About Canada’s Mass Media…

This was going to be a blog about what different mass media outlets had to say about the spp protests and the meeting in Montebello.  But no surprises.  Most of them: refer to a U.S. government ‘fact sheet’; report dismissive comments from Harper and D’Arquino without criticism; focus on the violence while ignoring the cause; call every dissenter (save for the Council of Canadians) an anarchist; and the investigative journalism amounts to ‘The protestors don’t even know why they’re here.’  I think the last might come from reporters’ inability to write about the intersections of war, racism, imperialism in a corporatocracy, etc (without getting fired?).

So instead, I’m going back to a December 2006 Canadian Senate report* on the conglomeration/consolidation of our mass media:

There’s a website that catalogues which companies own what media in Canada, much like FreePress.org does for the U.S,  and it’s yourmedia.ca .  While the rest of the website is fantastic, this fact page…  Well. There’s a long list of names and companies & it makes me dizzy just looking at it.  Ditto the numbers.  Ex: “as of February 2004 ‘there are 8 major corporate owners in Canada that own 10 community newspapers or more each.  Of the 701 community newspapers that are CCNA members, 276 are corporately owned.”

It’s a good list for reference, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot just looking at it.  Unless of course you’re a media-type person, or have been a journalist, or you’re good with numbers.  Of which, I’m none of the above.

But Huzzah. The Senate transport and communications committee did the work for me and put together a report stating baldly, that “the concentration of ownership has reached levels that few other countries would consider acceptable… neither the U.S. nor the U.K has the level of media cross-ownership found in Canada.”  There.  Simple.  With context and some perspective, no less.

As for the official government response to the committee and their recommendations, it was, again, predictable.  Bev -our Heritage Minister- Oda made some comment or other about business being competitive, and that was the end of that ‘debate.’

From Antonia Zerbisias’ article in the Toronto Star**:

“Big media is in the driver’s seat of big politics,” said Peter Murdoch,
vice-president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.“When a Senate committee investigates, takes the time, listens to
citizens, listens to all the players, and then makes recommendations which big media may be concerned about, it’s clear who the government is listening to.“It’s not just outrageous or appalling. It’s scary.”

Well put.

 

* Part 1 & Part 2 of the Senate Report. (Warning. This could take days to read.)

** The Toronto Star is a daily owned by the TorStar Corporation.  Other Dailies owned by TorStar include Guelph Mercury, Hamilton Spectator, Metro, Kitchener-Waterloo’s The Record, and Sing Tao.  In addition to owning over 70 Community Papers across Canada (as well as internet sites, 2 tv stations and Harlequin Press), TorStar Corp owns 20% of (David) Black Press Group Ltd.  But TorStar is still behind Quebecor Inc, the largest commercial printer on the planet, which BTW, bought up the Osprey Media Group (also huge) back in June 2007.