http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=636567
Why wasn’t this in any of the major newspapers, bar the National Post? Toronto Star, Metro news, BBC, CNN…none of these major news outlets deemed it newsworthy to showcase a story on the thousand-strong Tamilian protest in Toronto. Compare this to the mind-blowing amount of media attention the Pride Parade has received this past week where the attendance was close to that at Downsview Park on July 5th and you’ll see why Western media may be “liberal” but not objective or free.
I have one main question in my mind: why, as an informed and tax-paying citizen of Canada, am I kept in the dark about key current world politics knowledge by my own media? Am I expected to be in the right place at the right time to catch the action? This wasn’t just some minor protest against something trivial, either. This protest had to do with a new ban on a Tamil group and all its members being labeled as terrorists. With 45.7% of Toronto’s population being foreign-born, this new ban affects more than one group by setting a precedent for other such cases, not to mention the 200, 000-strong Tamil (South Asian, Sri Lankan) community in the GTA who will be directly or indirectly affected by the ban and need to be “in the know”.
Most people in Toronto, or even Canada, are not as news-savvy, preferring to enlist in only one or two sources to keep themselves informed. This is clearly displayed in the demand for such dailies as “Metro News” which is a free newspaper doling out general interest articles, as well as the harder news stories, often derived from other sources. In short (pun intended), the articles are edited to the bare minimum and give only key information, saving the reader time. This is due to the predominantly central-Toronto commuter readership, who have only 20 minutes on the subway or bus to catch up on world happenings. I can’t hold that against them, since the average Canadian works 36.5 hours and there is just no time or want for investigation and further research on article snippets. Also, catching up on news, for many, is unnecessary so the main news outlets are pressured to educate and inform the millions who choose to base their opinions solely on their writing.
Everyday, a news source has to choose which stories are more interesting and will draw readers/ watchers/ listeners so that they can stay afloat, pay the employees, and make money. “The newspaper is not in the business of telling the news, it’s in the business of selling newspapers” my grade 6 teacher, Mr. Emtige, once quoted me. As long as this continues to ring true, important news items will continue to be jiffed and Canada’s media will continue to be slanted.
3 Comments
July 10, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Hi.
Having just commented on a similar blog, i will repeat my comment here.
The media lies for a living. I think it was in 1915 or so, J.P. Morgan approached a bunch of news editors and commissioned them to find out what it would take to control the media. The found that by controlling the most prominent newspapers, they would be able to control the rest. This was mainly due to smaller concerns taking their “lead” from the more trusted, and bigger newspapers.
So, As i watched the UK parliament information commission questioning the major groups, the representitive of Reuters stated that about 95% of their funding came from financial concerns.
In other words, the financial sector controls the news. Smaller local papers subscribe to Reuters and other press agencies for their news. It is no suprise then that we find the diverse range of news media around the world repeating the Reuters reports as gospel.
The News is bought and paid for. Alternative news across the internet has shaken the establishment press to the core. It is more accurate, and involves input from interested parties rather than people on the payroll.
Considering that the financial interests are on a quest for world domination, You wont get reports of dissent to their programmes. It is as simple as that.
July 11, 2008 at 7:10 pm
But this is only in the West, no? I would assume that a similar thing is going on in all areas of the world with media, but even in India it seemed that the media reported on more relevant events and covered them more accurately. Maybe it’s just Canada, U.S.A, Europe that has such a biased media.
This makes me very worried for the future of journalism that it isn’t our own stories being published, but whatever the paying customer wants. How is it even possible to find an objective honest and free news source? Almost impossible, since even the liberal papers are biased towards “greenification” and left-thinking ideologies.
It’s logical that the funding would come from financial concerns because that is what pays the writers, editors, and keeps the newspapers alive, so it’s inevitable. The problem arises when world-wide events, and even ones in the local community, are pushed aside to make way for soft special-interest articles (how to plant a garden that will last the summer!) and items that are just not as relevant right now(yet another article , to add to the hundreds, on the double life Mr. Entwhistle lived before killing his wife and child). Then it becomes a question of that news is. The definition, and therefore the contents of news sources, will be modeled around the more popular answer. That’s what scares me. That the public is more apt to divulge in a gardening article than understand the diverse communities around them and the struggles they face.
July 12, 2008 at 8:34 pm
katiadmitrieva
Beware of the left/right paradigm. We swing from one party to the next. We have to break this chain as it sucks us into the political pigsty. We muse over semantics and miss the big picture.
This is intended to keep us all concentrating on rubbish while the elites press the agenda. The public are, in general, repeaters. They repeat the same news they get through what they believe are trusted stories. It is an illusion. It is played out across the globe.