As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades -- against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News -- fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.
Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast....any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."
It is not often that I am jealous of our Canadian neighbors, but right now I am green with envy.
Just imagine what it would be like in this country without Fox News bullying our politicians and scaring our elderly into voting against their best interests?
Perhaps if we progressives keep fighting the good fight, someday Canada will get the opportunity to be jealous of OUR freedoms.
Wow! What can we do to get that law in the US?! That would put an end to FAUX News and right wing radio talk show hosts. We will need to extend the law to all Right Wing Republicans running for congress or the White House and the ones that are in congress! It would be heaven in the US if we could stop all the lying! We could even shut up Sarah too!
ReplyDeleteYes, we have SO much to thank St. Ronald for, don't we? I sometimes ponder what this country would be like today if Reagan had never darkened the doors of the White House. Just imagine! How he can be anyone's hero is totally beyond me.
ReplyDelete"Perhaps if we progressives keep fighting the good fight, someday Canada will get the opportunity to be jealous of OUR freedoms."
ReplyDeleteNo need for anyone to be "jealous," there's plenty of freedom to go around. If we can only be allowed to enjoy them, then we all win.
We need to fight for that law!
ReplyDeleteCanadians, in the main, have excellent B.S. radar and a low tolerance for stupidity & ignorance in the media & political arenas. The clown characters given credibility in the U.S. would be laughed into oblivion here.
ReplyDeleteWe may be polite but we are not gullible.
Feeling very proud of my Canadian heritage right now!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter graduated from McGill U in Montreal. The three years she lived there were heaven. We were able to visit and live there for a few weeks in the summer.
ReplyDeleteWe had to pay $500/year for her health insurance but that covered everything, medications, exams.
She was seen promptly and even referred to a specialist for some ENT problems.
Montreal is a safe beautiful, cosmopolitan city.
I cringe when Fox news or anybody else makes stupid remarks about Canada. They do not know what they are talking about!!!
Hey! Up here we also have hate laws too -- a lot of what gets said and printed in your country would be illegal here. Don't confuse freedom of speech with inciting hatred - we haven't and we are free to say what we want as long as it's lawful. Yay for Canada. We regulate our financial institutions too -- the US could learn a great deal by following our lead. Never mind the fact that we have universal government run healthcare and an election system that keeps corporations where they belong in the process - out of it.
ReplyDeleteProud to live in Canuckistan :-)
Canadians recognize that no right comes without responsibility. For the American press - and the courts - to simply exclaim that the right to a free press is sacrosanct and bereft of responsibility is short-sighted and selfish in the extreme. No right comes without responsibility. Not a single right listed in our first ten amendments is without its limits. Yet the bellicose libertarians out there would have their rights upheld even if it meant that we devolve into a parody of Lord of the Flies. Such craven narcissistic immaturity in the name of liberty tolls our death knell if we cannot stop it.
ReplyDeleteEach and every right we wish to protect must be understood in the context of its responsibilities. With regard to the free press, that is not only the right of those in the press to print what they want (there are, after all, libel laws), but importantly also the right of the public to have news presented without fraudulent or incendiary intent.
The fact that these aspects of our rights are always ignored and never recognized or debated is a sorry and serious sign. Did anyone else notice how Fox and its various media friends panicked when Obama was elected, promoting the fear that the Fairness Doctrine would be instated? So telling; they know full well that all the strides they've made in accumulating their corporate power and freedoms on the backs of the middle class have been bolstered beyond their wildest dreams because the press can no long be held accountable.
Unless, of course, they actually do their job and expose abuses of power.
Gryphen, thank you for writing about this.
ReplyDeleteAs a Canadian, I first became aware of the upcoming vote on "Fox News North" type propaganda while reading Democratic Underground.. and immediately fired off two furious emails to the committee.. "importance of retaining civility and truth in reporting" and "No, no, no, no..."
Still I am surprised and gratified that I think 3000 emails from Canadians were listened to and no change made.. Thank God, Gryphen, Thank Goddess :)
I have met two Canadians very influenced just by a book that had been passed to them to read, so who knows what they'd think if a Fox News North was OK'd. One woman, I met in a little city in Ontario while shopping in the garden section of Zellars...I did not know her at all. She began talking about a book she been loaned to read: She whispered to me that Obama was not a Christian [I surmised she was].. and he was a Muslim..[I didn't know where to start: that it didn't matter if he was.. or that her info was wrong..] and then, he is a SOCIALIST.. She was definitely frightened about that possibility.
I looked her in the eye and said, I've had cancer and the whole of the therapy, chemo, hospital visits etc was thankfully paid by the Ontario Govt..and I didn't have to think of mortgaging my home..or going without therapy in order to leave my children with something.
I could see her return to planet Ontario from her mental fortress of fear..but her fear, in a totally inappropriate place...where we get essentially closer to 'socialized health care' was an interesting study in the power of propaganda.
Another Canadian friend, also deeply church going, refers to a book that tells him that the immigrants will take over the country of Canada.. they are producing more children than white people and eventually we will have Sharia Law.
We are all susceptible to clever marketing ploys .... so to have a Fox News North insidious type of propaganda invade Canadian airwaves.. it would have been a negative and pervasive force invading this lovely country.
