In my last post I took the time to work out an argument that supports the idea of "deplatforming" neo-Fascists. In this week's op-ed I'd like to build on that foundation to talk about some disturbing trends that I've recently noticed outside the loony bin and on the main stage of our political theatre.
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On April 18th Canadaland published a leaked internal memo from the Toronto Sun that outlined how management wanted their reporters and journalists to cover the upcoming Ontario election. It makes for interesting reading. Here's part of the introduction:
Editorial Perspective:
- The past 14 years of progressive Liberal policies have undermined Ontario’s economy, electricity system and core public services and introduced unprecedented social division.
- Successive Liberal governments have been fiscally reckless, plagued by scandal, self-serving and demonstratively harmed the quality of life for millions of Ontarions.
- Our focus will focus on exposing the Liberal record during the campaign and advocating for change that addresses the critical need to responsibly address chronic and growing problems in health, education and economy.
- We are not better off than we were 15 years ago.
It goes on to outline a list of stories that management wanted their staff to write about. Consider the following, which are only a few chosen from a long list:
Issue: Hydro
Story: The $9.2 billion fire sale of Hydro One was just one of many blunders that undermined the province’s electricity sector and drove up energy rates. We revisit the government’s failed green energy plan, articular ongoing and future costs, look back at the gas plant scandal and costs and detail how soon after the election rates will rise, and what the 25% rate cut will cost. We look at the high salaries and bonuses paid to hydro execs and dig into the Hydro One purchase of a U.S. coal plant and toxic sludge farm. Does anyone have a realistic plan for hydro?
Issue: Carbon tax
Story: We compare Liberal cap-and-trade with Conservative and NDP plans for carbon pricing. We look at the impact carbon taxes will have on Ontario’s economy, from jobs to grocery and gasoline prices. We review failure of carbon taxes elsewhere, and problematic nature of implementing if the U.S. does not.
Issue: Minimum Wage
Story: Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office estimated as many as 50,000 people could lose their jobs this year because of the wage hike. In January, 59,300 part-time workers lost their jobs. Declines have flattened out since then. We look at stats as they’re published during the campaign. Meanwhile, a 22.5 per cent cut in Ontario’s business tax from 4.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent won’t offset increased staffing costs and other incentives such as paid sick days and three weeks paid vacation for workers with five years on the job.We’re also increasingly seeing unintentional consequences, including part-time work for people with disabilities.
Issue: Green Energy
Story: Ontario’s Liberals have wasted billions on unnecessary wind and solar energy. We look at links between those who benefited and party. We also look at carbon taxes and impact on consumers. Cost of green energy? Corporate welfare? Promised Green jobs?Please note, this is a strange form of journalism in that the managers are telling their writers and researchers what their conclusions should be before they go out to look at the facts. This isn't how news is written, instead this is propaganda. (This certainly isn't how I go about writing stories for the Back-Grounder. While it is true that I often have some vague idea about how I want to write a story, this usually goes out the window when I start doing research and learn how little I knew going in. For example, last week I thought I'd focus on climate change denial before I started researching and I ended up going with the problem of media concentration. That's how journalism is supposed to work---.)
