on News Junkie Canada


Creating Counterweights to Big Media -- "when it comes to encouraging diverse civic discourse in the media, we don't do much. Often we do it badly."

Creating Counterweights to Big Media -- How to open up Canada's news media in an era of corporate concentration. David Beers and Charles Campbell, Feb. 2, 2005, TheTyee.ca

The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications is investigating the state of Canadian journalism, the media's role, rights, and responsibilities in Canadian society, and current and appropriate future policies regarding media concentration, globalisation, and technological change. Two Tyee editors were invited to offer testimony before the visiting Committee on January 31, 2005 in Vancouver, B.C. In order of appearance, here are their comments:

DAVID BEERS:

Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet is the title of a recent book by the eminent Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner. After interviewing 100 journalists Gardner found them to be "by and large despondent about their profession. Many had entered . . . armed with ideals: covering important stories, doing so in an exhaustive and fair way, relying on their own judgment about the significance of the stories and the manner in which they should be presented."

"Instead," Gardner found, "for the most part, our subjects reported that most of the control in journalism had passed from professionals to corporate executives and stockholders, with most of the professional decisions made less on the basis of ideals than of profits." [. . . . ]

Example for Canada [. . . . ] By honest I mean dedicated to informing readers, rather than pandering to advertisers or to political allies. [. . . . ]

About The Tyee [No, I am not paid for including the next paragraph.]

[. . . . Thanks] to the rich talent and good will of many, many B.C. journalists, The Tyee breaks investigative stories and publishes analysis, slice of life writing, provocative views. This being the Internet, our stories can be read, the minute they are posted, anywhere in the province and beyond. Readers can post their own comments to our stories, and create their own province-wide conversations. The Tyee also provides links to many other stories. [. . . . ]

Some proposals for change

[. . . . ] 1) Order the CRTC to not approve television broadcast licenses for companies that own daily newspapers in the same market. . . .

2) Create legislation to break up concentration of media ownership where it is already too high. . . .

[. . . . ] 5) Foster media owned and operated by membership based societies. This member "co-op" model lets citizens take the lead in creating and supporting and democratically participating in decisions about their media. But because real journalism is expensive, government could provide money to membership-based media that garners a critical mass of support.

[. . . . ] 7) Create tax incentives for media philanthropy.

[. . . . ] 8) Find ways to help alternative media do "convergence."

This sounds very much like what is already occurring with mainstream media. I had too little time for close reading, so check for yourself.

[. . . . ] 9) Develop a community-based web portal to provide alternative perspectives. The portal could be managed by public libraries, provide CBC news and information to attract a critical mass of viewers, plus access to dozens of alternative news and information sources . . . .

# 9, "a community-based web portal" and mention of government funded CBC in the same sentence? Community input could be great if this portal could eliminate the repetition, invective, petty bickering, and the like, which takes over so much website commentary.

Government influence, pressure, control and CBC go together. Much about public broadcasting was well intended and idealistic in the beginning; however, reliance on government funding has rendered its journalism suspect, and its television news unbalanced--it is simply a conduit for the government.

How? The government gives taxpayers' money to the public broadcaster which uses it to bludgeon any ideas other than those emanating from the government and to make merry with or denigrate non-governmental ideas and political thought. Think Kyoto--no exploration of different points of view. We get Rick Mercer's "one tonne challenge". A public broadcaster? A jest!

There is a pretense through three (or more) person discussion panels for example--one NDP, one Liberal, one supposedly neutral or even conservative--until you check further.

(An example: There is a prevalence of leftists and left thinking, featured. Check how many times and for how long NDP leader Jack Layton is featured, compared to CPC leader Stephen Harper. An NDP also-ran, Olivia Chow, Layton's wife--both actually lived in Toronto public housing--was one of five Blackberry owners in a large segment of a CBC program on RIM's Blackberry. Incidentally, I note CBC unofficially 'advertising' in this way more--e.g. Tim Hortons and RIM. Better buy Blackberry stock -- RIM has been or is pursuing some new "business partnership" in China, I seem to recall. What are the rest of the connections? That is how cynical I have become about the CBC. I am not alone.)

