CFN – Media is a hard biz these days. Even the big guns suffer. Today, on Friday the 13th Sun News Network shuttered down. They flipped the switch to off. I won’t get into the merits of Sun News and it’s fake boobed talking heads or far right Rush Limbaugh wannabees.
I will agree with Warren Kinsella though when he wrote “It’s never good when we lose yet another media voice” in his blog today.
He’s right, but there’s a huge media problem with the fact that real media have lost the ability to function. The scales of balance have fallen too far into the corporate financial/political side. Run a story that reflects poorly on a politician or business and you can see your ad dollars plummet.
CFN lives this as I run a small independent media outlet based here in Cornwall Ontario, a city which has jokingly been called the rectum of Ontario (and worse) including on CBC radio.
Recently we had a national story about the Vincent family Ice rink. The city brutalized the family demanding that the rink, built in October, be ripped down at Christmas. Some VIP’s and former political types used pressure as this particular rink is on one of the snootiest streets in our city. (if we really can have a snooty street in Cornwall…)
It was ugly and the ten days the family was given notice were over the holidays when either City Hall was closed or people were off work. Sure enough the trucks were at the family door along with police on the day on the notice in spite of the Mayor Leslie O’Shaughnessy telling the family in person that they could have a bit more time.
It was ugly. I know because I was there. This little media outlet got the trucks to leave for a bit and we helped make sure that the Vincent’s could save their ice surface after the boards came down and the ice cracked spilling a ton of water onto the street from under its ice pad.
Over 2,500 people signed out petition and over 4,000 people voted 93% in favor of saving the rink. We also assisted other media outlets like Global and Metro and our video was picked up by Huffpo.
Yesterday a Toronto PR firm, North Strategic sent out an email to another media outlet that essentially attacked the rink and defended the city position that it was a bylaw violation.
The outlet also refused to run when our group formed to save the rink and then reported that there was a small gathering of supporters as opposed to a larger group if all the media in Cornwall notified the public of the event. A quick search in google and on that particular media’s website would show their clear slant.
North Strategic was pimping for their client Canadian Tire who were going to give the Vincent’s a Gold Hose award and wanted to etch their logo into the ice surface next season. For some reason the Seaway News mentioned North Strategic several times in their piece yesterday titled “Controversial rink creator gets award from Canadian Tire”.
The problem is that big Corporations like Canadian Tire are lazy. They don’t do their homework and depend on Toronto centric agencies to buy their ads and send out some of their releases.
So in a city like Cornwall, like other small cities, independent media like CFN get left out most of the time, because cities like Cornwall don’t seem to matter to companies like Canadian Tire, Walmart, Loblaws, Staples, Boston Pizza, Shoppers Drug Mart, Jean Coutu, Freshco, and the list goes on. In our six years we have never had a corporate ad from any of the big box chains and rarely if ever have received a release from them in spite of being an anomaly and leading our market for nearly four years now.
Canadian Tire for example had one of my favorite Ottawa Senators pop up in Cornwall for some event. Barely anyone went and even we only found out about it after the fact as I drove by what looked like about 20 folks milling around a blow up thingy. What’s the point of running an event if it’s a dud? And what, then blame our city for not supporting it?
Of course if media do not earn income we can’t do our jobs. Could that be a reason for example of why neither the Seaway News (TC MEDIA) or The Standard Freeholder covered the latest charges against former Team Cornwall President Gilles Latour? We emailed a few of the editors locally with nary a response as to why they didn’t cover the story. Could it be for fear of losing ad dollars that they didn’t run the story about Mr. Latour being charged with defrauding his own mother for $201,000?
Bottom lines are scary. But both of these media outlets spend more on salaries on their sales and management forces locally than on journalists. It begs to ask what is the role of media in our society any longer?
If the news we get is sanitized or missing how does the public get any idea of how to vote or operate? Are media outlets simply PR firms sold to the highest bidder?
The internet of course has changed things. CFN, has a loyal base of viewers in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and many major cities in addition to our huge market share locally. Maybe it’s time for some of these PR firms and Toronto folk to catch up to the times?
What do you think dear CFN viewers? You can post your comments below.
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“It begs to ask what is the role of media in our society any longer?” – propaganda for the New World Order? Nazi socialism? Or maybe the bottom line is to make the rich Aristocrats feel good about themselves?
Pro 26:1 “As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool”.
How weird was that for Canadian Tire to give Mr Vincent an award for his rink & not give CFN who helped save the rink,the media release but give it to another media source that was against saving the rink.Shame on Canadian Tire!!!
Will anyone miss the Sun News Network? I don’t think so.
And how is it PTN can somehow get scriptures involved in every article, be it about the Sun News Network or the weather? It boggles the mind.
Except for CFNs positive effort that poor family got hosed. But forget the Golden Hose, someone deserves a Brown Nose award. CFN readers could vote.
When one of the biggest newspapers in the world “The New York Times” is in trouble financially what do you expect of a lower standard newspaper chain of “Sun Media” and people who are really awake today know that they are being lied to and don’t trust the mainstream “lamestream” news. I go a lot to alternative news where I get to hear more reality. The only real news that I depend on Jamie is your CFN for Cornwall’s news.
About the Vincent family they are excellent people and I think that they learned a valuable lesson about Cornwall and if I had a lot of money I would not live on Monaco Crescent since my nose does not scrape the sky. I would tell the Vincents that no matter where you live put the rink in your backyard because nobody can make you take it down there. You did a wonderful thing for the children but part of that front yard is public land and here in Ottawa the Hydro company along with a private firm were working on electric poles and transformers here and the utility companies have to have access.
