Vancouver News Subpar

Without doubt news reporting in Vancouver is biased and the worst I've seen anywhere in a large city in North America.

Residents have to start treating this issue more seriously and find other sources that reflect more accurately how we, on the West coast fit into the global landscape.

Insularity is an anchor, not a badge of honor.

Support Structure.

The 'support structure' behind the newspaper biz is advertising and sales.

Stop paying for their fishwrappers.

Ignore the birdcage liners.

They are best used as firelighters or packing materials.

Once the advertisers give up on these press then something can be done, until that happens then I expect the command and control levers to beat ever harder on the staff in all of their 'controlled' media.

educational initiatives

I went to a school funded by Asper money. At the school in response to some of their conservative constructs, I learned how to be innovative and radical. Also with any institution, there were a diversity of perspectives and mentors, the ones who were there to inspire, I learned from and those that were there for a check, I learned what not to do, which is arguably just as useful. (Of course while learning what not to do, I was also missing out on real education from qualified instructors and that still pisses me off. GRRRR!)

Marc Edge's book might shame CanWest into doing its job

Marc Edge, David Beers, The Tyee, a great, important topic.

I've always thought that CanWest's newsrooms in B.C., at least, must be in campaign mode all the time. They elect specific governments, specific premiers; they destroy others. Easy.

Does Marc Edge's book discuss the virtual media silence on the Basi Virk Basi / B.C. Rail trial? It should.

There's a tragedy unfolding on the West Coast of Canada -- the Basi-Virk trial is only the canary in the mineshaft -- with a province-wide revelation needing to be told. And isn't being told. We know that CanWest is OK with that. But I often wonder why The Globe and Mail or CBC can't investigate this massive story.

They can't say the BC Rail trial isn't important, involving a provincial government, a prime minister, Canada's 3rd largest railway, and a few major U.S. corporations, all under suspicion. No, CanWest just looks the other way. They opt out. "When there's news, we'll report it," a CanWest editor-in-chief told me, the day after sending a reporter to a pre-trial hearing and deciding "nothing happened" so no report.

My blog at http://bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com/ has been trying to fill part of that vaccum. And yes, I've had Real Journalists (i.e., who get paid) tell me they read my blog regularly and say "Keep going, it's important." But I would be one of the happiest citizens if the media would step up and do their own work.

I hope Marc Edge's book helps to push CanWest or CRTC or legislators to do the job expected of a democratic news media. One of the commentors above really nailed it by saying that Canada provided these Aspers with refuge from oppressive regimes and it's fair now to ask: is this how they repay us?

Newspapering is a rich man's game though. And the pipers still play their tune.

Thanks, BC Mary

...whoever you are...

I've given up getting anything like remotely objective news coverage from Global. And I think, had the NDP or some other party tried some of the bold but objectionable ploys the Liberals have gotten away with, there would have been plenty of ink spilled at Pacific Press and a change of government.

I look forward to the rest of this four-part series.

Rupert Murdoch

Just released news today that he is waiving the online subscription fee of $50.00 and making the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) free to online subscribers.
This has the New York Times (NYT) shaking in their boots.
The WSJ, was one of the few online offerings that made a success of online subscription fees bring in 50 million a year ( one million subscribers )
The theory is that if they can fetch 20 or 35 million readers per day, that advertisers will flock to advertise on his website.
Oh, how I admire brilliant people.
This will mean of course that millions of people will now get exposure to the WSJ editorials, which are very pro capitalist, pro American, pro conservative economic policies being exposed to more people than the NYT can get to listen to their BS.
It's a beautiful thing.
Meanwhile, here at this website, there seems to be an obsession against Canwest Media that has been going on for years.
I don't get it.
Are you starved of sources of information?
Are you elitist? Thinking that the common man cannot sort out the information available to him?
That the average guy is dumber than you and needs protection from evil corporations?
It's definitely weird how this argument keeps coming up over and over.
There is no problem. If you don't like Canwest, then don't support them, but this constant attack is so stupid, I have never seen anything like it.

Prime Minister Stephen "Fox" Harper

I notice a similarity between CanWest's centralized control of its newspaper editorial content and Prime Minster Harper's centralized control of everything in Ottawa. I won't say that Harper was the first leader to centralize control. Bloc Québécois MPs need Gilles Duceppe's permission to say anything to the media.

I do remember when Harper first tried to run his own press briefing that I think he chose a CanWest Global reporter first. Hmm.

I think I'll boycott Global News. I'll get my political e!ntertainment from E! instead. "Is Stéphane Dion sinking like the Titanic while Céline Dion's voice wails/whales in the background?"

I thought you might Maurice

Even the inflection and timbre of the voice - without understanding a word of what he had to say aurally - was hilarious.

I have a friend who sends me stuff like that – I’d never find it myself – but he understands my sense of humour.

Glad you enjoyed it.

Giving to universities

And he suggests that journalism schools, including UBC's, stop taking millions of dollars in funding from CanWest and other big media corporations. "The Aspers, in talking about their educational initiative, have been clear in saying they want to change Canadian minds not just through their news media, but by educating journalists the 'right' way," says Edge.