My point? The minority Liberals need the support of the NDP. The NDP is simply the farthest left wing of the Liberal Party. Once getting funding from taxpayers is involved, there is (leftist) government pressure in return -- The broadcaster attempts to please -- maybe with a little free advertising for politicians, friends and businesses that are on side? I do not know. It certainly appears that way.

This whole digression is intended to suggest CBC be funded by the public, not taxpayers. Now, to continue:

[. . . . ] CHARLES CAMPBELL:

[. . . . ] The fact is that traditional media depend on traditional advertising sales, and they are terrified of cannibalizing their own audiences

[. . . . ] Support new media

We certainly haven't shown much stomach for tackling the difficult conglomerate issue, partly because corporations such as CanWest have the good sense to put the likes of prospective prime minister Frank McKenna on their boards of directors.

[. . . . ] Encourage different kinds of ownership

[. . . . ] You can have diversity of ownership in the media and it won't matter a whit if the owners are all wearing the same suit and belong to the same club.

Previously, I have mentioned the Liberal/CanWest Asper push to make Frank McKenna the next Prime Minister of Canada. Have the Asper media and CBC really explored his suitability for the post of Ambassador to the US? For Prime Minister? I read somewhere that the diplomatic corps feels he is unqualified. McKenna is a politician without the background necessary to diplomacy. Nor have the media really explored his relationship with the Power Corp Desmarais clan.

Related:

The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications' interim report (April 2004)

Media report card

There is so much more if you link, then follow the links. A couple of excerpts follow.




Journalism's 'Ethical Vertigo' -- In the era of renegade bloggers and newsroom scandals, a UBC prof writes the book on reviving press ethics. -- Stephen J. Ward: Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond

Journalism's 'Ethical Vertigo' -- In the era of renegade bloggers and newsroom scandals, a UBC prof writes the book on reviving press ethics. Judith Ince, Jan. 18, 2005, reprinted in TheTyee.ca, Feb. 6, 05

Most Canadians think journalists are about as trustworthy as the politicians they cover, and that's not saying much. Ethical lapses of individual reporters—a little plagiarism here, a little fabrication there—have stained the profession's reputation, of course. But it's the broader ethical issues, such as media bias that have earned the industry such disdain: three quarters of Canadians think the media's in the thrall of the rich and powerful , not to mention their corporate masters

Stephen J. Ward, a UBC journalism professor, has contemplated this sorry spectacle as a journalist and ethicist. His conclusion? We have seen the end of journalistic ethics—or at least as we known them—and the profession is in a state of "ethical vertigo." [. . . . ]

Senate Comes to Scrutinize Big Media in B.C. Jan. 28, 2005, Donald Gutstein, The Tyee.ca

[. . . . ] Logan appeared before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission in 2001, offering testimony that supported the broadcast license renewals of CanWest and CTV. "Converged journalism offers an opportunity to … [free] up reporters to do stories that are not being done and are vital to democratic discourse," she said.

That hasn't happened. Instead, converged journalism offers owners an opportunity to get rid of reporters and use the same story twice or more. That means greater profits for shareholders and less information for citizens.

Two months after her CRTC testimony, CanWest gave $500,000 to Logan's school of journalism for a visiting journalism professor.

Logan denied any connection. "It's not going to influence us," she said on the Rafe Mair Show.

Witnesses like Logan and LaPointe told the Senate committee that diversity is not a problem.

[. . . . ] Some suggested fixes

There are several ways to increase diversity in the news.

1. Restore core CBC funding to its historical levels. The CBC is a genuine alternative voice to corporate media and it is being mortally wounded by dozens of small cuts over two decades. [. . . . ]

4. Establish a publicly-funded national newspaper to be run by an independent board of senior journalists. This was proposed to the committee by Patrick Watson. [. . . . ]

Watson is a CBC man. Who would contribute/control it? Guess.

The moral of all this is that you had better pay attention. A government newspaper is coming if Canadian citizens do not stop amusing themselves long enough to prevent it.

Are the Media Independent? -- graph