Canada Refuses to Allow Faux “news” A License – Lying to People is Illegal There

This is not a new headline,  but I feel it needs to be re-addressed as IT IS STILL PERFECTLY LEGAL TO LIE TO THE PUBLIC in United States Corporate Media,  and it is getting worse.

By Nick Hathaway

“Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada regulators announced 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”   -Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Huffington Post
I lived in Vancouver, BC for about 2 years myself around 2005-7,  and was astonished at the fact they actually got real world news.  Something I was not used to coming from the U.S. and I commented on all the time. People there were shocked to hear when I told them what a traditional U.S. news broadcast entailed..
I told them that I have never lived in communist China,  but going off what I had heard I did not think the U.S. was much different in terms of getting real honest news reports of what was going on around the world, let alone in my own city or state.  I still feel that way today and I believe it is getting worse.
The illusion of freedom of the press is perhaps more damaging and dangerous than knowing that you are being lied to and that everything you hear is censored.
Some people I had talked to that actually went and watched some FOX “news” broadcasts afterwords called it, “state sponsored terrorism” and “fear mongering.”  I’m not joking,  that is what a very conservative Canadian journalist said about Fox “news” after watching a nightly broadcast online.
It is clearly propaganda if nothing else, and they are trying to set a corporate controlled narrative for guiding our minds into thinking only about what they want us to focus on.  What’s worse,  if you don’t buy into their lies,  you are labeled a liberal or a communist, or whatever buzzword they decide on that they have brainwashed their viewers into thinking equates you to absolute evil.
Much like a magician uses slight of hand to trick us into paying attention only to what they want us to see,  it is the same smoke and mirrors.
Hey, Hey,  look over here !!  Meanwhile some horrible atrocity is going on that they don’t want people to notice or think about.  Fox “news”  is meant to distract people, keep you afraid of the world around you, and tell you what to think about.  They want you to ONLY be concerned about the problems that they feed you. Nothing more.
Look at the war drums beating to go and attack Iran recently…  I don’t know any level headed person that thinks that is a good idea.  In fact everyone I have talked to right or left thinks the only outcome would be WW3.  Yet the corporate media keeps beating their battle drums,  it looks very similar to the WMD threat that led to the war in Iraq.
Where did they say they found those WMD’s again ???  Oh yeah,  they never existed to begin with in all probability.
Does anyone remember when Bush Jr. was “elected into office” the first time?  Every network was saying that it looked like Gore had won,  until Fox came out and flat out lied.  They lied to everyone and said Bush won Florida, and the lie stuck.  We know now that in fact Gore had more votes in both Florida, and the nation as a whole.  All politics aside, this is just a small example of how devastating lies in the news can be.

 ”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 [prime minister] 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’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…  Fox News’s notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.”  -Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

We can now add to this the Occupy protests around the world.  Most U.S. citizens had no idea Occupy Wall Street existed for months if they only got news from corporate controlled media.  The protests spread to worldwide proportions quickly,  and yet the vast majority of people that came home from work and watched the evening news had no idea.

“…The real issue is that this Fox network was applying to be part of the basic cable package, where people would have to pay for it whether they watched it or not. That’s the issue.
Government exists to serve its citizens. Canadians overwhelmingly voiced their opinion that they wanted the CRTC to prevent Fox from being part of the mandatory cable package. You may hate and fear “government”, but in the end, in a democracy a government serves its citizens, not the other way around. In this situation, the CRTC did exactly what the Canadian populace overwhelmingly asked it to do – not put this shoddy foreign “news” broadcaster in a place on the Canadian television system where it would receive “negative billing”: payment from people who did not want to have it.”  -  Seathan comment on sodahead.com

So,  what can we do?  Well knowing this doesn’t solve much until people take action.  What people can do is tell others. Demand that our government re-enstate the fairness doctrine,  or something like it that demands truth in media..  and I would add campaign rhetoric if I had my 2 cents thrown in.  We as The People can demand our government actually work for us for a change.  We can demand truth.
Question everything,  turn off the [TV] corporate sponsored propaganda.
Since December 2011, when roguemedia.org was founded we have seen that there are 3 main parts to the monster that The People around the world are currently fighting.  There is (1) the governments,  (2) the banks and multi-national corporations that run those governments, and (3) the media they control.  An un-holy trinity if you will.  Our focus has been to combat the weakest link of these 3 parts of the beast, the corporate media..
Don’t get me wrong,  I love most of the reporters and videographers I have met, and for the most part I think they want truth in media too..  What we are concerned with is once the editor, producer, and advertisers (and in some cases government) have their say we get watered down half-truths and sometimes just flat out lies.  In most cases it’s not even that they are lying,  it’s the real stories that are not told.
Propaganda can be very subtle,  and the fact that the corporate media decides what stories you hear about or not is very much a part of the game.
I think after what recently happened in Minneapolis on April 7th 2012,  we are starting to win a huge part of this fight.  All the local media stations in Minneapolis were playing our footage of a corporate media videographer being attacked by police on prime time evening news. (thanks again to everyone that helped make that happen, you know who you are, thank you!)
This is a very reasonable, and winnable fight,  we need all hands on deck and let’s get it done.  Let’s demand Democracy.  Let’s Demand Truth In Media!!  Let’s Demand Our Government Work For Us For A Change!!  That’s the change we need.