Canadians shouldn't be denied Fox News (A pro-Fox Canadian!)

The Globe and Mail ^ | Wednesday, April 28 2004 | Rod Love

[RegT]

Canadians shouldn't be denied Fox News

By ROD LOVE Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - Page A19

Canada made The New York Times last weekend, and that is never a good thing.

Whenever Canada is mentioned in the Times, it is either because something bad is happening (last month's "Sponsorship Scandal Rocks Governing Party"), or something quirky is going on -- quirky in the sense that our American friends think we are acting in a strange, but quaint sort of way.

Canada won the coveted half-page "Word for Word" column in Sunday's Week In Review section because the nationalist culturecrats at the CRTC continue to try to exercise an outdated mandate to control the television that Canadians can watch.

To recap, U.S.-based Fox News wants to broadcast its 24-hour news channel in Canada, the CRTC turned them down, The Globe and Mail's television columnist John Doyle applauded the CRTC decision and, at the same time, fired some of the usual broadsides that the political left reserves for Fox.

That prompted a flood of cross-border e-mails between supporters of Fox and The Globe's John Doyle, which appeared in the Sunday Times. Entertaining reading to be sure, but the larger issue that is at play here is hardly quirky. Set aside for the moment that Fox News is the dominant news network in the United States, leaving the increasingly dreary CNN far behind. (Never mind CBS, ABC and NBC, which have been reduced to marginal status, sandwiching tame news items between ads for new products for seniors.)

Set aside also that Fox anchor Bill O'Reilly then called The Globe's readers "pinheads," and that The Globe's TV critic responded with the cerebral rejoinder that Fox News is actually "hilarious" and its viewers "uncivil, abusive and foul-mouthed creatures."

The real issue for Canadians in all this is that in the year 2004, there is still a federal-government agency, stacked with Liberal patronage appointees and bureaucrats, that actually has a mandate to try to determine what Canadians may or watch on television, or not.

Social engineering, not free speech, is alive and well in Paul Martin's Timid New World.

You think that the sponsorship scandal is a scandal? The CRTC's budget, mandate, power and very existence is a scandal.

The global television signals that Canadians desire to watch belong to no government. A country that is secure in the knowledge of what it stands for, a society that is comfortable in the values it represents, and a culture that is robust enough to entertain criticism, would normally be strong enough to welcome the competing views of the rest of the global community.

That is not what the CRTC is saying as it frustrates a controversial but thought-provoking channel from broadcasting in our country.

Far from strengthening our so-called cultural sovereignty, the CRTC weakens our culture by essentially telling Canadians they are not mature enough to watch what they want.

When Fox first applied in 2000, the CRTC told the network it could broadcast in Canada, but only a Canadian version.

Huh?

Did anybody tell CBS to broadcast a "Canadian version" of the Evening News with Dan Rather? Did the CRTC tell that to ABC or NBC?

Did Ottawa instruct the Beeb to add more Canadian content before Mishal Husain does her BBC World News gig?

Our beloved CBC runs more clips from Al-Jazeera than from Fox News, and Al-Jazeera is not exactly a beacon of objective journalism.

Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

Fox News is applying once again to broadcast in Canada. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (an anachronistic title in 2004, if there ever was one) is applying a separate standard to Fox News than it does to, say, the woolly-headed lefties at the BBC, for the simple reason that Fox News is an unabashedly conservative news network.

You can just hear the bureaucrats in Ottawa discussing in apocalyptic terms what they fear would happen if Canadians were exposed to a steady diet of televised, pro-American, conservative debate. "They might begin to believe it for goodness sake!"

This and any future federal Liberal government will warily entertain a certain amount of non-threatening, liberal-sympathetic, non-Canadian media, but they are deathly afraid of conservative cultural competition, and they are using the state, through the CRTC, to deny Canadians the right to choose. That, by any other name, is censorship -- a new Canadian value.

The reason last Sunday's New York Times page on all this was so entertaining was that it represented an exciting and robust debate about issues that matter. Which is exactly what the CRTC doesn't want you to see on television.

Rod Love, a Calgary-based political and communications consultant, was chief of staff to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein and a senior adviser to former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day.

[RegT]

This is a good sign that I am not the only Canadian driven up the wall by Paula Zahn, Aaron Brown, and co. on CNN and Chris "softball" Matthews on MSNBC. If the gov't persists in censoring FOX, I will have to go to gray-market satellite, something I have been reluctant to do.

[Billthedrill]

Social engineering, not free speech, is alive and well in Paul Martin's Timid New World.

A BTT for a great line.

[quidnunc]

Duplicate post — the original is here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1126029/posts

[muawiyah]

Remember that movie "Escape from New York"? Manhattan Island had become a prison run by the inmates. Nobody went in. Nobody could get out.

NYC was a great setting for that particular concept in a dramatic presentation.

In reality it's been Canada that turned into a prison ~ one of thoughts. None are created, none are imported.

You guys are all supposed to be deliriously happy over this state of affairs.

