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Media Control, Democracy

al Gore's convenient memory

By Judi McLeod

Monday, august 28, 2006

When it comes to media's control on democracy, former US vice president al Gore has a most convenient memory.

The former veep, who launched his own 24-hour cable network, Current TV last year, now laments media control as a major threat to democracy.

"Democracy is under attack," Gore told an audience at the Edinburgh International Television Festival on Sunday. "Democracy is a conversation and the most important role of the media is to facilitate that conversation of democracy. Now the conversation is more controlled, it is more centralized." (myway, aug. 27, 2006).

Gore said that in many countries, media control was being consolidated in the hands of a few businessmen or politicians. He said in Italy much of the media is owned by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has stifled dissent on television, and in South africa, dissent "is disappearing, and free expression is under attack."

From his list of countries, Gore strangely left off the People's Republic of China, where dissent never quite makes it to television and where just posting an anti-government essay on the Internet can get you jailed or even worse.

Individually, he left himself and Microsoft's Bill Gates off the media control list.

Just a week before Gore's Edinburgh address, Bill Gates' "charity" foundation financed a number of newspaper purchases.

Just as Gore hopes to influence 18 to 34-year-old television viewers with "real-life" stories created with, by and from their own generation with Current TV, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation declares its noble mission is to bring "innovations in health and learning to the global community".

"But the world's largest philanthropic organization also is among the organizations that collectively loaned nearly $400 million to Medianews Group Inc.--for the acquisition of newspapers in California and Minnesota!" (Drudge Report, aug. 20, 2006).

In april, Medianews agreed to buy four newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costatimes, from McClatchy Co. for $1-billion. Medianews also bought California's Monterey County Herald and the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota. It also owns the Denver Post.

In May 2004, INdTV Holdings LLC, an investment group founded by Gore and millionaire entrepreneur Joel Hyatt, former finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), purchased Newsworld International (NWI) from French conglomerate Vivendi Universal Sa. The parties have yet to divulge the purchase price, but america's financial press generally tagged the cost at approximately $70 million.

"Newsworld International describes itself as North america's largest 24-hour cable and satellite television channel devoted to international news. It airs news programming from several nations and nominally has its own news bureaus in Washington, D.C., Paris, Jerusalem, Moscow and Beijing." (FrontPageMag.com, april 78, 2005),

at last count, NWI programs were being selected or produced by the Canadian Government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), known by some Canadian detractors as the "Communist Broadcasting Corporation".

NWI was founded in Toronto, Ontario in 1994. "The channel was once owned by the CBC and Power Corp," reported Broadcaster Magazine, "which sold it and another cable channel, Trio, to U.S. media baron Barry Diller, before he sold his stake to Vivendi."

The Montreal-based Power Corp., run by the Desmarais family, is the power behind the Canadian prime minister's office. Paul Desmarais Jr. is a shareholder in TotalFinaElf, which conducted billions of dollars of business with Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile when Gore's Current TV was launched last year, it anticipated the tide of user-generated content now sweeping the media world.

NWI is distributed to about 17 million subscribers across the U.S. through DirecTV, Time Warner digital cable, Comcast and other cable operators.

That's a lot of clout in terms of control.

But Gore's now saying that there is a link between control of the media and a lack of political action to control climate change.

"Questions of fact that are threatening to weather and power become questions of power," Gore said. "and so the scientific evidence of global warming--an inconvenient truth for the largest polluters--becomes a question of power, and so they try to censor the information."

Sure, al.

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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