Regulators Reject Proposal That Would Bring Fox-Style News to Canada


As 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 Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada 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 U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish 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."

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 is 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's notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/fox-news-will-not-be-moving-into-canada-after-all_b_829473.html

How come we don't have those kind of laws here?

Fox rightwing entertainment network would have to stop lying about being accurate news.

Wooow!!! I am so jealous of Canada. Too bad they have to do without a first amendment in order to enforce sanity in the news world. It gives me second thoughts about how I feel about the first amendment.

As long as they call it what it is I have no problem with the freedom of press.

It just plain isn't news. It is some kind of entertainment for rightwingers.

Well, we have ESPN = The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network

Why not 'Entertainment and Ignorant News Television' or EIN'T ('ain't' misspelled even though it's a nonstandard word - see what i did there?)

works for me.

And MSNBC tells nothing but the truth?

Bill Adair, the founding editor of PolitiFact National, appeared on CNN’s "Reliable Sources" Sunday, taking the opportunity to talk up the state-based PolitiFact efforts and defend a recent PolitiFact Wisconsin fact check of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

CNN’s host, Howard Kurtz, noted that all newspapers are supposed to check facts, but most, "except maybe in campaign time, aren't in this business."

"Why don't more newspapers do this?" Kurtz asked.

Adair replied: "Well, it takes a lot of resources. It takes a real commitment. And not only The St. Petersburg Times has been willing to do that, but as you noted, our eight state partners in Wisconsin and Texas and Ohio have also done that... They have to be willing to commit reporters and editors to journalism. That takes longer because this is not something you can do quickly."

Next, Kurtz turned to Maddow’s Feb. 24 declaration that PolitiFact Wisconsin blew it in rating False her earlier statement that "despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, the state is on track to have a budget surplus this year." Actually, Wisconsin has a shortfall.

But Maddow maintained that she already knew that, and repeatedly aired an excerpt of the Feb. 17 segment in which she also said: "There is in fact a $137 million budget shortfall." (You can read a transcript of the entire segment here.)

Maddow then resumed: "PolitiFact, you are wrong here on the facts, and bluntly. And you ought to correct it. Putting the word ‘fact’ in your name does not grant you automatic mastery of the facts."

Before CNN’s broadcast, Adair and the editor of PolitIFact Wisconsin responded online, saying Maddow in her Feb. 24 show used artful editing to tell an incomplete story .

Our Wisconsin colleagues examined her surplus claim because they had many requests from readers and it was the main subject that opened her Feb. 17 segment, which went on for nearly a minute. Her brief mention of the shortfall, which she linked to $140 million in tax breaks for businesses, came later. Still, PolitiFact Wisconsin acknowledged in its article that she made that point.

In her Feb. 24 criticism of PolitiFact, Maddow neglected to include her full quote in context: "There is in fact a $137 million budget shortfall. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, coincidentally, has given away $140 million worth of business tax breaks since he came into office. Hey, wait. That's about exactly the size of the shortfall."

That artful editing -- plus her failure to mention the budget surplus statement that PolitiFact Wisconsin did check -- deprived viewers of the full story. Our Badger State colleagues not only examined that claim, they also debunked the suggestion from Maddow and others that the tax breaks were the cause of the $137 million shortfall.

On Sunday’s program, CNN’s Kurtz asked Adair: "Did you make any mistakes here?"

"No," Adair said, adding that Maddow misled viewers by playing a nine-word video clip "without putting in context. If you look at what she said, both the longer claim that PolitiFact Wisconsin checked, plus that claim that she said PolitiFact Wisconsin should have checked, you can see that we made the right call. We checked the right fact. She made a claim that Wisconsin tonight has a budget surplus. That's False."

For more on PolitiFact’s research for the Maddow article, see PolititFact’s long look back, posted here, which also features the original video from Maddow’s Feb. 17 program. Also, to the right we’ve posted video of CNN’s Feb. 27 interview of Adair. The comprehensive analysis of Maddow’s incorrect statement appears here.

http://www.politifact.com/texas/article/2011/feb/28/context-matters-politifact-check-maddow/

no lying on the news,,wow, what a concept,,lol

seriously, we have much bigger badder lawyers here which make it harder to 'prove' that falsehoods are intentional

just FYI

text of us first amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.



from Canadian Charter of Rights and freedoms

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Fundamental Freedoms
Fundamental freedoms

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.

I don't care about Canada, but this article is pretty hilarious.