A Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper –
As a veteran journalist in Canada who continuously deplores what a handful of corporations have done to a profession I loved enough to venture in to – a profession I believed should, at its core, play a vital role in being a watchdog on governments and other powers-that-be in a democracy – I am pleased to post this piece by Avaaz.org.![Media_Propaganda_by_Trosious[1]](https://niagaraatlarge.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/media_propaganda_by_trosious1.jpg)
Quebecor and Sun Media make up one of the worst of the worst corporations on this continent when it comes to media strangulation – one that places the maximizing of ever-more-piggish profit margins for its corporate bosses and shareholders ahead of anything else, including the resources needed to run respectable, functional newsrooms across the country, including what’s left of the newsrooms at the only three daily newspapers in Niagara, Ontario.
Now this God-awful corporation, with links in its ranks to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is seeking a CRTC licence to do a broadcasting station that would spread American neo-Republican-Tea Party like progoganda across our country.
Do we really need a station that would be more filtered in to the gun and military weapons culture in the U.S., and to its most right-wing elements of oppressing gay people, people of colour, and people who are out of work?
I say ‘no Godamn way’. So here is a message from the non-profit, internationally renown Avaaz, from Avaaz.org. Please read it and sign on to keeping Quebecor’s Fox News nightmare out of Canada.
Dear friends across Canada,
The CRTC could make us all pay for American-style right-wing media as part of our cable packages — unless we stop them.
Quebecor created a “Fox News North” to model the kind of hate-filled propaganda with which Fox News has poisoned U.S. politics. The channel is run by PM Harper’s former top aide and so far it doesn’t have enough of an audience to survive. But now it’s applying to the CRTC to be forcibly added to all of our basic cable packages!
The CRTC has the power to stop this crazy plan and they are accepting public comments right now. Let’s let them know that Canadians don’t want “Fox News North”. When we reach 50,000 comments, we’ll have enough broad support to hire a crack legal team to help present our case in front of the CRTC. Click below to join and send this to everyone you know:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_fox_news_north_2013_rb/?bRUUpdb&v=22313
In 2010, tens of thousands of us banded together and stopped “Fox News North” from getting a similar deal — even contributing to Harper’s aide, Kory Teneycke, resigning as head of the network! But then, the network sneakily hired him back and now they are launching a similar application, hoping we won’t speak up while they try and recoop their $17 million in losses from our pockets!
Fox News fuels hate. While constantly claiming to be “fair” and “balanced”, it allows hysterical anchors like Glenn Beck to compare President Obama to “Hitler”. Bill O’Reilly, another anchor, has threatened to boycott Canada, and Anne Coulter says Canada is lucky the US allows it to “exist on the same continent.” The network has cunningly fuelled the tea party movement in the US, a mobilisation of the fringe right with members who threaten violence upon its opponents and wear guns to political rallies.
This is a fight for the soul of Canadian democracy. Our media is not perfect, but a ‘news’ network that slavishly serves a political agenda through mass manipulation and fear threatens the fabric of our democratic society.
Canadians don’t like watching “Fox News North”, which is why they are losing millions and need a sweet government deal to survive. But we can stop them, and stop the CRTC from taking money from our pockets to pay for right-wing news. Click below to send a message and help us build a big enough call to bring a legal team in to hammer home our best arguments:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_fox_news_north_2013_rb/?bRUUpdb&v=22313
“Fox News North” threatens to make the country we love look more like the U.S. Thankfully, the CRTC and their public comment process stands in the way — let’s use this chance to be heard and stop “Fox News North” for good.
With hope,
Jeremy, Ari, Emma, Ricken, Mélanie, Laryn and the entire Avaaz team
Hating the Jew, hating the ‘gypsy’ (National Post)
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/25/bernie-m-farber-et-al-hating-the-jew-hating-the-gypsy/
As losses mount, Sun turns to CRTC (Globe and Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/as-losses-mount-sun-turns-to-crtc/article7597155/
Sun News Network viewership lags on first anniversary, controversies continue (Canadian Press)
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/04/18/sun-news-network-turns-first-anniversary_n_1433521.html
Sun Media breaches Code of Ethics (Canadian Broadcast Standards Council – CBSC)
http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decisions/2012/120613.php
Investigation into alleged racist comments against blacks (CBSC)
http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decisions/2012/120620.php
Warning: This column contains scary Sun News scenes unsuitable for some readers (Globe and Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/warning-this-column-contains-scary-sun-news-scenes-unsuitable-for-some-readers/article5215962/
Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision-making.
