WhatFinger


Business model of appeasement, selling out to politicians and caving in to advertising interests

Of Delusion, Deceit and Tacit Support for Terrorists: The State of Mainstream Media Today



After receiving several letters from readers responding to my recent columns in Canada Free Press. These involved a critique of the mainstream (read old) media and its abysmal non- or deceitful coverage of events of real importance to people.

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Actually I am uncertain as to what is worse. Having the old media cover something or having them ignore an issue or event altogether. In one recent column I aired my views on the sad state of policing in Ontario which, as seen through the eyes of the embattled people of Caledonia, exposes a racist-based enforcement policy when it comes to First Nations protests, much to the dismay of the people who are paying the price. One writer asked where are the media? Actually I haven’t the foggiest notion. They could be in meetings with OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino who might be introducing them to the finer points of one-sided, or no-sided coverage, of the intolerable situation in Caledonia. The media certainly gave short-shrift to the near deadly beating suffered by a Caledonia contractor who had his housing project forcefully taken over. Where were the hysterical calls for public inquiries, rolling heads and demands for resignations? It didn’t happen. If, however, this same thing had happed to a First Nations person, the outcry would have been heard around the world. The United Nations would have become involved. No, old media has shown its true colours and allegiances in the sorry episode of Ontario jurisprudence. Recently the only thing that has stirred the old media out of its self-induced coma has been the word “militia.” That got a few of them going. A Caledonia resident by the name of Doug Fleming, you might recall, recently issued an invitation to area residents to form a militia to protect their properties since the OPP won’t. Doug explains in a news release issues June 23 that the term militia was used to get media attention. The organization will formally be known as the Caledonia Peacekeepers. While some bleeding hearts might question Doug Fleming’s ethics of taking this approach, it just goes to show what many people already know. The old media is less interested in facts and fairness than it is in sensationalism and distortion. Personally, I applaud Doug’s approach. My position on this has been that the residents of Haldimand County have been pushed to such action by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and their racist-based enforcement against white residents. This, of course, has all been orchestrated out of the Provincial government offices of the controlling Liberal Party headed by Dalton McGuinty. There are indication that since this travesty has been getting more notice in the New Media, the OPP are trying to convince white residents they really are fair and do care. Ya, Right. Another letter writer reminded me the Mohawks already have their own militia in the form of their Warrior Societies. What’s good for one group of residents is good for another he wrote. I agree. All readers’ responses agreed that the old media has simply lost its way. Over the past several weeks three writers, two from the Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson and Tabatha Southey and one from the Vancouver Sun, Barbara Jaffee, among others, have gone out of their way to tell their dwindling gaggle of readers how the new media (that’s us) cannot hold a candle to the mainstream media for factual, insightful reportage. Last week I referred to a column in the Globe and Mail by John Ibbitson who occupies space with a column titled “America.” The headline over this column read: ‘How does U.S. democracy survive without its newspapers?’ I won’t repeats my response to that premise. But this is an entirely new week and we have now also heard from Tabatha Southey who tells her readers her credentials qualifying her to write for a national newspaper include reading three newspapers a day while working as a sales clerk. I hope she is a more conscientious columnist than sales clerk. But I digress. The headline over her column of June 20, 2009 reads thusly. ‘Good work on Iran, new media, but don’t get smug: Pixels burn bright, but print soaks in.’ Hmmm. Okay. Tabatha’s pitch for the old media, in essence, was that while she loved the blogs, the gossip (she refused to call them reports of the ghastly state brutality happening there) but she loved the newspaper coverage as well. Isn’t that encouraging. But wait dear readers, she takes it all back when she concludes “They (Twitter et al) get to post the smoke; we have to print the fire.” Really Tabitha? Tell me it isn’t so. Here I thought the images escaping from the Iranian tyrants’ grip represented reality. Now you tell me it isn’t and that only newspapers can tell the whole story.The real story. I guess I have been fooling myself all these years. Poor me. Poor us. No Tabitha, for the sake of your own credibility I would urge you to rethink your analyses. Here are a few reasons why. If what is happening in Iran was happening in Israel and the nearby Palestinian enclaves, the newspapers would be screaming for Israel to stop, to back off to quit murdering women and children. You would be siding with the Palestinians so fast it would make your khimar spin. How about another example? Every time children and civilians generally are killed in an American airstrike that goes wrong, and they do go wrong, the cacophony of rage is deafening. Today Al Qaeda terrorists murdered 72 people in Iraq. Where’s the outrage? Where’s the condemnation? A few weeks back 15 children in Afghanistan were murdered by the Taliban. Who is protesting that? Those deaths rates nothing more than a few inches of copy in an column of inconsequential international items. Second thoughts. But Ms. Southey, I do agree with you totally on two points, Pixels do burn bright and they will burn bright for many years to come. I also agree that print soaks in. It soaks up fish slime nicely along kitty pee and puppy doo. The worst kind of delusion is self-delusion. I am afraid that is exactly what the aforementioned columnists are engaging in. I suspect their superiors are leading the way in the tide of media self-delusion. I will offer this free advice (usually I charge for this stuff). Until the media in Canada and the U.S. wake up and admit that their business model of appeasement, selling out to politicians and caving in to advertising interests they will have sealed their own destiny as they fade into oblivion. And I doubt there is a chance in a million they will ever get it.


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Bill McIntyre -- Bio and Archives

Bill now devotes his time to his media/communications consulting firm while fighting for time to pursue freelance writing assignments, promote television projects and create the odd movie script.


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