DarrenBarefoot.com

Thanks for your comment, Jeff. There’s an important distinction to be made here. PR companies bombard the media with text pitches, not completely produced news segments with associated broadcaster speeches. PR professionals are saying “hey, I think you should do a story about x”, while the government is saying “I think you should do a story about x and here’s the story, here’s how it will run, and here’s what you should say about it”. Heck, even lousy newspapers rewrite press releases, instead of just printing them as is.

Call me crazy, but I expect a news organization to actually document the news (whether by themselves or via a wire service), instead of accepting donated propaganda.

Furthermore, I think we should hold our governments to a higher standard than we hold the average company to. After all, they are supposed to be leading our nation.

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Hello, anonymous poster. If you’ve got some facts to back up that claim, I’d be pleased to hear them.

Let me start here: over 1000 mentions of the phrase sponsorship scandal on CBC’s website. Now, if they were puppets of the state, don’t you think that story would get less play? Or how about the 600 mentions about of the problems with the gun registry? Or, for a lighter side, how about the CBC’s line-up of highly influential political satire comedies?

Your turn.

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While I would take “state run” media of the CBC variety over our corporate-run crapfest any day, I think Darren is a bit naiive.

PR firms for corporations do indeed provide “completely produced news segments with associated broadcaster speeches” to TV stations. Pharmaceutical companies do this all the time. Did you think all of that footage of white-coated people filling jars with the latest wonder drug came from your local station sending a camera crew to the factory? One of the firms that specializes in these “electronic press kits” is the one that did the dirtywork for Bush.

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Steve2: Fair enough, I’ll grant you that PR agencies provide footage to media organizations. My point about governments being held to a higher standard than corporations still stands.

I’d hope, however, that responsible media organizations use it within a segment that broader in its reporting than what’s gone on here. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case.

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There are probably no examples of truly objective media, everyone has an agenda. It is up to the people to decide what to believe. That been said, the CBC is extremely left-wing. Anyone care to argue? When was the last time the CBC ran a story in support of a truly conservative (the idealogy, not the party) issue? Say anti-abortion or pro capital punishment?

When private media takes a stance on either side of the political spectrum, they are free to do so, when a government funded agency takes a completely one-sided approach, I have a problem with that, and if the CBC were to be a right-wing network, liberals would have a problem too.

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I meant to add that it’s no surprise that other parts of the CBC are left-of-centre. Around the world, throughout history, those involved in the arts have tended to be progressive and liberal.

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I hear crickets chirping.

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Objectivity in regards to what? Darren, I have a hard time taking seriously your argument that an organization (even the wonderful CBC) won’t naturally cover the source of its funding differently than some other organization. Do many newspapers do investigative reporting pieces on their publishers?

The existence of lots of coverage of the CBC scandal may show “independence” but also reinforces that there was a big scandal — I think that weakens your overall stance that state-run media is better than private media.

But let’s not get too far afield: Your original point still stands, regardless.

You think that Bush pushing pre-fab PR stories into the media is positively Orwellian. Mr. Anonymous sniped back that we have state-run media in Canada. Those points are not contradictory, and Anon’s effort to redirect the conversation doesn’t rebut your initial queasiness.

The GAO has ALREADY ruled that the Bush administration’s actions break existing law prohibiting government propganda in the U.S.. But the administration there has continued to make fake news pieces, and because Bush controls the Justice Department, and Republicans control Congess, there has been no federal or congressional investigation into this behavior.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2005/s020205.html

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Darren, how come you have your blog set up so that we can’t copy text? Since you have an RSS feed, I can’t imagine it’s because you want to prevent people from hijacking your text. It would be nice if we could copy links, since not everyone uses HTML tags, or copy text to quote you in our own blogs. However, maybe you have good reasons for turning off “copy” in your newish site.

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Darren, if I choose not to support Dan Rather’s lies by not watching CBS, I can. If I choose not to support the CBC by not watching Caroline Parish stomp on a Bush doll, I don’t have a choice, I pay income tax. Why is this not getting through to you? Well, like I said, if the CBC were a right-wing network, you’d have the same problems I do.

“Create a non-profit organization overseen by a democratically-elected government, with built-in standards, checks and balances and transparency to discourage bias.”

Yeah, right!

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Private enterprise is a better way to build a news organization. Objective? There’s probably no such thing. What it boils down to is choice. Being able to choose what I support. As for government money going to something I disapprove of, having it go to media is something that is not tangible. I.E. rather than my tax money going to build a hospital or send a kid to school, it’s going to push an agenda.

It also boils down to plain partizanship, I watch Dennis Miller, listen to Michael Medved, I do this becaause these people have agendas. that I support. Just as you support the CBC, because they support your agenda. But of course, you’re not paying Dennis Miller’s salary. You have every right to subscripe to Air America, should you choose to.

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It’s interesting that FOX news has illegally received millions of dollars from the US Government, funneled through various ad agencies, and yet the CBC is targetted for because it’s - legally - publically funded?

Besides which, Anonymous, the fact is that the majority of Canadians, according to independent pollsters, are pro-abortion, pro-publically-funded-healthcare, and are not against gay marriage. In short: we’re liberal. CBC coverage pretty evenly matches Canadian perspectives - Canadians are typically middle-of-the-road in their political beliefs.

Either way, that doesn’t have anything to do with the CBC’s mandate to represent Canadian perspectives and to showcase Canadian art regardless of how uncommercial that showcasing may be - it’s an investment in Canadian creativity. Personally, I love that the country has a vessel for its own creative works, which the CBC is.

Furthermore, the CBC was created when private companies weren’t willing to invest in infrastructure in the North, so that entire communities were without any news sources whatsoever. So much for privately funded news. Anyway, the government decided that an informed population was in line with Canadian government policy: we paid for those communications links, why should we sell them to a private sector that might not even, now, have paid for them? We’re a very sparsely populated, spread-out country.

And lastly: the CBC is supported by the majority of Canadians. The polls say it’s true. So the CBC is an example of democratic decision making. Don’t like it, move to a country where the majority elects conservatives instead.

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