The demise of SNN is both encouraging and a bit sad. Encouraging because not enough Canadians tuned in to watch their asinine BS, and float their boat. Sad because over two hundred people are suddenly out of work.
You nailed it Pastor Newton about the Media and yes they are part of the New World Order and a lot of the sheeple are not awake and only bleeting at the trough. The sheeple know nothing about what we are talking about. The big corporations as well NWO and yes when the corporations an the government are in bed together which they are it spells out what Pastor = fascism. Folks you all know nothing what is coming and all the very young people will be around to experience this.
Furtz most of us have experienced lay offs and hard times in our day and my daughter is only working part time where she is and two women came back from maternity leave and she is now only getting between 10 to 14 hours and has to look for another part time job or even a full time one. There is nothing around since so many are being let go of their jobs. You don’t go and buy a house, etc. in these times since nothing is guaranteed and I mean nothing. You will soon hear all levels of government letting go and already people are being let go in the west and elsewhere because the oil boom has gone CABOOM! Where there is an up there is a down. We haven’t seen anything yet. Children are moving in with parents to survive and this is being done in Ottawa and everywhere. I pray to the Good Lord for guidance and strength. My health is not the greatest but I have the Good Lord to thank for every day even though these days are a hell for most.
Jules….old news about government cuts. It’s been happening for years now. They call it re-engineering a product. And have you become a palm reader with all these predictions?
Sun News was doomed from day one when it became clear that Pierre Karl Peladeau wasn’t interested in putting money into an outlet that wasn’t based in Quebec.
The Rob and Doug Ford show was a prime example as Sun cancelled the project after one episode citing the high costs of editing the program.
They also killed themselves by trying way to hard by creating/presenting hate fueled story lines that would make even Fox News blush.
You had Ezra Levant gleefully chasing 78 year old David Suzuki thru the streets yelling questions at him. Ezra always seemed so pleased with himself afterwards. Levant also managed to be charged and convicted of libel.You have to work really hard and be looney tunes to manage that in Canada.
People are claiming they failed because Canada has no taste for right wing news but somehow National Post seems to keep chugging along.
Hugo at SF has probably ignored Gilles Latour story as he is still reeling from getting snail mail message calling him a “Hugo Rodrigues @HugoAPRodrigues · Feb 5 Put this one in the record book — got my first handwritten letter, ever, calling me both “sonny boy” a “prick.” It’s going in the archive
Mel
Mr Jamie:
While deeply appreciating your allowing me to grandpa in with my original Avatar- it does seem- like all the people, who came on this site to demand using full names,have since disappeared in most part.
Mel I’m very happy with our comment policy and think it’s the most balanced in the region. We have seen an increase of comments, an improvement in the quality of discussion, and as predicted most of the truly negative and nasty comments come from people trying to use anonymous id’s. (and Jules) 🙂
Melman…then why start SNN if they aren’t going to put money into it?
Sun News was doomed from the day they decided to employ the most obnoxious on-air personalities they could find.
Fox News North.
“Bottom lines are scary” Luckily this blog doesnt have to worry about that
Hugger yesterday I read from a post somewhere that Shaw cable (western Canada) are laying off 1000 people. Yes layoffs have been happening for years but this time will be a lot more shocking than before. The gas here in Ottawa today is $100.9. My daughter and I went to Wal Mart in South Keys and we still have to get a few more things elsewhere. We will all have more surprises coming in 2016.
Speaking about being rude Jamie you should see the public at Wal Mart today the things that we went through – OMG how Ottawa has changed with so much rif raf. One crazy woman went behind my daughter as she was pouring herself a coke from the machine at MacDonald’s at Wally World and poked my daughter in the back and told her not to take coke and my daughter paid for it and only took one. Then we sat down and a middle aged man (another nut case) went and asked my daughter if she liked what she was eating and then he left. When they talk about South Keys being bad you want to believe it -all the crap that you wouldn’t see in the past years.
Layoffs have been happening for years. News that they’re happening now isn’t news.
As for the price of gas going up….again not new news. Analysts have said gas prices will be like a yo-yo for the next year or so due to the unstable market.
As for your daughter being disrespected I find if you let it happen it will happen. I tend to give back what is given to me. If you show me respect you’ll get respect in return. If you treat me like crap you’ll get crap in return. For the Coke lady at McD’s I would have told her to mind her own business. And the middle-aged man would have received the same treatment.
Hugger you are absolutely right and my daughter said that she didn’t want to make a scene and she gets so much abuse from the customers at work from similar types of people that she ran into today. Every cashier has a terrible time with the customers and the cashier has to take the abuse.
Jules….there’s a difference between putting up with disrespect at work as a cashier and being disrespected as a human being just because the other person is an a**hole. People have to learn to stand up for what is right otherwise they just get pushed further and further down in the rabbit hole.
Hugger you are absolutely right on target. There is a great deal of disrespect in our world today and my daughter and her co-workers cannot answer back to the public. I guess that job trained her to stay quiet and everyday she would love to quit. Even in those call centres they cannot answer back to the public and both are hard jobs that most people want no part of.
I told her that she doesn’t have to put up with that nonsense outside the job. You have to stand up for yourself and that is so very true indeed. You cannot let people walk all over you.
Hugger1
“People have to learn to stand up for what is right otherwise they just get pushed further and further down in the rabbit hole.”
Do you believe this is why the police are out of control, and are strangling/shooting people for merely resisting or not responding to their orders with lightning speed?
Most police officers are good. But some will take their responsibilities a little too far and follow the letter of the law.
Police in Canada are way better behaved now than they were before everybody carried video recording devices.