02.12.2015 08:40 PM

Sun sets

It’s true.

There are some good people there, and I feel very bad for them. They worked hard.

They were good to me, too, over the past four years. My views were almost always at odds with theirs, but they kept asking me back anyway.

Not sure what is happening with the Sun column, but I don’t think it’ll be happening much longer. We shall see.

But, to all those crowing about this tonight, I say: you’re jerks. It’s never good when we lose yet another media voice – even one you disagree with.

So long, Sun. It was fun while it lasted.

33 Comments

  1. Scott Bowman says:

    even Sun newspapers, or just the TV station?

  2. terence quinn says:

    C’mon WK SNN was a piece of garbage with the likes of Ezra and the fact it was run by a hard core separatist who Harper has been sucking up to recently. it does not deserve to survive even though I too deplore the loss of jobs.

  3. Rob Carter says:

    “There are some good people there, and I feel very bad for them. They worked hard.”

    Please tell me one one of those good people wasn’t Ezra Levant… (maybe this makes me a crowing jerk…just never liked the guy much and thought he was mean).

    Anyway…may all those who lost jobs find new positions rapidly and have limited time of disruption in life.

  4. Brian says:

    Yeah, well sorry, but it’s a very good thing we’re losing Sun “News”. What they did wasn’t “news” even in the most tortured and ridiculous sense of the word.

  5. Reality.Bites says:

    Sun News was no more a media voice than Fred Phelps was a minister.

    No loss here. None at all.

  6. Steve T says:

    Very unfortunate, indeed, for the reasons you mention. Even if you believe all the “Fox News North” baloney (which was far from true), it still is sad that there is one less media organization out there.

  7. Cameron Prymak says:

    Yes. We do need perspective.

    On another note the emerging field of immersive journalism is interesting. I wonder how it may unfold.

  8. bazie says:

    It is going to be hard to ever top Ezra Levant taking a chain saw (rather fecklessly) to a tree they brought into the studio to make fun of environmentalists on Earth Day:p

  9. Joe says:

    I only watched SNN when travelling. It was mildly entertaining and a bit thought provoking. It bothered me no end that I could get CNN, Fox MSNBC as part of a ‘news package’ but had to pay extra if I wanted SNN. I’m with you Warren it is never a good day when a Canadian media outlet ceases to exist.

  10. davie says:

    I find the internet a place where I can read and even exchange with people whose views I disagree with. either it clarifies my own views, or makes me question them. SUN tv news was a place I would surf to on tv to see what the conservatives/Conservatives were complaining about now.
    Now where am I going to go on tv for the right of right views?

  11. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Well, that pretty much ruined my day.

    …don’t mind sayin’, too, that you were one of their best commentators.

    Damn!

    • Al in Cranbrook says:

      Questions:

      Who is going to continue to bring us the flip side of global warming/climate change? Exposing the lies and half truths? And the rank, dripping hypocrisy of its proponents?

      Who is going to continue to expose the massive amounts of money being funneled into Canada’s environmental activism by foreign interests?

      Who is going to continue to speak openly and forthrightly about the threat of Islamicism?

      Who is going to continue to offer up criticism of the liberal left?

      Who is going to continue to project the positive aspects of Canada’s ever so vital petroleum industries?

      The CBC??? CTV???

      Sure, when pigs fly!

      Answer: Nobody.

      Shaw carried Sun News…hidden away in an obscure range of channels. Then one day over a year ago it just magically evaporated out of my TV channel selection. I called them, and for $3/mo. I could get it back, which I did.

      No doubt many lefties are thrilled, too many of whom pay all kinds of lip service to free speech…of course, with the unspoken caveat, just as long as it’s toeing their ideological line du jour.

      Only in Canada, eh?

      Hell will freeze over before the CBC ever darkens my living room again!

      • terence quinn says:

        Al, You must be a Harper truther. Sorry for your loss but now you will get factual information and not the crap the mostly produced.

      • Doconnor says:

        Who is going to reinforce my beliefs?

        Who is going to tell me who to be afraid of?

        • Al in Cranbrook says:

          That’s a bit rich, eh? The CBC does that for you every day of the year…and on the taxpayers’ dime to boot.

          There are two sides to everything, such are the laws of the universe. Get over it.

          • Doconnor says:

            The CBC is still too right-wing for my tastes.

            Actually the laws of the universe say that there is only one truth. One of the problems with the media is that they act like there are two sides to every story when one is often objectivity right.

          • Al in Cranbrook says:

            The law of universe is duality, or if you prefer, polarity. You will find it everywhere, in everything.

            Again, I am reminded of that great Jack Nicholson movie line: You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!

