For some reason Rick Patel at Avaaz.org keeps sending me emails asking me to sign a petition denouncing “Fox News North”:
“Fox News North” is back trying to make us pay for poisonous media — this time through backroom corporate deals that include them in cable packages with channels we actually want. Send a message to cable giants Shaw, Bell and Rogers demanding that they give Canadians a choice and offer Sun TV as a stand alone option to consumers.
I would be delighted if the CRTC would not force unwanted news content down everyone’s throat by bundling channels: I could kiss goodbye to news from CTV and CBC among others. And no more “Little Mosque on the Prairie”. That’s not how it works, though: channels are bundled together and there is no reason why Sun TV’s channel should be singled out for special treatment.
The email continues: “Canadians should not be forced to pay for right-wing agenda news”. According to Patel we should only be forced to pay for left-wing agenda news – what he calls “regular” news channels.
Since no agreement is possible on the existence of an unbiased news source, my question to Patel is: does he not support freedom of belief and diversity of opinion?
Since there is no current conservative news network in Canada, he is crusading for the very censorship that he would scream about if it was directed at liberal media.
“Poisonous” to these opponents of free speech, means anything from anyone who doesn’t toe their narrow line.
Shame!
Peace,
Jim
I have an off button on my remote as well as the ability to change channels if I don’t like something. I’m not interested in Fox news either but I am not forced to watch it.
Muriel, you may not be forced to watch Fox, or pay for it. We in Britain have no such luxury, as we are all forced to pay for the Brazenly Biased Corporation, and its left-wing/homo-promo agenda; either that or watch nothing (but they still come after you, apparently, if you have no TV licence – you have to prove you’ve no TV (guilty until you can establish your innocence – how fascists have always worked)).
Likewise here in Canada we are forced to subsidize the CBC to the amount of $1,000,000,000.oo every year. That’s right, one Billion dollars of taxpayers money. Any time anyone suggests even a small reduction of this amount they are immediately accused of being anti Canadian. But I am always left to wonder why is it that the CBC can’t survive without so much of the taxpayers money, while the private sector competition such as Canwest-Global and CTV are able to make profits and pay taxes. May it have something to do with the private sector broadcasting programs that people actually watch, and the CBC putting out left wing propaganda that most people don’t have any interest in?
May it have something to do with the fact that CBC radio has no advertisements? Local CBC radio programming in Ottawa is very good, actually.
Yes, I like ad-free CBC radio for the classical music.
What CBC broadcasts and promotes, and any bias it may have is one question. Whether a government sponsored broadcasting corporation makes sense (and especially made sense in past decades), for a country the size of Canada, is a different question. With respect to the first question, I have often been frustrated with the CBC – especially in recent years. With respect to the latter question, I think it’s a complete no brainer that the CBC has played a necessary and very role. If the total impact of the CBC since its inception could somehow be measured on the shaping and formation of Canada as a nation, I think it would be huge. And I mean that in a positive way.
I grew up listening to the six o’clock news on CBC radio, followed by Cross Country Checkup. I think my view and understanding of Canada would be immeasurably narrower had it not been for these programs. That said, I have a comedy show from the 70s, that was produced in Vancouver (Dr. Bundolo’s Pandemonium Medicine Show), to thank for my enduring predjudice against Toronto and Southern Ontario generally. 😎