From the IMDB daily studio briefing. Apparently Canadians will be allowed to watch Al-Jazeera, but still will not be allowed to watch Fox News. So apparently one form of bias is allowed, just not the other one.

Al-Jazeera To Air in Canada

Over the objections of Jewish groups, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the counterpart of America's FCC, gave the go-ahead for the Arab all-new channel al-Jazeera to be seen in Canada. The commission ordered that cable distributors keep records of al-Jazeera broadcasts and allowed it to alter or delete any "abuse comment." Some Western critics have complained that the network sympathizes with terrorists, pointing out that it regularly airs video featuring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/#1

is FOX News banned in Canada? that's stupid... i'd really like to subscribe. i've had it up to here with CNN propaganda

as for al-Jazeera, they made it legal in Canada (what do you expect from a country that lets al-Qaeda families back into Canada after they returned from Afghanistan fighting along side bin-Laden, and a country who is a haven for terrorists?)... but the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Comission) has imposed such strict rules, so i hear, that no broadcasting company would want to make a deal with the Jihad TV channel.

but i was thinking to myself, let's say they get signed, and their propaganda will be seen in our living rooms... wouldn't that mean that they'd be held to Canadian broadcasting standards and thus all their programming will have to improve?
if so, then the propaganda they're transmitting to people in the ME will be toned down too

i'm just trying to see the positive in this
otherwise it's a ridiculous situation

sory guys, but to me Al Jazeera does speak the truth about America so no wonder people try to ban it. and Othedheap if you think Al Jazeera is biased what about your stupid zionist media which has now gone into Amercia and Europe and now controls it. and please read my other post about chess and shit!

Mod note: this post was posted twice, so I deleted one of the copies, sorry.

Pangloss, could you please elaborate on the bias exhibited by al-Jazeerah, and how this is more extreme than the reporting distributed by Fox?

From my own experience, AJ is far less ideologically confined than Fox News, allowing vastly more variability in perspectives. AJ is in fact among the most objective and least ideologically-affiliated Arab news sources. Because the content is not as heavily filtered as mainstream American media, there are of course more shocking stories and images. This should not be construed as espousing a particular political movement, or filtering information to place a particular movement in the best light.

Fox News, on the other hand, has a reputation for bias, consistently demonstrated by a careful selection of voices amplified, and the consistent censorship and harassment of persons interviewed who go out of bounds in reference to the Fox philosophy. Fox News is the world-recognized mouthpiece of the Bush Administration, not by direct government edict, but by agreement. Fox News has been everything to the Bush Administration that Goebbels could ever have dreamed of for the 3rd Reich, if only it were the exclusive world news organization.

Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, often causes discomfort for the Qatari government, and routinely airs views in opposition to any side you care to choose. Only 8 years old, A-J is an information phenomenon specifically because it is the most objective multimedia news source the Mideast has ever seen. Being an Arab news organization does preclude A-J from enthusiastic representation of the Zionist perspective, so I do concede a lack of even-handedness in that one regard. On the whole, however, a far clearer picture of events as are transpiring is available from A-J (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5D7F956E-6B52-46D9-8D17-448856D01CDB.htm), which has had no credible accusations leveled that even approach the distortions (http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=117308) that are (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/steinreich1.html) routine (http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/05/an_example_of_f.html) at (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/30/fox_news/index_np.html) Fox (http://www.fair.org/activism/white-house-vandalism.html) News (http://www.alternet.org/story/19199/).

I would be curious to know just how eager Canadians really are to get Fox. Since their population is concentrated along the U.S. border, and Fox' reputation precedes it, I suspect they have enough familiarity to know what Fox is about. Is there a popular Canadian clamor to get Fox News on cable?

care to link to more mainstream sources, hype?

you are insane, you know that? comparing FOX to Goebels is like calling Bush a nazi

and if "AJ" (man, that's such a hip name, i know i like it already!) is the most liberal news source in the ME it does not mean that it's liberal by our standards

Being an Arab news organization does preclude A-J from enthusiastic representation of the Zionist perspective, so I do concede a lack of even-handedness in that one regard
they're openly cheering for "Palestinians". news? or their mouthpiece? very objective.
they're the mouthpiece of terrorists, they bring on "experts" with extreme views about "Jihad", they have hateful sermons about "The Jews, the sons of monkeys and pigs", they have one-sided commentary which is at the far end of the spectrum of extreme

that is not to say that that's all they broadcast... i'm sure they have interesting shows about the ME economy, all sort of cultural shows, sports, entertainment, etc.
but that's not why they're so controvercial, is it...

hype, have you ever watched Jihad TV? (i'm sorry, A-J (http://www.lechinois.com/tattoo/tattoostar052aj.html))

Being an Arab news organization does preclude A-J from enthusiastic representation of the Zionist perspective

Another thing that strikes me is that Al-Jazeera, for all its faults, being the major Arab news organizaiton, serves a vital portion of the spectrum inasmuch as it's a way of seeing what's going on around the world through "other people's" eyes.

FOX News, however, is known to have been started intentionally as a political propaganda machine. FOX was never about reporting news, but striking an arbitrary balance between artificially-empowered political forces.

