01 March 11
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America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin
barricades - against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate
toadies at Fox News - fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can
take comfort from a significant victory north of the Wisconsin border.
Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canadian
regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.
Canada's Radio Act
requires that "a licenser may not broadcast ... any false or misleading
news." The provision has kept Fox News and right-wing talk radio out of
Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and
freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news
coverage, including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative
journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan
abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada
is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that
have pretty much disappeared on the US airwaves. When Stephen Harper
moved to abolish the anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians
rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest
non-partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan,
biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who
listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper's proposal was timed to
facilitate the launch of a new right-wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."
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| Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper takes part in an event at the Library of Parliament on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, 02/28/11. (photo: Chris Wattie/Reuters) |
Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini
Me," is known for having mounted a Bush-like war on government
scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general.
He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false
patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.
Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian
television are a stark admission that right-wing political ideology can
only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since
corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a
political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of
corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with
the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock
puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons, have become the
masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News'
notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is
a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly
avoided.
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