I find that this is a interesting commentary on the state of newspapers in Canada
https://www.facebook.com/MeanwhileinCanada1/posts/1837147529665603?__tn__=K-R
This is a Twitter thread from former journalist and media expert David Veitch. It needs to be read by every Canadian:
"Very rich, very powerful Americans control Canada's biggest newspaper chain. So why should Canadians care who sits on Postmedia’s board?"
So the Toronto Sun editorial board examines the recent Saudi-Canada spat and places full blame at the feet of … Justin Trudeau for “repeatedly and self-righteously (trying) to export his ‘progressive’ worldview to other nations.” Of course, the Sun wrote this.
Attacking progressive ideals and promoting the far right — social safety net destroyer Doug Ford, trickle-down obsessive Jason Kenney, even neo-Nazi sympathizers — seem to be the Sun’s raison d’être nowadays. And I believe this is calculated.
Let me share a few thoughts:
There were more than a few people scratching their heads when Postmedia bought Sun Media in 2014 for $316M. At the time Postmedia was about a half a billion dollars in debt. Paul Godfrey, Postmedia President and CEO, called it “a big bet on the future of the industry.”
Four years later, that optimism seems ill-placed but then maybe preserving the future of the newspaper industry in Canada wasn’t the real motive behind this acquisition.
The biggest Postmedia shareholder is GoldenTree Asset Management, a U.S.-based hedge fund. Sitting on the Postmedia board is David Pecker, Chairman, CEO and President of American Media, Inc (AMI). which prints the National Enquirer.
Very rich, very powerful Americans control Canada's biggest newspaper chain. So why should Canadians care who sits on Postmedia’s board?
Consider: two months ago, WaPo reported executives at Pecker’s National Enquirer sent articles and cover images pertaining to Trump or his electoral opponents to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen prior to their publication. This practice has continued since Trump became president.
During the 2016 U.S. elections & beyond, the weekly publication printed stories that praised Trump and vilified Hillary Clinton. Pecker’s National Enquirer did its best to tilt the election toward Trump.
Let me give you some example of Enquirer headlines from 2016:
‘Hillary: 6 Months to Live.’ ‘Hillary confesses: I’m an alcoholic.’ ‘Hillary caught in sex-scandal cover-up.’ ‘Hillary: Corrupt! Racist! Criminal!’ ‘Hillary hitman tells all!’ (Funny how many of these narratives echoed the narratives promoted by Russia/GRU).
Pecker is likely the same “our friend David” that Michael Cohen mentioned in his conversation with Trump that Cohen secretly recorded and recently leaked this summer.
In the exchange, Cohen talked to Trump about how David was buying the rights to the story of Playmate Karen McDougall, who claims she had an affair with Trump a decade ago. AMI allegedly bought the story before the 2016 election then never ran it, to protect Trump.
I mention this to point out a Postmedia board member uses print publications as a delivery system for politically motivated misinformation & as an incinerator to make certain stories go away. This is a person who helps lead Canada’s biggest newspaper chain. Let that sink in.
Let’s spell it out: Pecker supports a force for illiberalism. Pecker surely does not care about your local newspaper or the quality of journalism in Canada. Remember that.
It would not surprise me to learn that when Canada’s biggest newspaper chain fell under U.S. control, it became a tool to change Canada’s social landscape — to move this country rightward, just as AMI, Fox News and the Sinclair Broadcast Group are doing south of the border.
U.S. money flows already flows into Canadian “think tanks” like the Fraser Institute that rally against high taxes (and, by proxy, against the social safety net and publicly funded health care). Fraser needs media to get its message out. Now imagine if you OWN the media.
Suddenly you can command papers to publish Fraser Institute reports like this one, despite the fact its arguments fall apart once the slightest critical thinking is applied to it.
"Nothing free about Canada’s ‘free’ health-care system: Fraser report.- A typical Canadian family of four will pay a staggering $12,935 for health care in 2018, a new Fraser Institute report suggests. And our health-care system is far from being a free ride."
https://torontosun.com/…/nothing-free-about-canadas-free-he…
You can even order ALL of your papers to publish a front-page endorsement for Stephen Harper in order to tilt an election toward a preferred candidate.
Note: Since being punted from office, Harper has publicly stated he’s excited to “work with” Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, who said this week he wants to “wave goodbye to liberal democracy” and install an illiberal Christian democracy.
Let’s spell it out: Harper supports a self-professed force for illiberalism. And, like Pecker, Harper continues to cozy up to the illiberal Trump administration. Remember that.
If the unspoken goal of Postmedia was to shift Canada toward the right, there was one problem. Before the Sun acquisition, the chain’s biggest publications were centre or centre-left papers of record. Moving them to the far right would be noticed.