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| Paul Godfrey, Conservative Politician and Media Tycoon Image by Vibhu c/o Wikicommons |
Just to give you an idea of how important he is to Canadian journalism, here's a list of Postmedia Network properties:
Newspapers
- National Post
- Calgary Herald
- Cornwall Standard Freeholder
- Edmonton Journal
- London Free Press
- Montreal Gazette
- Ottawa Citizen
- Regina Leader-Post
- The Star Phoenix (Saskatoon)
- The Vancouver Sun
- Windsor Star
- Calgary Sun
- Edmonton Sun
- Ottawa Sun
- The Province (Vancouver)
- Toronto Sun
- Winnipeg Sun
- 24 Hours (Toronto, Vancouver)
- Airdrie Echo (tabloid)
- Barrie Examiner (broadsheet) sold to Torstar and closed, 2017[17]
- Belleville Intelligencer (broadsheet)
- Bow Valley Crag & Canyon (tabloid)
- Brantford Expositor (broadsheet)
- Bradford Times (tabloid) sold to Torstar and closed, 2017[17]
- Brockville Recorder and Times (broadsheet)
- Camrose Canadian (tabloid), closing 2018
- Chatham This Week (tabloid)
- Clinton News-Record (tabloid)
- Cochrane Times (Alberta) (tabloid)
- Cochrane Times-Post (tabloid)
- Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin sold to Torstar and closed, 2017[17]
- Cornwall Standard Freeholder (broadsheet)
- Drayton Valley Western Review (tabloid)
- Edson Leader (tabloid)
- Elliot Lake Standard (tabloid)
- Fort McMurray Today (tabloid)
- Fort Saskatchewan Record (tabloid)
- Goderich Signal-Star (tabloid)
- Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune (tabloid)
- Hanna Herald (tabloid)
- High River Times (tabloid)
- Hinton Parklander (tabloid)
- Kenora Daily Miner and News (broadsheet)
- Kincardine News (tabloid)
- Kingston Whig-Standard (broadsheet)
- Kingston This Week (tabloid)
- Lakeshore Advance (Grand Bend; tabloid)
- Lloydminster Meridian Booster (tabloid)
- Mid-North Monitor (Espanola; tabloid)
- Mayerthorpe Freelancer (tabloid)
- Nanton News (tabloid)
- Niagara Falls Review (broadsheet) sold to Torstar, 2017
- North Bay Nugget (broadsheet)
- Norwich Gazette, closing 2018
- Orillia Packet & Times (broadsheet) sold to Torstar and closed, 2017[17]
- Owen Sound Sun Times (broadsheet)
- Peace River Record-Gazette (broadsheet)
- Pembroke Daily Observer (broadsheet), ceasing print edition 2018
- Peterborough Examiner (broadsheet) sold to Torstar, 2017
- Pincher Creek Echo (tabloid)
- Sault Star (broadsheet)
- Simcoe Reformer (tabloid)
- St. Catharines Standard (broadsheet) sold to Torstar in 2017
- St. Thomas Times-Journal (tabloid)
- Strathmore Standard (tabloid), closing 2018
- Stratford Beacon Herald (broadsheet)
- Sudbury Star (broadsheet)
- Timmins Daily Press (broadsheet)
- Vulcan Advocate (tabloid)
- Whitecourt Star (tabloid)
- Woodstock Sentinel-Review (broadsheet)
- Financial Post Business
- Living Windsor
- Swerve
- TVtimes
- Canada.com
- celebrating.com
- connecting.com
- driving.ca
- househunting.ca
- remembering.ca
- shoplocal.ca
- SwarmJam.com
- Infomart.com
- in addition, Postmedia Network owns all websites associated with all properties listed on this page either wholly or in partnership.
(All of the info above comes from a Wikipedia article. I thought it would be
valuable for readers to get an idea of the scale of Postmedia Network holdings.)
The pitch for support shouldn't actually be necessary in this week's op-ed. Do you want to let propaganda machines like Postmedia control what you learn about our society? Or do you want some sort of in-depth coverage that gives an objective, much more complete picture? The choice is up to you---you can support independent, responsible journalism, or, you can passively watch a small number of wealthy individuals amass a "free market" propaganda machine designed to control a large slug of voters. But that choice is easier than it has ever been. Just subscribe to the Guelph Back-Grounder through Patreon or put something in the Tip Jar. Other people have already done it---(thanks Charles for being so awesome!) What's stopping you?
You can also share the Guelph Back-Grounder through social media. Word of mouth is the only advertising I can afford.
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the plight of newspapers in Canada’ "
Stuart Thomson, Nov 21st, 2018, The National Post
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What's happening here is a wealthy business man with ties to the Conservative Party is creating a Canadian equivalent of Fox News---a private propaganda outlet that relentlessly pushes a partisan viewpoint under the guise of "journalism".
It's important to understand how propaganda was created in older authoritarian nations like the Soviet Union. It wasn't particularly the case that each editor and reporter had an assigned KGB officer that they answered to. Instead, what happened was people who were interested as working as journalists realized "what side of the bread was buttered" and wrote stories accordingly. People who did this well and didn't let things like facts get in the way of the "party line" tended to get promoted. The foolishly idealistic, on the other hand, were quickly identified and they lost their jobs and never got hired again. No need for thumbscrews and beatings---the vast majority of people will simply do what they need to do in order to pay the mortgage and feed the family. Reporters are especially vulnerable to this sort of thing now because newspapers are in "free fall" and jobs are scarce as hen's teeth with gold fillings.
The other thing that we need to remember is that recent events have shown that even in a modern liberal society propaganda is tremendously successful. All through the scandals rocking the USA right, for example, popular support for Donald Trump has sat at a rock-solid 42% of the body politic. That's what happens when you have a significant fraction of the public who get all their news and information from corporate propaganda outlets like Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting.
