Imagine for a moment that we’re in the middle of a presidential election. Now imagine that late in the campaign Rupert Murdoch publishes an editorial in the New York Post condemning a high level Republican campaign strategist for passing along incorrect information about the Democratic nominee to Fox News.
Kind of hard to picture, I know.
But what if it turned out that this same campaign strategist had, before the election, been paid to help with the creation of Fox News?
Getting a bit preposterous, right?
Well, that’s basically what recently happened in Canada, plus a multitude of related disconcerting events. Allow me to lay out one of the stranger media narratives to emerge from up north since Alan Thicke’s son became a Grammy-winning heartthrob.
Fox News North
The media mogul in the Canadian example is Pierre Karl Péladeau, whose company owns the national Sun newspaper chain and the newly launched Sun News Network cable channel, among many other properties. Both the papers and the nascent channel are known for their small-c conservative point of view. They talk about abhorring political correctness, about having a sense of humor, about standing up for real Canadians, and about focusing on the real issues that mater. They talk about these things endlessly, as evidenced in a Sun News Network promo video that’s abusively masturbatory even for an acknowledged piece of promotion.
The Sun properties also love to pick on the publicly funded national broadcaster, CBC. What else? In true tabloid tradition, each day the papers provide readers with a titillating photo of a comely young SUNshine girl. Sample accompanying text: “SUNshine Girl Amanda, 21, shows off her hard-earned gym bod in a pair of tighty whities.” (Whatever you think of that kind of content, the papers have nurtured many quality journalists over the years, and their emergence beginning in the early 1970s brought a different perspective to Canadian news.)
When Sun News Network launched earlier this month, that day’s SUNshine girl was Krista Erickson, one of the channel’s news anchors. She dressed in what qualified as dignified SUNshine Girl attire, including a well-tailored hockey jersey. Sample accompanying text: “As host of Sun News Network’s Canada Live, Krista is unapologetically patriotic and not afraid to call it like it is.” (Erickson used to work for the CBC, but things kind of went sour for her there.)
Sun News became a lightning rod for criticism long before its launch, thanks largely to the fact that the channel’s license application said it intended to emulate some of the characteristics of Fox News. Once that news broke, the channel became known by some as Fox News North. The channel also initially sought a license that would have required all Canadian cable and satellite providers to carry the network. That led to online campaigns against Sun News.
Some objected to being forced to pay for this kind of programming. Others objected to the network’s existence, period. To the folks at Sun News, that smacked of censorship. The fight was on.
The protests against Sun News went international when Avaaz, an organization with operations in different countries, got into the fight and set up a petition against the channel. Soon people like author Margaret Atwood were signing up and speaking out about the channel and the alleged backing of it by the country’s Conservative government.
That resulted in a reply in the Sun papers from Kory Teneycke, the newly recruited vice president in charge of setting up the network. If Péladeau is the equivalent of Murdoch in this tale, then Teneycke is Roger Ailes. After all, his notable previous gig was as head of communications for Canadian Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.
“All of these lies, half-truths and slander underline the need for Sun TV News. Canadians deserve better from their media, and we are committed to providing it,” Teneycke wrote.
This piece shows why you're the award-winning journalist you are, Craig.
You outline this very convoluted situation beautifully.
If Sun News is now skeptical about anything coming from the CPC--then that could be good news.
The sad thing is that many who saw, and bought, the original "story" didn't get, or care about the truth--the first casualty of any war.
#1 Posted by Christine Peets, CJR on Fri 29 Apr 2011 at 06:23 PM
Apparently Sun News Channel saw some of the Onion News Network and didn't get the joke.
#2 Posted by Steve, CJR on Fri 29 Apr 2011 at 06:40 PM
Some useful background:
Garrett M. Graff: "The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Terror" (2011):
"When Bucknam told Knowles in mid-2000 that Freeh wanted a dozen new legats, Knowles was ready with a detailed list, heavily researched, the product of hundreds of hours of work by a team of analysts. Topping it, surprisingly, was a recommendation for a new suboffice in Vancouver. Hundreds of leads each year ended in the British Columbian capital, and it was a pain for the legats in Ottawa to travel there" (255).