The Sun Media acquisition changed that dynamic. Since the Sun papers have always been right-leaning and despised by a segment of the population, they can be more easily transformed into blunt-force media battering rams targeting everything and anything progressive.
And that’s what I’ve seen happen. I worked at the Sun for two decades starting in the mid-1980s. Although right of centre, the Sun papers made room on its op-ed pages for left-of-centre columnists, and the news reporting still adhered to cornerstone journalistic principles.
The Sun did not try to defend or provide cover for Jim Keegstra, for instance. I wonder if today’s Sun would try to position Keegstra’s Holocaust denials as a freedom of speech issue.
Today, we’ve seen Sun papers align directly to far-right parties, politicians and ideas; run Fraser Institute reports practically verbatim; amplify the messages of the CPC, the UCP and Doug Ford and his Ontario PC party.
In Calgary, the Sun paper has become an extension of the Jason Kenney communications arm; his every pronouncement, based in fact or not, is printed dutifully and he is unbothered by followup questions or even questions about his party’s still-undisclosed platform.
The Toronto Sun endorsed Doug Ford, an under-qualified candidate for premier who ran on a ‘buck a beer’ platform.
And when Ford appeared in danger of being usurped by a surging NDP during the campaign, the Sun promptly stepped in with the screaming front page: HITLER HAUNTS THE NDP. Reminded me of the Enquirer's Hillary Clinton headlines.
Surprise, surprise — since his victory, Ford wasted no time pulling funding for social programs, setting up his own propaganda outlet, attacking the media, compromising a democratic civic election, and engaging in ham-handed populist politics.
Now Tor Sun columnists are tweeting support for Faith Goldy, a mayoralty candidate who expressed sympathy for neo-Nazis in Charlottesville and happily recited the white supremacist slogan 14 Words. The Sun hasn’t yet endorsed Goldy but it’s within the realm of possibility.
As the Sun papers shift to the far-right, they provide cover for the former Southam/CanWest papers of record to quietly drift to the right without a lot of fuss or attention. This is where our attention should be.
My prediction: once the Sun’s usefulness as a battering ram runs its course, they’ll be shuttered and yet the goal of Postmedia will be realized:
Most of Canada’s papers of record will be much further to the right than they could have been without the Sun Media acquisition. And Canada will be more susceptible to the growing global forces of illiberalism. END
https://www.facebook.com/MeanwhileinCanada1/posts/1837147529665603?__tn__=K-R
This is a Twitter thread from former journalist and media expert David Veitch. It needs to be read by every Canadian:
"Very rich, very powerful Americans control Canada's biggest newspaper chain. So why should Canadians care who sits on Postmedia’s board?"
So the Toronto Sun editorial board examines the recent Saudi-Canada spat and places full blame at the feet of … Justin Trudeau for “repeatedly and self-righteously (trying) to export his ‘progressive’ worldview to other nations.” Of course, the Sun wrote this.
Attacking progressive ideals and promoting the far right — social safety net destroyer Doug Ford, trickle-down obsessive Jason Kenney, even neo-Nazi sympathizers — seem to be the Sun’s raison d’être nowadays. And I believe this is calculated.
Let me share a few thoughts:
There were more than a few people scratching their heads when Postmedia bought Sun Media in 2014 for $316M. At the time Postmedia was about a half a billion dollars in debt. Paul Godfrey, Postmedia President and CEO, called it “a big bet on the future of the industry.”
Four years later, that optimism seems ill-placed but then maybe preserving the future of the newspaper industry in Canada wasn’t the real motive behind this acquisition.
The biggest Postmedia shareholder is GoldenTree Asset Management, a U.S.-based hedge fund. Sitting on the Postmedia board is David Pecker, Chairman, CEO and President of American Media, Inc (AMI). which prints the National Enquirer.
Very rich, very powerful Americans control Canada's biggest newspaper chain. So why should Canadians care who sits on Postmedia’s board?
Consider: two months ago, WaPo reported executives at Pecker’s National Enquirer sent articles and cover images pertaining to Trump or his electoral opponents to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen prior to their publication. This practice has continued since Trump became president.
During the 2016 U.S. elections & beyond, the weekly publication printed stories that praised Trump and vilified Hillary Clinton. Pecker’s National Enquirer did its best to tilt the election toward Trump.
Let me give you some example of Enquirer headlines from 2016:
‘Hillary: 6 Months to Live.’ ‘Hillary confesses: I’m an alcoholic.’ ‘Hillary caught in sex-scandal cover-up.’ ‘Hillary: Corrupt! Racist! Criminal!’ ‘Hillary hitman tells all!’ (Funny how many of these narratives echoed the narratives promoted by Russia/GRU).