            Oh, yeah! And how true is that, eh?

          • Doconnor says:

            You’re not making it easy for me to resist mocking your educational credentials.

          • Al in Cranbrook says:

            They are substantial, called “The School of Life”…not to mention the 14 boxes of books I’ve got stored downstairs, spanning history (conflict and Christianity mostly), some theology, bit of philosophy, bit of politics, and even some metaphysical stuff. My English skills rank at first year university level.

            …and a tested IQ of 139.

            I got kicked out half way through grade 12, ultimately brought about after a very socialist and Irish teacher made it patently clear he wouldn’t tolerate any longer my insistence on challenging his ideological rants from his pulpit at the head of the class.

            I didn’t buy that nonsense at 16, and I have infinitely more contempt for it at 60.

          • Doconnor says:

            It doesn’t look like you have covered much on the importance of evidenced based reasoning. Might I suggest a work called Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I read several chapters of a book you recommended.

            Feel free to leave your comments on it .

          • Doconnor says:

            Feel free to leave you comments on it here.

  12. Pete says:

    Their programming was garbage of the lowest common denominator. You were their token lefty/centrist (aka voice of reason) that they used to justify some semblance of balance. In the end, it makes me proud that our country just didn’t give a rats *ss about tuning into such drivel. You can do better, Warren and you will. They brought you back because it would have been wholly boring to not have someone around to bounce their convoluted worldview off of. Sucks that people are losing jobs…most of them…pretty happy to see Ezra unemployed though. Do I dare go and read all the right wing whining about how the CRTC never gave them a chance? No. I’m just going to drink champagne and celebrate the end of the CPC’s national mouthpiece.

  13. SherryBellamy says:

    Maybe Ezra and Coren can sell the orange wigs they wore when they were mocking those who were grieving for Jack Layton. That was really professional journalism.

  14. Ridiculosity says:

    Bingo.

    There are five sites I visit religiously each day – and often, more often than once a day.

    This is one of them.

    If I couldn’t access the content for free I would pay for it.

    No question.

  15. patrick says:

    A propaganda tool, vulgar, crass and filled with the outrage of posturing shills. Media voice, hardly.

  16. Kev says:

    Sun had potential. Too bad they squandered it on hyperbole, hysteria, histrionics, and Ezra, Lilley, and Coren.

    A newsy, sane-conservative station could have worked. This unwatchable gong show was doomed from the start.

  17. Robert Jago says:

    Sun too frequently incited hatred against natives, and other minorities. They created a forum online where people literally called for genocide, called for murder and threatened violence – even today, their last day on air, you can find comments hosted on Sun’s sites from people threatening violence against natives, and expressing the most disgusting forms of racism. While there are surely nice and hard working people on Sun News, their end product was something which was often disgusting. The country is not poorer for having that gone, and I’m very happy to see that it was the market – not censors – that killed it off. As for young journalists, technicians, and support staff, and David Akin of course, I hope they find jobs – preferably somewhere that doesn’t require them to produce the AV equivalent of asbestos.

  18. Ron Waller says:

    I guess things look much different from the other end of paycheck. (Just ask Rick Salutin.) But Sun “News” wasn’t news or journalism in the slightest. It was a 24-hour-a-day neo-con infomercial.

    I remember reading that the Manning Center for “Democracy” praised Sun News for all it was doing to promote the conservative cause in Canada. A news organization does not promote a political cause. Political organizations promote political causes.

    Thankfully the con job failed, unlike Fox “News” south of the border. It really pissed me off that Cogeco forced the station on me and gave it top billing in HD.

    But angry white males need not despair. (The few of them that actually watched the ersatz news channel.) They still have the National Post. Lots of right-wing whack jobs to keep them in a constant state of outrage: from Corcoran to Murphy.

  19. Derek says:

    This is the most horrible news I have heard. I liked SNN, I liked that different views were welcomed, along with yourself I would often see Adam Giambrone. What other news station does something like that? With no thanks to the CRTC I will miss that news station greatly.

  20. Wade Izzard says:

    The market has spoken.

  21. Derek Pearce says:

    Well, never watched the channel so I guess I only have a second-hand account of it’s biases. But I do feel bad for those put out of work, it sucks & I should know, looking right now and it’s always stressful and depressing. So my empathies & sympathies to them on that.

  22. Steve T says:

    For all those who attribute SNN’s demise to “market forces” – perhaps we should cut the CBC loose from the taxpayer’s purse, and see how well they do, eh? Or APTN? Or any one of a number of other taxpayer-subsidized media?

    I’m as much a market proponent as the next person, but let’s not kid ourselves that our current choices are somehow reflective of market forces.

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