Discussions

Now the liberals want to control the media  
 
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/video?clipId=1890569  
 
How does everyone feel about this?

I am no liberal butI have long believed that the media is out of control (social media i:ncluded). It’s a sensitive thing but there is too much misinformation out there and media can become far too intrusive Prince Harry and Megan and Princess Diana for example. On the other hand too much control and you quickly become a police state like China , North Korea, Russia. Not sure how you strike the right balance.

I agree there needs to be a balance, and how that would be struck is not clear. Obviously, the minister interviewed himself is unsure how this would be accomplished. With television it's simpler, but the Internet vastly complicates things. I'm not sure how what the report proposes would be accomplished without blocking certain sites, and again the question of who decides what's right and what's "fake news"?  
 
I'm reading a very interesting book right now about Trump and the cultus that surrounds him. While the author clearly has an anti-Trump agenda (and he states as much in the opening pages in case there was any confusion, lol), I find a lot of what he has to say about the role media plays to be spot-on.  
 
One of the defining characteristics of a legitimate, trusted news sources is the fact they publish errata. Legitimate news sources will say, "we were wrong", or "we got the facts wrong" and try to correct it. It doesn't happen too often (part of journalistic integrity is to try to get it right the first time), but it does happen occasionally. But a lot of the alt-facts news sources won't publish errata. They either insist that their version of the facts are correct (even in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise), or they will ignore it and pretend it never happened.  
 
The author levels a lot of criticism against the likes of Breibart and Fox News that I think he applies unfairly to them (because I see some of the same things on CNN etc), but on that particular aspect I think he's spot-on.

Whatever little bit of free speech you have while you still have it.  
 
In my opinion, the mainstream media wants it to be like it used to be, back when they were the only source of news. They also have always, in recent decades anyway, been mildly to strongly left-wing biased. They hate the fact that the whole truth manages to get out via alternative media sources, even though the mainstream media has chosen to omit the truth from their reporting.  
 
The more diverse media sources we have, the better off we are. People can decide for themselves what sounds or appears to credible. Trudeau doesn't want the truth to get out and neither does the mainstream media. It sounds also like another cash grab in the form of licensing too.  
 
Edited by Triplethreat, 2020-02-03 16:48:02

I thought the liberal party already bought loyalty/control of the media back when it bailed them out for the paltry sum of nearly a billion dollars last year, conveniently right before the election.  
 
I guess they weren't getting the amount of blind loyalty they were hoping for so they decided to pursue it this way ?

I do agree that businesses making money in Canada from Canadians should be subject to some form of fee or taxation. I would absolutely approve of mega companies contributing to the economy.  
 
However, the idea of licensing and controlling the "truthfulness" of content is a blatant attack on free speech and, if it were happening in another country, Trudeau would quickly be atop his soap box espousing the need for human rights globally. This also flies in the face of the current government's push to succumb to the new world order that is the UN.  
 
We use examples such as North Korea, China and Iran to demonstrate how state controlled media is disastrous. Let is not take any further steps down that road.  
 
Edited by JustASoul, 2020-02-03 17:24:55

Will never happen but if we could have a licence funded broadcaster something like the BBC it could provide us with more impartial reporting. Things are very commercial here and it tends to sway the information given.