I think many people learned about the vote in Canada in time to comment from blogs that revealed the news....and so I thank you for your most entertaining blog.. which helps us all learn and to be ready to use our light sticks when needed to combat the dark side. :)
Thank you, Gryphen
So the right wing leader of Canada wanted to gut a law that says NEWS people can't lie? Shameless!
ReplyDeleteYAY Canada.
I don't have to imagine how nice it is on Canadian radio. We listen to it every night.
ReplyDeleteWe like to have the radio playing all night long, and our preference is for the syndicated show Coast to Coast. Because we *can't* get that in our local listening area, we stream it via my laptop.
Most of the US stations that carry Coast are also Fox stations. It is not fun to wake up to "Sgt. Sam" via AustTx's KLBJ. We usually listen to CJOB out of Winnepeg and it is so nice to wake up to the silly banter of Hal Anderson and his gang. There's also a couple of great stations out of Toronto and Vancouver.
Our TV now goes on early am, noon, and around 5 when the LOCAL news is on. Right now, the weather is more relevant to our lives.
Happy to hear the CRTC will not be giving Rupert Murdoch the chance to poison our airwaves.
ReplyDeleteCanuck
Fill your brain with intelligent and thoughtful analysis and programs: Listen to CBC NEWs and CBC Radio online or on Sirius. You have PBS and NPR: give them your support through donations! Check out The Fifth Estate (CBC) and search for the documentary they did a few years back on Dick Cheney. Ask them to do a similar one on Sarah Palin.
ReplyDeletelets just hope Harper doesn't get his coveted majority government...i fear that Man, i think he is a Bush wannabe
ReplyDeleteAs a Canadian, I am happy for the law mentioned regarding lying on the News.
ReplyDeleteNo country is perfect, and Canada has its share of things that could be better, but I am glad I live here in Vancouver, B.C.
That being said; I wish there were more people like Gryphen (no matter where they live) with the courage to speak Truth to Power.
Gryphen, you are a treasure to the World.
ps: No, I am not his Mom.
Harper is an evangelical Christian nut-job who serves his oil-baron masters faithfully. Of course he wants Fox News north because he knows that it will do very well with the recent immigrant population in Canada, who he is trying to lure to his party so that he can get a majority.
ReplyDeleteHi From Montreal
ReplyDeletewell, sorry to burst the bubble, but it took Avaaz.org over 500.000 signatures to stop FOX North and we still got Petit' George as Prime Minister (Harper is what HE calls himself, everyone else calls him little George) public ehalth care works fine, but just...makes us a million miles ahead....but of what?
One more thing about the above: I stopped listinging to CTV (english) news cause it was too much like American "News" (before they all went "south") so what they say in the article is correct about French news (CBC) but for CTV I still doubt it....And the law verbidding to lie on news is fine, but they still gotta get caught...(a law with no real enforcment is a paper tiger, thanksto P'tit George and his croonies) Werner
Gryphen, How a about a post on the Fairness Doctrine act. Apparently there is a similar act in process now that will be coming up for a vote in congress soon. "Boner" is trying to squelch it. It needs public airing.
ReplyDeleteThere have been several attempts to bring it back in some form, but the conversatives, who used its dropping and the first amendment to stop it, have been able to stop all of these.
We (the public) need to know about the act, why it was started, how it was stopped, and what is going on now.
Freedom of speech is one thing, but we need to have responsibility for what is said and more balanced discussion in all media.
Here is a link to recent discussion about the upcoming bill.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/464529-Boehner_Expects_House_To_Act_On_Fairness_Doctrine_Blocking_Legislation.php
Speaker says doctrine is a "threat to freedom with an innocuous name"
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/28/2011 10:48:37 AM
It makes me want to cry--just thinking of the possibility of a world not distorted by Fox and friends.
ReplyDeleteThis just makes me more upset about the current state of affairs in this country. How can we possibly hope to stand up and oppose the corporations that own the US? Thanks to the Supreme Court, the corporations have even more power to buy elections. I don't know how we can defeat them; they have limitless funds and power. Common sense and good faith are long gone. It seems like evil always wins. Good for you, Canada, for maintaining integrity and doing what is right. I think it is too late for the USA. Even if we have a leader that does the right things (Clinton) someone like Bush and his cronies come along and undo it all. They are destroying this country and won't stop until we are completely ruined.
ReplyDeleteThere is something wrong when you have to make it a LAW that the news cannot LIE.
ReplyDeleteWhat is wrong with that picture?
Shouldn't news by definition tell the truth?
Which is why Fox isn't news and why they had to go to court to cement their right to LIE to the public.
We need a law like that.
We also need a constitutional amendment that states a person must be a flesh and blood human being and that corporations are NOT persons and do not have constitutional rights of real human beings.
We have to face the fact that the bad guys have somehow managed to take away equal time for our side through the argument that equal time squelches THEIR free speech.
ReplyDeleteWhen you think about it, that's a pretty audacious claim. It's also pathetic that we let them get away with it.
I am so fucking tired of being on the defense when the other side is a bunch of immoral monsters.
I despise Fox News and believe they have led the way in hammering down the level of political discourse in the US, but that is a terrible law.
ReplyDeleteSo who gets to decide who is speaking the truth and who is lying and who is being misleading? I would rather hear a thousand lies and ten statements of truth and be able to decide for myself than to hear any government-sanctioned truth.
Just think of the same type of law being applied to blogging.