AndWeShouldAllBecomeHisCornermenVille
Rafe Mair, who was clearly fighting back despair and a reflexive need to upchuck while responding to the egregious comments of Val Roddick during CBC Radio One's post-election coverage last Tuesday night, has come out swinging in his piece this morning in The Tyee.
Specifically, he's naming names and throwing haymakers at those who would not allow him to speak about the biggest issue that was rarely discussed during the election campaign, those independent power projects that are being instituted on a scale that will strangle a number of our waterways and will cost us at least $30 billion dollars in the short term.
Anti-green and bad economic management combined.....Funny how Mr. Campbell and his Twitter Ninnies didn't want to talk about that eh?
Here's just a taste of what Rafe had to say:
.....I do a regular political panel on Monday mornings on CBC radio and I begged for a year to have this issue and the fish farms debacle on the agenda. They never were unless I crammed it into an answer to an entirely different question. I was told that last week they did an entire program on it but in spite of the fact that I'm a CBC "regular," as official spokesperson for Save Our Rivers Society, I was not invited. (I expect after saying this I will be let go as part of their budget cuts.)
Again and again I asked political columnists Vaughn Palmer of the Sun and Mike Smyth of the Province to deal with this issue but not a peep. If what I said was wrong, surely the media would have said so and why......
{snippety-doo-dah}....During the 14 months I was traveling the province, speaking to full houses, nary one "journalist" from the two main Vancouver dailies and Global-BCTV, ever asked me a single question. Save Our Rivers Society, who hired me in part because I'm a broadcaster with a Michener Award, the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Award winner and member of the Broadcaster's Hall of Fame, might just as well hired a fencepost with hair for all the attention the media paid this issue.....
In total, Mr. Mair pointed very pointed fingers at Shaw, CKNW, Corus, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Smyth, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province, Black Press, Global, CanWest and, most egregious of all, the CBC.
So.
How to deal with this blatant media bias?
And don't kid yourself, deal with it we must.
Because, now that they've won you can be sure that the Corptocracy that is really running this province will be sure to utilize such bias, much of it monopolistic, to the hilt next time around....
Well, firstly, the CBC is an issue I'll deal with at a later time (because it is quite a different problem).
But as for the rest?
I have three suggestions:
1) Give independent media endeavours money.....Two such endeavours that I recommend most highly right now, because they generate stories that the media monopolists cannot ignore, are The Tyee and Public Eye.
2) Don't buy and/or consume monopolist media. Seriously.... Just stop....Right now.
3) Identify and support, with money and help, any organization, political party and/or political candidate who promises to work towards legislation that will bust the media monopolists.
Now.....
Number 1 is easy where we can make a difference right now.
Number 2 is tougher, but not impossible.... I did it for a month with CKNW during the election campaign..... and now I'm ready to give going whole hog a try.....
Number 3 is the hardest..... However, it is also someting the progressive Bloggodome could work towards in an effort to affect real change.......because I am convinced that it is the media trusts, like so many trusts before them, that must be busted in the name of the public good.
OK?
_____
In fairness, Rafe did single out Mark Hume of the Globe for praise for covering the issue in some depth. He also points out that the Globe's BC bureau, overall, did a better job covering the election than did both of Lotusland's CanWest dailies.....I agree, and would argue that that's the kind of thing true media competition gets you.....
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