Think about it this way:

• FOX - "There isn't enough pro-right wing news and commentary. We are going to specialize in right-wing news and commentary in order to fight against liberals."
• Al-Jazeera - "There isn't a major news organization in the Middle East like CNN. We need to be that."
• Al Gore - "Kids in America are stupid. We need to create a news organization that revitalizes the interest of our youth in world events."

We'll see what happens with Gore. But FOX made a mistake in wearing its GOP affiliations too prominently on its sleeve. It's like asking for news organizations to attend and getting the gossip reporter for the National Enquirer.

Had I a company that had the necessity of giving press conferences, FOX News would be blacklisted. When they stop making a point of putting known liars and political frauds on the air .... Take CNN's Crossfire, for instance. It's effective inasmuch as it reminds us how stupid Democrats and Republicans are. It's also a good place for people like Tucker Carlson to go when they realize they've got nothing left as a journalist.

But FOX ... honestly, the best thing I've seen on FOX lately was brief evidence of simmering professional rivalries. On the other hand, a FOX correspondent took a taser the other day, and the news editors cut that story effort down to nothing.

To FOX's credit, however, in covering the taser story, they did do us the "political" (should we choose to take it that way) of pointing out the folly of firearms. The city of Miami claims to not have fired a firearm at a suspect in 19 months, and the Seattle police department, infamous for shooting retarded people with butter knives, didn't shoot anyone in 2003.

So FOX does have a couple things going for it, but they announced themselves as a right-wing organization with political intent. Whatever Canada's censoring in not permitting FOX, it ain't the news.

othe...
they bring on "experts" with extreme views about "Jihad", they have hateful sermons about "The Jews, the sons of monkeys and pigs", they have one-sided commentary which is at the far end of the spectrum of extreme

Providing arbitrary comment/interpretation of quotes, without any link to back it up, weakens your assertion that AJ is extreme. I believe the quotes you provided stem from a single story aired by AJ - they were not the opinions of AJ but rather the opinions of those interviewed.

AJ has moved the yard sticks in ethical reporting, to which their American counterparts will be measured.

This week, Al-Jazeera issued a code of ethics, saying it would distinguish between news, analysis and commentary to avoid "falling in the trap of propaganda and speculation."

It also promised to "acknowledge any mistake as soon as it is made and take the initiative to correct it and avoid repeating it."
Source (http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/07/15/canada/jazeera040715)

who disses FOX? liberals who disagree with FOX's objectivity. what, CNN is objective? HA!
even if FOX is guilty of everything that's being thrown at it, i think the correct term is "deflection". deflecting from our backstreet boy, AJ, who is all those things i've mentioned above.

Al-Jazeera - "There isn't a major news organization in the Middle East like CNN. We need to be that."
look at Tiassa, the PR director for Jihad TV... they may call it news, but news it ain't.

here are several examples from my favourite backstreet boy's repertoir:

1. bringing in experts on Islam to debate Jihad and suicide bombings (which is fine) and then one of the experts says "yes it is ok"

(source (http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR3004))
In a special edition of its weekly religious program, Al-Jazeera presented the Prophet Muhammad as a model of a Jihad warrior, and held a discussion on the modern implications of this image. When program host Maher Abdallah asked Al-Qaradhawi how this relates to the lives of Muslims today – that is, whether they should restrain themselves from preparing for Jihad, or launch an immediate armed Jihad – Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi replied: "The youth who wish to hurry to establish an Islamic state with an Islamic rule seek clashes with the existing regimes in the Arab states, despite the fact that they don't have sufficient strength, they don't have military strength, and not even the mental strength to establish an Islamic rule."

"Why were we defeated in 1967? Officers stated that we had vast amounts of weapons but we did not provide the warrior with mental preparation. We did not prepare him to fight for religious belief and for defending religious sanctuaries. We are the oppressed, and the duty is [incumbent up]on us. He who got killed is a [Shahid] in heaven… The first assignment is to prepare the hero who is willing to put his life in his own hands for Allah's sake, and he who does not care whether he encounters death or death encounters him…"

When asked again about this issue, Sheik Al-Qaradhawi argued that someone committing this act "is not a suicide [bomber]. He kills the enemy while taking self-risk, similar to what Muslims did in the past… He wants to scare his enemies, and the religious authorities have permitted this. They said that if he causes the enemy both sorrow and fear of Muslims … he is permitted to risk himself and even get killed." Throughout his appearances at that time, Al-Qaradhawi maintained that Palestinian suicide attacks are "self-sacrifice" and not suicide, and are thus permitted and even welcome from a religious standpoint.


2. bringing 2 experts to debate the idea of peace with Israel.

(source (http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP9300))
In a debate broadcast on the Qatari TV stationAl-Jazeera - which is known as the Arab CNN - Egyptian peace activist Sa'id Jalal (member of the Egyptian society "The New Call"[1]) faced international relations expert Dr. Rif'at Mustafa, who is an opponent of normalization with Israel.