The important takeaway from the above is that there is a problem with letting a small number of extremely wealthy and well-connected individuals control the media. Freedom of speech laws don't mean much if one side has a huge, enormously-amplified megaphone and the other side has nothing but the quiet voice of reason. That's why we need to build our own megaphones, and, lessen the ability of "big money" to say whatever they want---no matter how divorced from truth or objectivity.
It's important to understand how propaganda was created in older authoritarian nations like the Soviet Union. It wasn't particularly the case that each editor and reporter had an assigned KGB officer that they answered to. Instead, what happened was people who were interested as working as journalists realized "what side of the bread was buttered" and wrote stories accordingly. People who did this well and didn't let things like facts get in the way of the "party line" tended to get promoted. The foolishly idealistic, on the other hand, were quickly identified and they lost their jobs and never got hired again. No need for thumbscrews and beatings---the vast majority of people will simply do what they need to do in order to pay the mortgage and feed the family. Reporters are especially vulnerable to this sort of thing now because newspapers are in "free fall" and jobs are scarce as hen's teeth with gold fillings.
The other thing that we need to remember is that recent events have shown that even in a modern liberal society propaganda is tremendously successful. All through the scandals rocking the USA right, for example, popular support for Donald Trump has sat at a rock-solid 42% of the body politic. That's what happens when you have a significant fraction of the public who get all their news and information from corporate propaganda outlets like Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting.
The important takeaway from the above is that there is a problem with letting a small number of extremely wealthy and well-connected individuals control the media. Freedom of speech laws don't mean much if one side has a huge, enormously-amplified megaphone and the other side has nothing but the quiet voice of reason. That's why we need to build our own megaphones, and, lessen the ability of "big money" to say whatever they want---no matter how divorced from truth or objectivity.
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The pitch for support shouldn't actually be necessary in this week's op-ed. Do you want to let propaganda machines like Postmedia control what you learn about our society? Or do you want some sort of in-depth coverage that gives an objective, much more complete picture? The choice is up to you---you can support independent, responsible journalism, or, you can passively watch a small number of wealthy individuals amass a "free market" propaganda machine designed to control a large slug of voters. But that choice is easier than it has ever been. Just subscribe to the Guelph Back-Grounder through Patreon or put something in the Tip Jar. Other people have already done it---(thanks Charles for being so awesome!) What's stopping you?
You can also share the Guelph Back-Grounder through social media. Word of mouth is the only advertising I can afford.
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Another issue that is compounding the importance of this debate is the fact that the federal government is aware of the problems that newspapers are currently facing, which is why the Trudeau government has pledged money to help the news media. But the question is, who gets what and how is the money going to be allocated? Certainly, it sounds like Paul Godfrey thinks that he is going to be getting some of it.
Paul Godfrey, the CEO of Postmedia, which publishes the National Post and daily broadsheets in many of Canada’s largest cities, said that tax credit “could be looked upon as a turning point in the plight of newspapers in Canada.”"$600M in federal funding for media 'a turning point in
“I tip my hat to the prime minister and the finance minister. They deserve a lot of credit,” said Godfrey. “Everyone in journalism should be doing a victory lap around their building right now.”
the plight of newspapers in Canada’ "
Stuart Thomson, Nov 21st, 2018, The National Post
Of course, it wouldn't be a good idea if journalism actually disappeared. But equally, we don't want the government-of-the-day deciding on a case-by-case basis how this money is going to be divided up. If we don't do that, we will probably end up with an independent board deciding how to divide up the largess. But there will be a temptation to get a group of "establishment media types" together who will give most of the money to the existing media companies---like Postmedia. And if we do that, we run the risk of propping up some really horrible media practices, like managers deciding the editorial policy is to support the party of the guy who manages the paper.
Is this the only way we can deal with news in Canada? Maybe it would make more sense to decide the money needs to be divided up on the basis of how actually independent, objective, and, perhaps even local, the news media really is. I think that voters should make sure that Paul Godfreys and Postmedia don't end up using our tax money to tell us how to vote. What do you think?
Is this the only way we can deal with news in Canada? Maybe it would make more sense to decide the money needs to be divided up on the basis of how actually independent, objective, and, perhaps even local, the news media really is. I think that voters should make sure that Paul Godfreys and Postmedia don't end up using our tax money to tell us how to vote. What do you think?
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