CFN – I’m reading today about China sticking an online dissident, Chen Xi, to ten years in Jail. Another, Chen Wei was recently given a 9 year sentence. I know; we’re not China…yet.
You have the mayor of Toronto cutting off the largest paper in his city because they wouldn’t write what he wanted. Our own experience has been illuminating with our local Conservative MP and MPP not cooperating with us as a media outlet; pretty much boycotting us.
Recently as many of you have read the City of Cornwall is, pick your adjective; cutting, not renewing, its minimal advertising with CFN. Essentially this comes down to “if we don’t like what you write then you won’t get our money”. This is the first year for example that Mayor Kilger and Council did not buy a Christmas greeting to you, our viewers, on CFN. Two more programs look like their getting the chop after New Years….
We in the media have a difficult job some days. We have to balance doing our job which in CFN’s case is to inform and entertain you our viewers. We advocate for many of you. We are your window behind the scenes sometimes too.
Since Mr. Harper has become Prime Minister there’s been a sinister shift in media. I know I can’t hire staff if the revenue isn’t there. I can’t focus resources on important issues if the piggy bank is empty. When this happens on a larger scale this impacts society. For example I had a lawyer recently complain that we in the local media don’t spend enough time in court to check judicial imbalances and behaviors like that of a recent Crown dragging a very innocent person through a costly court procedure.
Governments are using these financial levers more and more to influence media behavior.
We’re not China, yet, but how far behind are we?
Jamie Gilcig – The Cornwall Free News
(Comments and opinions of Editorials, Letters to the Editor, and comments from readers are purely their own and don’t necessarily reflect those of the owners of this site, their staff, or sponsors.)
Jamie, reminds me of a school yard bully ?
Well W.R. there are remedies to bullies….
Media is the educators of public knowledge and opinions by researching and presenting “Freedom of Information” at its own expense. When media become depended on “tax payers” funding as part of its revenues, it cost a little more lost freedom until the media looses all its freedom. And once the freedom of information is lost; What other freedoms are lost?
http://en.rsf.org/
Isn’t our Dear Leader expanding our prison system to accommodate critics and dissenters? Might be a good idea to STFU and get into the dry-cleaning business or something like that.
Furtz, Kim Jong-il at least looked funny – out of a cartoon strip, or stand-in for one of the Three Stooges. Our Dear Leader makes drywall look interesting.
PJ, Our Dear Leader is infallible and prefect in every way, and I enjoy my freedom.
Edit: perfect
Freudian slip, Furtz? He does indeed act like an infallible prefect. However, one Pope’s enough, surely.
Actually PJ, one pope is one too many.
One pope is one too many? C’mon, Furtz, now you’re descending to the “Pastor’s” level. You’re a better person than that.
Richard, IMHO, the Catholic Church is the oldest criminal organization on the planet. The misery it has inflicted on people for the last two thousand years is unforgivable. The preacher, along with all the other bible-thumpers out there, is just a small-time off-shoot of the original mob. Imagine how much better the world would be without them.
Happy New Year!
Back to Jamie’s timely article and its very concerning implications.
What do honourable fellow posters make of the report that Canada’s newspaper editors voted the Conservative majority as news story of 2011? Hello – what does that say of our print media?
In my view, it speaks volumes about the poverty of editorial awareness and responsibility. Without a vigilant and responsible Fourth Estate, Canada is with this government in the throes of fascism creep.
Failing a vigilant and responsible Fourth Estate, we need a vigorous Fifth Estate (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Estate). CFN is making an excellent contribution.
I like that one PJ. I think we definitely are part of the Fifth Estate….
I’m not sure about that. Certainly globally, there were bigger stories like the “Arab Spring” and the economic woes of the EU, but domestically, it was a whopper. Nobody, or very few predicted it, and it will change Canada in ways we’ve never seen before.