(PS, I'd have gotten the satellite connection long ago, and some guns too! You're gonna' need both, particularly when we 'Muricans have to start giving you secret instructions on escape routes South ~ kind of a reverse "Underground Railroad")

[WHBates]

"If the gov't persists in censoring FOX, I will have to go to gray-market satellite, something I have been reluctant to do."

I'm sorry but I don't understand the term "gray-market" satellite? Do they even restrict what you can receive by satellite? Maybe, you are just indicating that you don't want the hassle of satellite reception which I can understand if you use cable INTERNET access as well a TV.

[Mitchell]

Ping.

[forYourChildrenVote4Bush]

You see, for people who want FOX news, like myself and others, the only way to get it is by buying a satellite basic package and than going out and getting a "cracked" card which enables you to view all 800000 channels, including FOX...So the CRTC really knows how to make money, they allow PORN but not FOX...All I have to say is:

Screw all the Leftist/Socialists/Appeasers; it is because of them that there is a WAR:

WAR solves/solved ALL conflicts, Appeasement only brings WAR.

People need to understand this…

NO MORE Appeasement !
HO HO HEY HEY Appeasement HAS GO !

I had to get that in!!!!!!

[End Times Sentinel]

Two things here:

 

...U.S.-based Fox News wants to broadcast its 24-hour news channel in Canada, the CRTC turned them down, The Globe and Mail's television columnist John Doyle applauded the CRTC decision...

The Liberal’s Little Red Book:

Rule 1:  "Dissent must be crushed".

 

---

I have to say that if a Canadian News network was broadcasted here in America (and one may be, I don't wander up to the high channels too often) I'd have absolutely zero interest in watching it.  It would be news from a Canadian perspective, and being an American, what would I care about that?  Why would they want FOX News?

Owl_Eagle

”Guns Before Butter.”

Two things here:

...U.S.-based Fox News wants to broadcast its 24-hour news channel in Canada, the CRTC turned them down, The Globe and Mail's television columnist John Doyle applauded the CRTC decision...

Rule 1:  "Dissent must be crushed".

[WHBates]

LOL, glad I could give you the chance to do so.

[vandykelastone]

I called the CRTC only today and asked if FOx News was coming to Canada and was told they had applied a year ago but something was wrong with the application and it had to go back. Now they say the application review and comments, etc., can take up to a year. God, if you got a spare lightning bolt, you know where to direct it, don't you? Barf alert, nothing! This one should come with a "going off at both ends" alert.

[Allan]

That, by any other name, is censorship --
a new Canadian value.

I disagree with this sentence in an otherwise sensible article.

Censorship has long been a cherished Canadian value.

Canadians are the world's most obedient people
and have a deep need to be told by their masters
what to think and what to do.
Ultimately they do not need censorship imposed upon them
they willingly and joyfully censor themselves.

[NorthOf45]

Speak for yourself. Sorry, was that an independent thought?

[an amused spectator]

Media Shenanigans ping - The Canadian Media Left Doesn't Even Pretend To Be Objective

O'Really had a vile female Canadian columnist on last night. She was so left that she made the Merkun alphabet fraudworks look "objective".

On, Off, or grab it for a Media Shenanigans/Schadenfreude/PNMCH ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~anamusedspectator/

[-YYZ-]

And also here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1125620/posts

[-YYZ-]

Grey market because the US sattelite networks do not knowingly sell their equipment or services to Canadians, as they don't have the broadcast rights to do so. So the equipment can be bought in Canada with a "cracked" card, or with a US billing address.

At this point it would more correct to say "black market" as it is now actually illegal to own and operate the US dishes in Canada, although they are not actually prosecuting individuals. They know what kind of stink it would raise if they did.

[hardknocks]

That is typical, allow Porn but not a balanced look at world news. Make sense? No... Make me sick? Yes... It is pure and simple, they are scared for the Canadian public to learn the truth...

[HitmanLV]

There was a Canadian columnist on O'R Factor last eve and she was just hideous - condescening, smirking, sudden head movements and eye bulges, the works. No way she could have won any converts after that performance!

[Canadian Volunteer]

Said forYourChildrenVote4Bush,
"That is typical, allow Porn but not a balanced look at world news. Make sense? No... Make me sick? Yes... It is pure and simple, they are scared for the Canadian public to learn the truth..."

Gimme a break! Nobody ever accused Fox News of being balanced. And porn? Well, sorry if late-night viewing for adults when your kids should be in bed offends your sense of decency. Funny how someone can be shown as having their brains blown-out on broadcast television during primetime in the States. But God forbid that a flash-frame of a nipple makes it to air.

As for worrying that the Canadian public will learn the truth, might I ask whose truth? Rupert Murdoch's? Maybe you could use a little balance in your life

[Canadian Volunteer]

Does she have a name? Or is she to remain a stereortype?

[cynicom]

The Russians use to block the truth from getting to their citizens. Canadian socialism is not far behind.