From Media Complacency to Harper Regime
Canadian mainstream media companies are not doing themselves any favours.
CTV has absolved itself of any objectivity, along with friends at Canwest, calling into question the role of mainstream media in Canada. We see in their stock prices that the market doesn’t agree with them, so why do they continue to mis-lead the Canadian public?
Are they simply mouthpieces for the Harper regime? Or are they as Harpercritical as their dictator himself?
In a video cited by Impolitical , we get a sense of this bias. Lloyd Axworthy is asking Craig Oliver "can’t they get past this" and Oliver responds "Get on with the budget".
Both Axworthy and Craig Oliver fail to recognize that we do not have a functioning government and that if there is a crisis (take your pick: Listeria outbreak, Tar Sands leak, massive unemployment … oh yeah … those have already been brought to us by the Harper regime), who will respond ?
As a form of protest, I recommend that we organize a media boycott on several levels:
- Turn off all CTV / Canwest programming and cancel the Globe, the National Post and other media sources that are simply mouthpieces to the Harper regime.
- Cancel cable and satellite services/subscriptions. We’ve been cable-free for nearly a decade. Since we’re being told that we need to ‘tighten our belts’ start with paid media channels that insult your intelligence.
- If you buy media, stop placing ads with Bell or Canwest.
- If you need phone communications, consider Skype or other open-source VOIP programs.
- Do not link to them. If you have a story from them that you can’t resist posting, copy and paste it to your own blog. If you want video, try to get it from YouTube first.
- Support local / independent media. rabble.ca . The Tyee . The Dominion . Progressive Bloggers
- Your suggestions below (please post your ideas of how we can encourage people to avoid Harper lies perpetuated by mainstream media).
Increased Interest About CTV’s Biasness « Cyberwanderer’s Blog has written on December 7th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
[...] “CTV fox news”, “CTV pro conservative” or “CTV bias”. Excited Delirium blog have suggested few actions we can take to send the message that we won’t tolerate such [...]
Tide Waters has written on December 7th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Fantastic ideas, ED.
For myself, I've not had TV for years. Don't have a radio. Don't have a phone. Always check out local/independent media, so that covers 1 thru 4, and 6. (Don't buy media.)
Re 5, I avoid linking to Canwest media whenever possible. However, I live in BC so it's not possible to completely cut it out. Copy/pasting the entirety of an article is against copyright rules, I think, unless you've explicit permission, and even then the source must always be acknowledged. While one can acknowledge the source for snippets without linking to it, readers of a blog are likely to get annoyed with that practice.
So here's my suggestion for 7: Perhaps add a note at the bottom of all posts like, e.g.: “We acknowledge but do not provide links to Canwest media articles.” And link that note to a post explaining the reason.
cyberwanderer has written on December 7th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I've been boycotting CTV for several months now and put a boycott ctv logo on my blog. I am also trying to avoid Globe and Mail news online even if Google link to them. We should encourage coalition supporters to boycott these corrupt media.
Gene has written on December 7th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
One thing that I know the Kossacks were doing down south was to encourage their representatives to boycott Fox News by refusing to go on their shows. It seemed to have worked for a while, I think.
Bloggers could make it a point to place the “Boycott CTV” logo on their site & add a link to the “Boycott CTV” page in their email signature and to their comments on other blogs.
If I think of anything else, I'll drop by again. Cheers!
exciteddelirium has written on December 8th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
But is there any one Facebook group or 'organization' that is focusing on this approach?
Also, I thought of a couple more: CONWest (instead of CanWest) and the CBC (I'm reluctant to admit it, but they get way too much of their info from CTV/Globe/Macleans etc for my liking).