What we do works — together we influenced countries to vote in favour of a Palestinian state, stopped corporations censoring the internet by helping to bury ACTA, campaigned to stop the sale of BSkyB to Rupert Murdoch, lobbied to save the Amazon forest, and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to break the media blackout in Syria.
If you are interested in supporting Avaaz, click on https://secure.avaaz.org/en/donate_to_avaaz_gc/?cl=2542189140&v=22313 .
(Niagara At Large encourages all visitors to this site to share their views on this post or any other posts NAL has posted. Divergent views are most welcome in the spirit of NAL’s goal to operate as a virtual town hall for discussing and debating issues of interest and concern to our communities and countries across the greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
I was very happy to see the Asper family’s involvement in Canadian media come to an end (Canwest, Global). I will be even happier when Quebecor is out.
They are using the typical Quebec-based corporate attitude of demanding that governments bail them out or give them special treatment.
A pox on them!!!
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Out of curiosity, who would you prefer in Niagara, someone more objective like TorStar?
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I trust TorStar a hell of a lot more than I trust Quebecor!!!
At least most TorStar papers do try to be factual.
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Fox News should should take a hike, a long one.
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Thanks for posting this Doug. As you will see, I have sent one of the links on to many folk. This is too important to ignore any longer.
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The people now writing for Sun Media are young and wet behind the ears, their columns seem right out of Pravda, and very anti-first peoples, they have written off our native peoples as a bunch of freeloaders and welfare bums. the bile spewed in their columns ,two in one day in the Niagara Falls Review.about the “Idle no more” movement is close to hate press.basically those Sun Media are close to hate propaganda.they control all of the press in Niagara, that is why I rarely get any print in the letters columns.They don’t like the opposing viewpoints….I would like for a (First Nations Month) to be instituted in Canada as without them we would not have a Canada, we would now be annexed to the USA. They will not put my appeal into the rags they call a paper.We have a “Black History Month” why not a “First Nation’s Month”?
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How about a “Lucy Month” also celebrating all of ours’ great, great, great, etc., great post-ape grandmother…not that I buy into that nonsense but it would make for another great federal government campaign to pour dollars they don’t have into, wouldn’t it?
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So! You want to silence anyone who happens to disagree with you or has a different opinion than you or has a different philosophy than you?
Extraordinary!
Are your positions so vulnerable and weak that they cannot stand on their own? What are you so afraid of? Are you afraid that someone will hear a counter opinion than yours?
You may have valuable things to say but you do not have the right to control what anyone else can hear!
Haven’t we heard this poison before? Of course we have and it never ended in anything good. Remember the old adage? I may not agree with a thing you say but I will defend your right to say it.
Have you considered exorcising your right to just turn off whatever it is that you don’t want to hear?
Worse, consider where your concept of censoring might end. Perhaps someone might censor you and your organization.
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Right on, Mr. Haskell. Classic socialism…the writer of the story and the foreword unfortunately forgot that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” That would clear a lot of the problems ALL sides sadly experience with media!
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It’s too bad the foreword’s author feels it necessary to use the Lord’s name in vain to make a point. I got his point without the offensive phrase. And I guess freedom of speech is ok as long as its your freedom. That’s sad and classic socialism.
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To Mr. Jardine’s comments: I used to write a lot of letters to The Standard, and even, for some time a Niagara Voices column, when the Burgoynes owned the newspaper, and even through the time of Osprey’s ownership. But since QMI bought them out, they have occasionally printed one from me, but the last was simply not printed, although kept to under 150 words, full name, etc. and non-controversial issue. This is because, I believe, I have pointed out to them the many errors in their cut-off columns [mid-sentence], their pandering to politicians who send in letters they like which are well over 150 words (more like 400) or others they see as in authority or whose politics they like. When I asked politely if my letter was not printed because of these concerns, I did not receive the courtesy of a reply. So you and I are in bad company together, I guess, Mr. Jardine.
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A bit late to comment but there is a video on You Tube showing just how low FAUX can go. There are photos of two folks with whom FOX had divergent views. Their photos were altered to make them look almost hideous compared to their real appearances. If people didn’t know what the gentlemen really looked like one would think they were horribly deformed. That is not just disagreeing with somebody else’s opinions but sheer manipulation of facts. They’ll try anything to convince their audiences. Meanwhile, their “reporters” spout blatant lies and have even been caught on video but deny doing so.
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As I have clearly stated here, numerous times, I am a small-c conservative.
But when I see someone such as Andy Petrowski slamming Doug’s godam comment as “classic socialism,” I have to jump in here and tell the bible-thumper that his kind of southern US ultra-right wing bullshit is unwelcome!
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