Despite efforts to suppress journalistic expression, no longer a quiet Canada

Canada has been turned upside down in recent weeks. From the attacks in Ottawa to the sex allegations against CBC’s top cultural broadcaster, it’s been a shock to what many considered a relatively uneventful country. But, if anything good can be said to have come from these events, it is the elevated level of discussion and awareness in the Canadian public sphere, where millions of the usually disengaged are engaging in [mostly] constructive dialogue about serious issues like mental health, militarism, surveillance, and rape culture. And this time, we’re not looking to the crazy antics of our friends to the south, this time we’re taking a deep look at ourselves and our society, what defines us and what our values are.

There is a parallel conversation taking place: What is the role of the Canadian media in this dialogue and what is the state of the media in Canada in general? People are critiquing the coverage of recent events, talking about the future of Canada’s public broadcaster, and calling attention to the concentration of ownership and the precarious “small-world” of journalism where commentators have to watch who and what they talk about because it will likely affect their next job interview.

 It’s one of the most important conversations we can have, because the fact is that Canadian media is in a sad state indeed.

 “Media barons” sound out of place in 2014, supposedly the age of the “death of the newspaper.” They sound like a throwback to the days of Citizen Kane or remind us of the evil media mogul Elliot Carver from Tomorrow Never Dies: “there’s no news like bad news.” But media barons are what we have. Paul Godfrey, CEO of Postmedia, may not be diabolical, but he is at the helm of a media conglomerate that controls the vast majority of press media that Canadians consume.

 If Postmedia’s most recent acquisition goes through, this single company will control nearly all of the corporate-owned major daily newspapers and online publications in Canada aside from a handful of big holdouts like The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star. If you pick up any daily in Ottawa, Edmonton, or Calgary, or leaf through the The Vancouver Sun, The Province, or 24 hours in Vancouver, its contents will be from one monolithic company.

The television situation isn’t much better, mostly carved up between Bell, Rogers, and Shaw. And I don’t even need to mention telecom – there aren’t many Canadians who haven’t heard of “the Big 3”.

 This at the same time when corporations have moved on from billboards and television advertisements to full-on media campaigning. Advertisements convincing us that pipelines are in the public interest precede our YouTube videos, “advertorials” have become a primary mode for financing corporate media, CBC’s chief correspondent and news anchor speaks at events for the oil industry, and Kinder Morgan can launch an advertising campaign during civic elections in Burnaby.

 We can’t put all the blame on media conglomerates and corporations, however, their priority is profits and they’re pursuing them. Actions by the government – the institution that is supposed to preserve our democracy – are perhaps more concerning.

Under Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, the government has appeared to be operating under the mandate of “keeping Canada quiet”. Media coverage and access to information have been deterred, government scientists and employees muzzled, surveillance increased. The CBC has faced cuts and overhauls, decisions affecting the long-term future of the nation have been made under unprecedented secrecy, and communication to the public (and often to the House) has been through carefully crafted public relations statements that usually carry minimal substantive content. And let's not forget the 100-million dollar advertising scheme to convince Canadians of what a swell job their government is doing, or the recent flurry of tax audits that have been slung at charity and advocacy groups that carry out any “political activity,” coincidentally landing entirely on organizations critical of conservative policies.

 Perhaps, however, tensions have now reached their tipping point. It’s becoming clear that many Canadians have recognized the crisis in Canadian media and democratic participation and are responding by funding alternative news sources to do independent journalism, speaking out against government silence and surveillance, or taking matters into their own hands via new media.

 It’s exciting that Jesse Brown, the man behind the small independent media critique and politics podcast CANADALAND, is front-and-center right now – as the journalist who in the last week broke both the Ghomeshi story and the story on how the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) and a CBC journalist stonewalled Glenn Greenwald’s efforts to publish Snowden leaks about illegal surveillance in Canada. Brown, looking to reinvigorate politics and media critique in Canada, only recently secured permanence for CANADALAND with an explosively successful Patreon crowdfunding campaign.

 Crowdfunding also helped kick off the new “bilingual, independent, and pancanadian” media project Ricochet, which has its sights set on offsetting corporate voice in the media and reviving true investigative journalism. Richochet was itself born out of a frustration with the Canadian media – after the English language coverage of the 2012 student protests left many demonstrators feeling misrepresented or demonized. Crowdfunding kickstarted The Vancouver Observer's Tar Sands Reporting Project, as well and is sure to be an important part of roll out of The National Observer, by the same team of journalists, early next year.

As well, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that a healthy public broadcaster is badly needed in a country overrun by corporate oligopolies. CBC was widely praised last week for their coverage of the Ottawa attacks, and the discussion generated by Jian Ghomeshi’s removal has shown how much a show like Q can matter to Canadians (although it also shows the power of a male cult personality’s platform). A healthy CBC could be a powerful media force created by and for Canadians, not consumers.

 The response to last week’s events has made it very clear that Canadians have a voice and want to be heard. In Vancouver, a vibrant and growing alternative and independent media community is making this possible. This community comes together every year at the annual Media Democracy Days (MDD), in its 14th year in 2014. MDD is a free public event that will be taking place on November 7th at SFU’s Harbour Centre and November 8th at the Vancouver Public Library’s central branch and will feature film screenings, workshops, panel discussions, and speakers like Michael Geist, Kai Nagata, and Reilly Yeo along with media critic Robert McChesney and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald via exclusive video interviews. It will also feature a panel on Saturday, "Petrocultures and Media Activism," moderated by this publication's editor-in-chief, Linda Solomon Wood.

Original Article
Source: vancouverobserver.com/
Author: David Peddie