The Karachi Pakistan of Canada, Vancouver, is not the capital of BC, but otherwise the data are apt:
"Four days before she was publicly endorsed by Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was acquitted of mass murder in the Air India bombing, Conservative candidate Wai Young attended a private fundraising meeting also attended by Mr. Malik and about a dozen other potential supporters, according to a campaign worker who was there." (Globe and Mail)
From my comment at the CBC:
[Perhaps we have already forgotten about the story in The Province, October 2008, "Liberals question $600,000 grant." (CIC grant to Wai Young).
That Elections Canada has not begun a systematic investigation of all the Conservative rackets in relation to ethnic media and immigrant files is a sign of its obsolescence.
In Kim Bolan's article today in The Vancouver Sun, "Malik defends support of Conservative," Malik is said to have said that "[Wai Young] promised that she will be faithful to us--the Sikh nation." She promised to support the Sikh nation. Young's currency is not philosophy. It is money.
What we have here could be termed a cascade of bribery.
Systematically, the Conservatives are trying to twist the ethnic media. How is it possible Elections Canada has been unable to read the signs?
How is it possible that Elections Canada has not issued a strong warning on Mike Duffy-style frauds in the media? Angling for benefits by turning media attack dog. (Appointing Mike to the Senate after his butchery of Dion was fraudulent.)
Having spent months in Vancouver interviewing the players in immigrant English scams, I know that Harper is consciously providing funding to buy votes without requiring performance in return. That is a violation of elections legislation on bribery.]
Reflexively, The Vancouver Sun editorial this morning: "Conservative majority needed to see us through turbulent times:"
"The Conservatives can provide the U.S. with the assurance it needs that Canada is a reliable bulwark against terrorism, thus preventing further thickening of the border, which would hurt all Canadians."
This is pure fantasy. Ripudaman Singh Malik is a known terrorist funder, and one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. The federal Conservatives in Canada are employing Citizenship and Immigration funding as a massive electoral slush fund to buy votes and the ethnic media. If the electoral strategy means eventually funding terrorists, so be it.
Ironically, both The Globe and Mail and The Vancouver Sun, in endorsing Harper, have ignored their own reporting on Malik and Young. Both editorials should be updated to reflect this reality.
If terrorists and cartels become even more entrenched in British Columbia as a result of these political machinations, then the Canadian media will have to share the blame.
If Vancouver turns out to be the staging area for multiple attacks on Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, Americans should not be surprised.
#3 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Sat 30 Apr 2011 at 01:17 PM
Clayton Burns
9:46 PM on April 30, 2011
Julian Fantino.
If Julian Fantino had nothing to do with the police notebook leak about NDP Jack, I would be surprised. However, if he did, Canadian reporters will never catch on. They will be too busy asking Jack about whether the place looked "sketchy."
What they must teach in journalism schools these days.
This election has been an extreme embarrassment for the Canadian media.
(The Globe and Mail).
#4 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Sat 30 Apr 2011 at 09:52 PM
How to pass up a news story: If you enjoy clinical journalism, the current federal election in Canada is a case study in how to get completely lost in trying to report the news. Perhaps we could get some help from America, with its experience of Nixon's little helpers:
[Toronto police illegally bugged ex-chair: tapes
Last Updated: Friday, November 19, 2010 | 5:41 PM ET CBC News
Ex-head of police oversight board outraged over wiretaps
Secret recordings obtained by CBC News offer proof that Toronto police conducted illegal eavesdropping on a former police board chair.
There have been allegations for years that police began spying on their civilian boss, Susan Eng, beginning in May 1991, days after she was sworn in.
Then police chief Bill McCormack and Julian Fantino — superintendent of detectives at the time and later police chief and OPP commissioner — have repeatedly refused to say whether they requested or were aware of the surveillance.]
The last minute attempt to twist the Canadian election by the unattributed release of raw police notes has all the fingerprints of Julian Fantino (MP) on it. It is a perfect symbolic event, revealing the depths of the mind of the Prime Minister. Such as that organ is. We can't manage our own affairs. We need to be made an American colony.
#5 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Sat 30 Apr 2011 at 10:36 PM