[Vision2020] Fox News' Lies Keep Them Out of Canada

[Ralph Nielsen]

> Fox News' Lies Keep Them Out of Canada
>
> By Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Reader Supported News
> 01 March 11
>
> As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin  
> barricades - against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate  
> toadies at Fox News - fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice  
> can take comfort from a significant victory north of the Wisconsin  
> border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The  
> reason: Canadian regulators announced last week 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 and helped make Canada a model  
> for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law,  
> 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 US airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to  
> abolish the 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, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known  
> for having mounted a Bush-like war on government scientists, data  
> collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a  
> wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery: false patriotism,  
> bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.
>
> Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television are a  
> stark admission that right-wing political ideology can only  
> dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since  
> corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a  
> political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of  
> corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular  
> with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the  
> sock puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons, have  
> become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public  
> airwaves. Fox News' notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of  
> the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news  
> coverage Canada has smartly avoided."
>
> http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/5123-fox-news-lies- 
> keep-them-out-of-canada
>
>