All very nice but here's the thing.

To take over other media companies, the buyer must present the CRTC with a package of ''social benefits'' equal to 10 per cent of the deal.

Giving to journalism schools is standard and, to my mind, a perfectly appropriate use of the benefits.

It's a one-shot deal, by fiat. It's not as if the deans have to make nice to get renewal or ongoing funding.

My guess is, the Aspers would rather fund some building or cause in Winnipeg but that wouldn't impress the CRTC much.

In any case, I don't think they micromanage j-school admissions or hiring practices. It's been my experience that journalism profs have been very outspoken against media concentration.

The trouble is, the media don't publish their comments.

Ay, there's the rub, Antonia

There aren't enough places where the critics can capture a sufficiently large audience to make much of a splash and there’s the traditional Canadian suspicion of pretty much anything that comes out of a university of any kind.

Surely though, the concentration levels are already so high that any further mergers and acquisitions can't possibly get a thumbs up if the CRTC is going to remain at all relevant as a regulator.

That's why, I think, Edge used Vancouver (although it would be equally true to say the same thing about everything west of Winnipeg) as the place most appropriate for some kind of symbolic move toward meaningful diversity.

I keep wishing you'd come out here for a few months Antonia. Even someone as acutely aware of the media markets across the country would find the situation here to be utterly bizarre.

Drinks are on me! Standing offer.

And by the way

As a kind of primer on what's going on out here, in case you do decide to visit, here's an excellent place to start:

http://corkyevans.kootenayactivist.ca/blog/

I think he makes the point very effectively that this isn't a battle against specific people so much as it is a question of combating an ideology.

Moreover, I think that's equally true of the Aspers and the media.

University funding ...

Quote:

"The trouble is, the media don't publish their comments."

True ... but university "students" will.

I spent the latter part of the 90's developing online strategies that "indirectly" encouraged students to undermine major record labels.

At the time, universities tried to prevent students from using school servers to trade music online, but to little avail. The more they tried, the more the indie music industry developed and encouraged students to pursue workarounds.

Trading music through university servers eventually became less of an issue because servers funded by the independent music industry started popping up everywhere. A few years later the entire world gravitated to trading music through generic p2p networks.

Today, universities won't be able to gag students regarding journalism any more than they did yesterday regarding music.

Granted, and I fully agree that students don't have the collective and hypnotic draw of music to keep them focused on the news dilemma, but once they have a reason they'll attack it with similar vigor. First though, they need to feel a personal connection, and have a vested interest.

Unfortunately, average young adults start to develop a more serious interest in the news in their late 20's, which I also agree makes my university/music analogy weak, but the point is, all it takes is one event to get the ball rolling.

Social media is a powerful tool that we barely understand.

Advertising is out. Promotion is in.

It will be interesting to see what happens at UBC when the class of 2010 realizes the Olympics will negatively impact their plans to graduate on time and budget. It happens in other Olympics regions and there is no reason to believe it won't happen here too.

Students will become incensed when they also realize that local mainstream news media has been spreading misinformation, and that media is on the Olympic payroll.

I think that qualifies as "vested interest."

If you thought Cambie businesses created a ruckus, wait until you see how quickly UBC students voice their Olympics displeasure through the next FaceBook du jour.

Don't underestimate youth. They shoot from the hip and are quick to the draw. Shawn Fanning, Napster, is a good example. At first, and from a legal context, he didn't have a clue what he was doing, and when his attorney told him ... he didn't care, so the RIAA had to take him to court to stop him. As soon as they did, KaZZa popped up, then Grokster, then another and another.

Here's what I wrote about this issue in early 2006 in my blog and book.

Media Tells Students Half Truths
http://www.olyblog.com/f/06/SchoolsCloseF10192006.shtml#UNIVERSITY

Students Take a Hit
http://www.olyblog.com/f/06/UniversitiesF10162006.shtml

google news asper v. tyee

Im curious, whenever I check google.ca/news, I never see a Tyee article listed in the headlines; why is that? I see articles posted by MSM (CanWest rags, CTV, T-Star, Globe and Mail, etc.) but no articles from the Tyee. What keeps the Tyee out of the loop?

Here's the Google.ca news

This is the page; shouldn't many of the topics the Tyee writes about reach here. Isn't the online readership enough for the tags to catch? I know that the Tyee doesn't often break news, but certainly investigative reports break new ground on older topics, essentially breaking/destroying the old news reports.

http://news.google.ca/nwshp?oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&q=

I found an answer

I think this source probably gives a true description of how Google, googles its news. Perhaps The Tyee can find a way to make its articles seem more "newsworthy" for Google etc. without jumping aboard the Paris Hilton boat. Come to think of it, perhaps that is part of why The Tyee has begun publishing the periodic MSM media review article, thereby tossing about phrases that online engines could find to their liking. If that is part of the reasoning, I hope it works.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2160891