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Media Report

That's all we need

by Arthur Weinreb

May 12, 2003

Journalist and former CBC chairman, Patrick Watson, is advocating a Canadian "public" newspaper, presumably a printed version of the public broadcaster. This paper would be, Watson wrote, free of advertising and "governed by journalists, not investors or advertisers." Somehow, this would be better than the newspapers that we have today.

Reading between the lines, Watson seems to be saying that because newspapers have advertisers and owners who are business people, they become right wing. If he is, it is simply not true. Both the Toronto Star, corporations own which has the highest daily circulation in Canada, and the Globe and Mail, with its respected business section, and both are left wing. Watson admits his bias when he says that the CBC has a bias in favour of social justice. As the National Post, Canada’s conservative voice, put it in a recent editorial, the paper envisaged by Watson would end up being another Toronto Star. Except that the taxpayers would fund it.

Watson makes it clear that this would be a public, not state, newspaper. The difference is one of degree, and not of kind. The CBC does not limit itself to government propaganda, nor does it always give an easy ride to the government of the day, but its general outlook is the same as that of the Federal Liberals. While the Canadian government was opposing the U.S. led war against Iraq, the Peoples Network was awash with pictures of dead and injured Iraqi children. And its "Israel is always the aggressor" coverage of the Middle East could have been scripted by Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham. The network that boasts of diversity and inclusiveness is bereft of differing viewpoints.

Watson sees this new newspaper as reporting things that no one else is covering, such as many international stories. Presumably, this void in less major foreign events arises because the public has no interest in it. In the 500-channel universe, we already have a food channel, a gardening channel, and a cowboy channel. We would have more international news coverage if there were a demand for it. As the Post pointed out in its editorial, some of Watson’s ideas made more sense in the pre-internet world, when major world news sources were not available at the click of a mouse.

According to Patrick Watson, the board of directors of this newspaper would be appointed for their ability, not their political expedience. Where have we heard that before? Has their ever been a government agency set up where the board of directors were ever said to be appointed for political expedience?

The public newspaper idea is just another statist plan to provide taxpayers with something that they don’t want at their own expense.

And speaking of international news…

Canadian cable companies are applying to the CRTC for permission to carry the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network on their digital cable services. The application is being strongly opposed by B’nai Brith Canada, and the Canadian Jewish Congress, who have been monitoring the Arab network since 1996. According to CJC national president, Keith Landy, Al Jazeera often refers to Jews as "apes and pigs," denies the Holocaust, and glorifies suicide bombings. Whether or not those references to Jews will affect the CRTC’s decision is anybody’s guess.

The addition of Al-Jazeera to Canada’s cultural mosaic seems to have garnered support from the CBC. In a news item last March, Patrick Watson’s "it should be in print" network exuded sympathy for those Canadian Muslims who are forced to pay up to $100 a month to obtain Al Jazeera via satellite. And, many of those satellite subscribers have grey market dishes. The CBC, which allegedly stands for Canadian values (the values of some Canadians anyway) buys the cable companies arguments that the addition of Al Jazeera will add to multiculturalism.

It will be some time before the application is finally decided by the CRTC. In the meantime, Al Jazeera’s apes and pigs will be opposing it.

No wonder Toronto’s in such bad shape..