By Frank Moher
Sure we should wonder what Stephen Harper was doing having lunch with Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes in New York last year. And of course the CRTC was right to refuse Quebecor a Category 1 specialty TV licence for its proposed SUN TV News Channel, which would force cable and satellite companies to carry it. Kory Teneycke’s dream of a right-wing news outlet should have to muddle along like any other niche channel, which is what it will be anywhere outside Calgary.
However, the Margaret Atwood-endorsed campaign against SUN TV sponsored by Avaaz.org is so over the top that it ought to offend even the most inveterate cause-whores. It’s not the petition itself that’s the problem so much as the bumpf accompanying it. “Prime Minister Harper is pressuring the Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to approve plans for a ‘Fox News North’,” it reads. “If successful, this would bring American-style hate media to Canadian airwaves, and be funded by our license fees!”
You may have noticed that Avaaz spells “license” the American way. That’s because it’s actually a New York-based outfit that grew out of the success of MoveOn.org in the States. And it does a lot of good work, such as its current fundraising for flood victims in Pakistan. But it’s tone deaf on the SUN TV issue. First of all, the Sun newspapers are more blue-collar than neo-con — if the TV channel follows suit, its most popular program is liable to be the weather as forecast by a SUNshine girl. But ideologically the Sun papers have always been conservative soft-soap. In fact, some of the best reporting on the abuses of the police at the G20 summit came from the Toronto Sun.
And personally, I find Avaaz’s export of this sort of strident, demonize-your-enemy tactic to Canada as offensive as anything Fox News could come up with. It’s a style that Canadians typically reject — both the Conservatives and the Liberals have been forced to pull attack ads after a public backlash — and if SUN TV tries the same thing, it will fail, as I expect its proponents know. Meantime, they have every right to reject Avaaz’s silly bleating. “Fox News fuels hate,” its petition states. “While constantly claiming to be ‘fair’ and ‘balanced,’ it allows hysterical anchors like Glenn Beck to compare Obama to ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Hitler’.” All of which is true. But is comparing a network that hasn’t launched yet to Roger Ailes’ demonic creation any better?
@Mahmoud. Thank you for pointing that error out. Do you have anything to say about the issue or do you just proofread?
@ Edit this: “the pain was caused by the bad grammar and … “.
You mean like in “As well, I find it very entertaining that the writer do not consider it possible …”.
You must have meant to say ” that the writer DOES not consider…” .
Bad grammar pains me too.
The last line should read ” Oh, if you need a good edit, who can fact check, I am available. See I do know how to edit.
I read the blogger’s comments with interest and some pain; the pain was caused by the bad grammar and weak writing style. Honestly, what sort of writer and editor would allow sentence fragments into print along with many other errors? What sort of editor and writer can be unaware the that “license” or “licence” are acceptable spellings according to the Oxford Canadian Dictionary? “License” is indeed an American spelling but is commonly used by many Canadians.
As well, I find it very entertaining that the writer do not consider it possible that Sun TV will express conservative views. Clearly, very little research was done in to the background of Piere Karl Peladeau (Quebecor head) and his late father, a man who espoused rather right-wing views. I am at a loss to understand how any journalist can be unaware of the P.K. Peladeau’s abysmal treatment of their colleagues and support staff at Le Journal de Montreal and the Journal de Quebec.
Now, I have one final point to make. Over 80,000 Canadians have clearly expressed their displeasure with Avaaz by signing that “strident” petition. I suppose that we are all, in the words of one of commenters ” left wing control freaks.” I suppose we are not as enlightened as the writer of this blog, but I think I have enough insight to understand what “silly bleating” is. I see much of it in this blog – that is if ” silly bleating equals weak journalism.
Oh, I you need a good editor, who can fact check, I am available!
V.G. says “What is deeply offensive is that they are trying to censor ideas and are telling Canadians they should not be allowed to see ideas which conflict with their own.”
Ideas or outright lies? That’s the problem with Fox News.
@CanNurse: The columnist’s primary concern was with the rhetoric utilized in the Avaaz petition, the very same sort of over the top fear mongering we justifiably criticize Fox News for. Also, there is absolutely NO evidence that Harper has or is influencing the process. The initial bid was (rightly) rejected, and now they’re asking for a Category 2 license, and following the same process as everyone else. You people confuse Tenyecke with Harper – they’re 2 different people, and if a Conservative private citizen wants to launch a conservative newschannel, then so be it.
That being said, Harper does have a history of interfering where he shouldn’t, and so we should keep a close eye on this. However, until he actually gets involved, let’s call the Avaaz petition what it is: speculation, sensationalism and fear mongering for ideological ends. We could draw the links between Avaaz’s chief financier (George Soros) and Michael Ignatieff, but that would be speculative and ignorant.
