Harper To Take Steps to Bail Out Biggest Media Supporters
How much more evidence does anyone need that the mainstream media has a political agenda and is ultra-biased. It might do one well to remember the following when reading editorials and stories in the national media about issues related to Newfoundland and Labrador.
Last month, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore dodged questions regarding how he might help the financially strapped media giant Canwest Global.
However, Moore was quoted on Wednesday in a Canadian Press story saying that the government is looking at how to assist Canwest.
Canadian Press also reported that Canwest has contracted former Conservative campaign strategist Ken Boessenkool to “help plead its case”.
Nobody should be surprised that the Harper government will pull whatever levers it can to ensure the Asper family, which owns Canwest, retains control over company.
Canwest is an important propaganda tool for the Prime Minister because it owns Global TV, the Vancouver Sun, the National Post, the Vancouver Courier and other daily papers in several markets.
The Aspers and Harper have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship in recent years. Harper ensured that the family patriarch, Izzy Asper, saw his dream of a human-rights museum come to fruition in Winnipeg, courtesy of massive sums of public funding.
In return the Aspers helped ensure that Harper would remain prime minister when Canwest provided supportive editorials and "spin" before the 2008 election including hammering the idea of a Liberal-NDP coalition government supported by the Bloc Quebecois.
It seems spinning the news in favour of the sitting government has its benefits. So much for public discourse in a democracy. Under these conditions is it any wonder this Province has become the favorite whipping boy of so many media outlets?
4 comments:
I see Federal Tax Payer dollars going to keep alive an entity which was responsible for seeing the province of Newfoundland and Labrador separated from it natural resource base for 60 years.
Another slap in the face for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and its electorate.
Excerpts below are from an article archived on the Internet titled New biography shows Izzy Asper sought influence
By Charlie Smith
After reading the article, now I can see why the behaviour of The Telegram is so pro Corporation and Federal Government and why that paper is very reluctant to write anything again either of those entities, especially the Federal Government.
It sickens me that our local daily paper is unable to see the destruction caused in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador from the lack of any appreciable economy having being created from our rich natural resource base. Personally I see the paper as having being very detrimental to the welfare of Newfoundland and Labrador in creating an economy, given our rich natural resource base and just as rich prime geographic location which combined could have seen the province of Newfoundland and Labrador boasting one of the greatest Manufacturing economies in the whole world, given the tremendous economic growth in the World economies over the past 60 years, since World War II.
http://www.straight.com/article-175437/izzy-asper-sought-influence
EXCERPTS
"The author of a new book about media tycoon Izzy Asper says Asper bought more than a dozen daily papers from Conrad Black’s company in 2000 because he wanted to influence national affairs".
Up until his death in 2003, Asper—the founder of Canwest Global Communications Corporation—maintained that he bought Hollinger’s 14 daily papers and half-interest in the National Post because it was a good investment for shareholders. When the deal closed, Canwest shares were trading at $18.55, but they’ve since sunk almost 97 percent in value, closing at 59 cents on December 9.
Newman told the Straight that Izzy Asper bought the Hollinger assets, which included Web portals and weekly papers, at the top of the market just as the dot-com bubble was bursting. “As soon as he got those papers, he tried to dictate what they should say,” Newman alleged.
He added that most publishers don’t do this, but claimed that Asper didn’t understand this, and told Newman, “Shit, I own the press. Why won’t they do what I say?”
Newman said that Asper had a point because newspapers should have “some institutional voice”, and publishers should control the editorial page.
But we respected the fact, and always did, that columnists can write what they want, and if you didn’t like it, you just get new columnists.”
The eldest son, David Asper, who is chair of the National Post, was more bombastic: “We own the papers. We have the right to have the papers print whatever the hell we want them to say. And if people don’t like it, they can go to hell. They can leave, get another job. People knew that Conrad had a much more hands-off policy.”
Newman told the Straight that Izzy Asper was a Liberal.
Well Patriot what can one say. Do we know that the Neo-Cons are corrupt, damb right we do. Do we know that Harper is a liar that cannot and will not not keep his word, damb right? Do we know that this western regional party has its own agenda for what it wants to see done in Canada, damb right we do?
DO WE KNOW THAT THIS GOVERNMENT IS OUT TO DESTROY NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR, damb right.
I’m sure that I’m not the only one thinking what I’m about to say, so I’m just going to come out and say it anyway. The tragic deaths that have just happened in our Province are a direct response to lack of federal involvement in our Province when it comes to safety, and lack of proper safe guards.
These Neo Cons are far worse than any Liberal crook we have seen. Give them the chance Patriot and what they will do is make the sponsorship scandal look like a holiday Sunday brunch special.
As the Conservatives say “another promise said, another promise broken.” It’s time to take action against Harper and his crowd of liars and thief’s.
“Republic Of “
Russel Wangersky's Opinion Column today in The Telegram stated "Eventually, maybe sooner rather than later, the media will have fundamentally changed, and media outlets as we know them now will no longer exist."
The sooner the better, I would say. Good riddance!
His paper does nothing for the betterment of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is very non-committed and denies the wrongs which were perpetrated on our province.
When is that publication going to come to its senses and stick its neck out to bring out the wrongs which have occurred here?
Can't Mr. Wangersky see that given the well endowed natural resource base of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and its prime geographic location, it could have been fashioned into one of the greatest Manufacturing Centers in the whole world?
After all in 1949 when Canada secured our territory, Newfoundland and Labrador, in the Canadian Federation, the world was on the cusp of taking off economically. Japan and Germany were resurrected from the rubble of the Second World War through the Marshall Plan instituted by the United States and grew into two of the G8 countries, without any natural resource base.
Why don't some people put their brains in gear? Do they think we are all inept and can not reason with the information which is readily at hand?
Yes two factors which can be taken into consideration, Newfoundland and Labrador had a covetous well endowed natural resource base and a prime geographic location, situated on 17,000 kms of the Atlantic Ocean, positioned half way between Europe and North America, on the very trade routes that carry a good portion of the World's goods?
Why did an economy not happen in Newfoundland and Labrador? In my opinion, it was by design that it didn't happen, our natural resource base was needed to forge economies in the other provinces of Canada, and at the time, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador were not aware of what was transpiring given all the smoke screens and media spin which were utilized to make matters cloudy.
Don't forget Canada has been downgraded by Transparency International on a few occasions for practising low-grade Transparency!
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