Pecker is likely the same “our friend David” that Michael Cohen mentioned in his conversation with Trump that Cohen secretly recorded and recently leaked this summer.
In the exchange, Cohen talked to Trump about how David was buying the rights to the story of Playmate Karen McDougall, who claims she had an affair with Trump a decade ago. AMI allegedly bought the story before the 2016 election then never ran it, to protect Trump.
I mention this to point out a Postmedia board member uses print publications as a delivery system for politically motivated misinformation & as an incinerator to make certain stories go away. This is a person who helps lead Canada’s biggest newspaper chain. Let that sink in.
Let’s spell it out: Pecker supports a force for illiberalism. Pecker surely does not care about your local newspaper or the quality of journalism in Canada. Remember that.
It would not surprise me to learn that when Canada’s biggest newspaper chain fell under U.S. control, it became a tool to change Canada’s social landscape — to move this country rightward, just as AMI, Fox News and the Sinclair Broadcast Group are doing south of the border.
U.S. money flows already flows into Canadian “think tanks” like the Fraser Institute that rally against high taxes (and, by proxy, against the social safety net and publicly funded health care). Fraser needs media to get its message out. Now imagine if you OWN the media.
Suddenly you can command papers to publish Fraser Institute reports like this one, despite the fact its arguments fall apart once the slightest critical thinking is applied to it.
"Nothing free about Canada’s ‘free’ health-care system: Fraser report.- A typical Canadian family of four will pay a staggering $12,935 for health care in 2018, a new Fraser Institute report suggests. And our health-care system is far from being a free ride."
https://torontosun.com/…/nothing-free-about-canadas-free-he…
You can even order ALL of your papers to publish a front-page endorsement for Stephen Harper in order to tilt an election toward a preferred candidate.
Note: Since being punted from office, Harper has publicly stated he’s excited to “work with” Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, who said this week he wants to “wave goodbye to liberal democracy” and install an illiberal Christian democracy.
Let’s spell it out: Harper supports a self-professed force for illiberalism. And, like Pecker, Harper continues to cozy up to the illiberal Trump administration. Remember that.
If the unspoken goal of Postmedia was to shift Canada toward the right, there was one problem. Before the Sun acquisition, the chain’s biggest publications were centre or centre-left papers of record. Moving them to the far right would be noticed.
The Sun Media acquisition changed that dynamic. Since the Sun papers have always been right-leaning and despised by a segment of the population, they can be more easily transformed into blunt-force media battering rams targeting everything and anything progressive.
And that’s what I’ve seen happen. I worked at the Sun for two decades starting in the mid-1980s. Although right of centre, the Sun papers made room on its op-ed pages for left-of-centre columnists, and the news reporting still adhered to cornerstone journalistic principles.
The Sun did not try to defend or provide cover for Jim Keegstra, for instance. I wonder if today’s Sun would try to position Keegstra’s Holocaust denials as a freedom of speech issue.
Today, we’ve seen Sun papers align directly to far-right parties, politicians and ideas; run Fraser Institute reports practically verbatim; amplify the messages of the CPC, the UCP and Doug Ford and his Ontario PC party.
In Calgary, the Sun paper has become an extension of the Jason Kenney communications arm; his every pronouncement, based in fact or not, is printed dutifully and he is unbothered by followup questions or even questions about his party’s still-undisclosed platform.
The Toronto Sun endorsed Doug Ford, an under-qualified candidate for premier who ran on a ‘buck a beer’ platform.
And when Ford appeared in danger of being usurped by a surging NDP during the campaign, the Sun promptly stepped in with the screaming front page: HITLER HAUNTS THE NDP. Reminded me of the Enquirer's Hillary Clinton headlines.
Surprise, surprise — since his victory, Ford wasted no time pulling funding for social programs, setting up his own propaganda outlet, attacking the media, compromising a democratic civic election, and engaging in ham-handed populist politics.
Now Tor Sun columnists are tweeting support for Faith Goldy, a mayoralty candidate who expressed sympathy for neo-Nazis in Charlottesville and happily recited the white supremacist slogan 14 Words. The Sun hasn’t yet endorsed Goldy but it’s within the realm of possibility.
As the Sun papers shift to the far-right, they provide cover for the former Southam/CanWest papers of record to quietly drift to the right without a lot of fuss or attention. This is where our attention should be.
My prediction: once the Sun’s usefulness as a battering ram runs its course, they’ll be shuttered and yet the goal of Postmedia will be realized:
Most of Canada’s papers of record will be much further to the right than they could have been without the Sun Media acquisition. And Canada will be more susceptible to the growing global forces of illiberalism. END
