Keep our Airwaves Clean

The CRTC is proposing a change to the ban on broadcasting false news. This modification would allow false news to be broadcast except for the kind that "endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public." The problem with such narrow specifications is that all other types of false news would be allowed. I could see a Fox-like SunTV News in the future, broadcasting false lies without any punishment. The ban on spreading lies through the media must be upheld by the CRTC.

OTTAWA — The CRTC is proposing a regulatory change that would give Canadian TV and radio stations more leeway to broadcast false or misleading news. 

Current regulations contain a blanket prohibition on broadcasting "any false or misleading news."

Read more at CTV.

I ♥ CBC

I found this petition at Let Freedom Rain. It calls for Stephen Harper to raise funding for the CBC to forty dollars for every citizen, as recommended by the committee for Canadian Heritage. The CBC is a true Canadian channel that runs Canadian shows promoting Canadian culture. It is important to keep it afloat. With the culture war from the Tories, always blaming and bashing the CBC. With Sun Media and its parent company, Quebecor Media going out of its way to attack CBC, we need more support for our national broadcaster. Please add your name to the petition below.

Related articles

• Quebecor smearing CBC: president (cbc.ca)
• The going rate for an insult (theglobeandmail.com)
• Sun Media's war against CBC (theglobeandmail.com)

Quebecor Soldiers

Norman Spector wrote today about whether the journalists working for Quebecor their "soldiers" or not, whether they would take an unbiased view against everything. In one anecdote, it was one journalist's boss who was forced to do write articles in the commercial interests of Quebecor. If this is so, then we should be ready to accept the same things from Sun TV News. It will be biased and it will serve the commercial interests of it and its boss Piere Karl Peladeau.

At that point, his JdeM colleagues advised him to “choose his fights carefully and to make pretend.” And he did just that by pretending to phone the protagonists, and later to tell his editors that he’d come up with nothing….

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Related articles

• Quebecor gets go-ahead for Sun TV News channel (thestar.com)
• CRTC approves Quebecor's application to launch Sun TV News (nationalpost.com)