CanNurse: “you not suspect that their own “media channel” would create much more of the same?”
Absolutely. Note that when Obama staged a landslide victory, the dogs were called out. Fox News immediately began a character assassination: Place of birth, religion, FEMA camps, FEMA death squads, FEMA coffins, spending (by exaggeration of amounts). In Truth, by spending to keep the economy going, Obama brought the National debt up to 85% – ten points up from Bush who brought it up to 75% from the 50% of Clinton and the 30% of Carter. The Republicans blocked his every move (search GOP blocks Obama) and impeded most of the progress while Fox screamed that he wasn’t getting anything done. Fox screamed about taxes whereas, in fact, only those making over 250 thousand a year were affected. Creating this alternate reality and passing it off as news convinced the less informed/ educated/ critical thinking to form the tea party, spinning off to gain more followers. Of course the Council for National Policy (a rich ultra-right wing group) are behind both the tea party and the Sarah Palin pick. Harper has been a speaker there in the past. Now it seems that Obama is trailing badly and Fox can be thanked for this.
I believe this is the ultimate plan for Canada too with Harper being the new Bush.
Avaaz is an Internationall on-line organization headed by the Canadian, Ricken Patel.
You say: “It’s not the petition itself that’s the problem so much as the bumpf accompanying it. “Prime Minister Harper is pressuring the Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to approve plans for a ‘Fox News North’,
You entirely miss the point – or are purposely being disingenuous. Had you read Atwood’s objection, it is not the possibility of this media coming to Canada, but the WAY it is being done – exactly as Avaaz says . What Atwood & thousands of others object to is the fact that “. “Prime Minister Harper is pressuring” the CRTC head to “change the rules” for this network, after FoxNews application to the CRTC was rejected. In addition, Harper’s former aide & now head of the not-yet-here network, Kory Tenyecke, asked the CRTC to make FoxNewsNorth a network Cable companies in Canada were required to carry. This was rejected. Then Tenyecke lied publicly about ever asking this. When shown the correspondence, he had no answer. Yesterday he was implicated in involvement in trying to invalidate the Avaaz petition with fake names of Canadian journalist. When caught in this, he said he knew the source, then recanted, etc. etc. It is THIS government Conservative interference in independent departments, as well as frequent flat-out lying that Canadians strongly object to. And this issue of FoxNews North is just the latest. The Harper Conservatives have been behaving like U.S. Tea-Partiers for the past couple of years, getting more blatent all the time. Do you not suspect that their own “media channel” would create much more of the same?
I sure get tired of left wing control freaks telling me what I should like, watch, listen to and read all the time. Give Sun the bloody licence and let them sink or swim according to their viewership. If I remember right from school in the 50s it is called capitalism or free market and other such names. I am oriented well to the right but I do not holler all the time to have the left wing tripe out of CBC banned or their licence revoked. I do challenge their so called right to government funding though. They should have to survive all on their own like all the other broadcast companies.
Avaaz’s crude, simplistic characterizations are based on conjecture and bias.
But let’s say they are right. Who cares? I’m not bothered by one side demoniozing the other. The marketplace of ideas can sort out who is telling the truth about what.
What is deeply offensive is that they are trying to censor ideas and are telling Canadians they should not be allowed to see ideas which conflict with their own.
This is typical, and typically self-discrediting behaviour from the anti-globalization neo-Marxist crowd. Their constructs are so shaky and they are so fearful of losing ideological traction that they want to ban conflicting viewpoints.
While I rarely watch news channels on TV, I definitely agree with the columnist that the appropriate way for this channel to proceed is the same as any other fledgling station.
I also suggest that Atwood has every right to support whatever cause she wants, in whatever way she wants, as long as it doesn’t involve violence.
I just make my own choice as to which side I am on, as I always do, regardless which celebrity espouses the cause.
Canada doesn’t need a Fox type network to spread hate and lies under the pretext of journalism
Who’s the babe in the photo? And are there any more pics of her around? Preferably as a Sunshine Girl!
Isn’t this article, by it’s very nature, hypicritical?
“…Avaaz’s export of this sort of strident, demonize-your-enemy tactic to Canada as offensive as anything Fox News could come up with.”
But isn’t that what you are doing in this article?
And isn’t this exactly what fox does? Thus furthering Avaaz’s point? The article even goes so far as to makes remarks about the company being american and therefor framed as ‘un-canadian’.
Would it not be better to be dignified and talk about what you will offer, rather than what is wrong with your opponent?