Musings —07.19.2011 04:35 AM
—In today’s Sun: Boooooooring!
The media is a special interest group
Politicians and Joe and Jane Frontporch know this already, but it amazes me how often some media bigwigs still don’t. The media, to most of us, are simply big companies owned by other big companies. Like all big companies, they have biases aplenty.
So, when I penned a media column for the National Post, I was told I was not permitted to write anything positive about the CBC or the Toronto Star. If I even quoted someone saying something remotely positive, it would end up on the Post’s newsroom floor.
(At the Sun, in case you are wondering, I have never been, (a) told what to write, or, (b) censored in any way —despite the fact that, as the resident Bolshevik, I periodically drive Brian Lilley, Mark Bonokoski and John Snobelen bonkers. Which upsets me a great deal, as you can imagine).
With respect, you may not be censored or told what to write, but in this instance you’ve been pretty mild with your criticism. A Sun column on the subject of “media writing about the media” inevitably brings to mind Sun Media’s relentless attack on the CBC — or as they label it, the “state broadcaster” — yet you make no comment about this. Obviously the campaign against the CBC is covered by your assertion that media stories are “boring,” but your previous role as a media columnist shows your views are more sophisticated than that. Plus, I’m not sure subtlety registers in the pages of the Sun.
Also, weren’t you not so long ago considering in this space taking up some matter with the Ontario Press Council?
I had space for 525 words. I did what I could.
Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!
If WK is a representative of the ‘left,’ then there is no ‘left’ left.
It is tough to find a leftie bias, a couple of magazines in this country (Dimension, for example)but the internet sure has made it a tad more possible.
Next step for such as Sun media is to do what the BC press Council did to WK in demanding the complainant give up legal recourse: get friends in government (they have a few) to restrict civil court access, legislate a cap on law suits, or legislate them almost out of existence. Then, demand complainants use Sun media chosen arbitrators.
Governments and corporate interests have had great success in planting stories over the decades. For me, we have had hugely effective Islamophobic propaganda since the 1970’s, and propaganda campaigns to justify wars usually follow the predictable patterns, -identify Emmanuel Goldstein/Hitler, misquote the fellow, report his outrages, demand that he smarten up, free his people from him, discover the child porn.
Often a local government or corporation will hire a pr firm to run their media campaign for them. The pr firms are very good at running circles around reporters, editors, and columnists.
I liked Izzy Asper telling journalists at papers he had just acquired that they are in the business of selling soap.
We’ll have to see where things like wikileaks lead us.
I would have thought Brian Lilley goes bonkers just chasing his tale.
True that most of the time I’m get bored with the media talking about the media………with three fabulous exceptions: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Rick Mercer. I do enjoy me a good satirist…….but, I guess, it should be left to the TV guys.