Dr. Mustafa accused Israel of trying to destroy the Arabs along with the peace process. He repeated claims frequently heard in the Arab media that Israel is poisoning the drinking water in Palestine and Jordan, spreading disease-carrying germs, infecting children in Beirut with the HIV virus, spreading diseases in Egyptian agriculture in order to destroy it, trying to take over Arab economy, etc.


just imagine an Aboriginal TV station debating the issue of whether to wage a holy war against the Canadian or US governments... what'd happen to them?
incitement of the purest form.

it's nice they're having a peace activist in there, but the other guy is spreading lies about ******** drinking water, and is basically advocating war. tell me, Canadians and Americans, do you want this in your living rooms? do you want your Arab minorities being exposed to this, being charged with hate-filled adrenaline?

i do commend al-Jazeera for this:

"What are the limits of Faysal Al-Qasem [host of the show on which Jalal and others have appeared]? For some time he has presented creatures to us, and you never know where they came from. Are they from outer space or were they smuggled from the Qatari-Israeli border? There are no more then 20 such people who support normalization with the Israeli enemy…"

"Al-Qasem has forced Western creatures on us, such as Sa'id Jalal, who we had never heard of before, but [he] became a star on Al-Jazeera. They hosted him a few times, because he protects Israel and Arab-Israeli relations"

at least AJ is not that bad. it's good they have these internal debates, but until they stop bringing in inciters they have no place in Canadian or American living rooms.

3. more bias exposed. this time the criticism comes from an Iraqi news paper

(source (http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP58803))
For some time, the Iraqi press has heavily criticized Arab TV satellite channels for their biased reporting and outright support of terrorist acts in the country. The Governing Council recently banned Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya for two weeks due to their broadcasts concerning the condition of Iraq.

The daily Baghdad (published by the Iraqi National Reconciliation Movement) says that "some Arab satellite TV stations commit a grave mistake when [they allow] their officials to exploit them for specific political goals and [when they] use rhetoric to do so. One of the chronic maladies of the Arab media in general stems from their inability to deal with the true meanings of words and their failure to adhere to honest and truthful information policies…" The paper also argues that "we in Iraq admit that the new regime, which most of our national forces want to build, is still struggling… both domestically and internationally. However, we disagree completely with those who maintain that the ideology of the deposed regime was better… The world has begun to share our realization that… such a [difficult] beginning is only temporary and that we as a nation are convinced that our country will change for the better, and is indeed changing now… Therefore, we urge our colleagues at the satellite TV channels, and especially Al-Jazeera, not to turn hardships in today's Iraq into a psychological warfare against the people of Iraq, and not to plant the seeds of doubt and lack of self-confidence among the [Iraqi] people and leaders in this transitional period…" The paper says that some may consider the Governing Council's decision to ban Al-Jazeera to be a violation of freedom of expression, but "the truth is that Iraq is the only Arab country that gives a wide space for such freedom despite the [current] conditions that, by any Arab measure, call for emergency steps…" The article concludes: "What we truly need [is] for the Arab media to free itself from the ideological nightmare and the hatred that it breeds…"


there was another example.. i lost the link.. where the then-acting head of the Iraqi Governing Council has criticized al-Jazeera with fabricating poll results. he said something like "the opinions expressed are not of the Iraqi people because we don't have phones here" something like that..

i can go on forever listing these things... there are just too many expamples.

i'll repeat - al-Jazeera may be the most liberal and least insane Opinion Maker in the whole Middle East... but the west is not ready for their radical programming

fireguy, it's about time they did that, don't you think? and what a coincidence, this happened no more than a few days before the CRTC issued a ruling on whether al-Jazeera is eligible to be broadcasted here.

look at Tiassa, the PR director for Jihad TV

And FOX, and Al Gore, apparently. So what's your problem?

Any news organization has the right to work through its editorial issues as it sees fit. FOX, however, is not a news organization, but a self-proclaimed political bastion.

The point is that FOX chose to establish themselves as "not a news organization."

The Canadians are merely respecting that decision by FOX executives.

would you be so kind and post here FOX's mission statement to prove your allegations?
and also, could you show the relevance of all this FOX bashing to Jihad TV's legalisation?

FOX News, for its 1996 launch, portrayed itself as intending to counter the "liberal media bias." As the bias they refer to doesn't exist, their conservative bias--inherent in their straw-man portrayal--is at the center of their platform for no particular reason.

Had FOX announced that they would serve as a news organization catering to political and financial news in the context of everyday people, that would be one thing. But they set out to counter a perceived bias with one of their own, and then adopted the slogan, "Fair and Balanced - We report, you decide."

And the Canadian government, it seems, has decided.

I'll search around for some of the old press.

All news is bias, Al-Jazeera to Arab concerns, Fox to conservatives. other news networks to what ever their CEO say for them to be. How extreme these biases are is relative to were you site on the issues that they cover.

As for me I listen to NPR, thats were I get my news.

Thanks for the links otheadp.

You're not selling me on any of this. I believe we're of different mind sets here.

I see your argument being one of support for right or approprite content by supressing what's viewed as wrong or inappropriate content. I'm not interested in debating over content in the least, I am, however, interested in debating perspectives.

As a Canadian, living in Canada, it would be impossible for me to explain how biased I find American news content without appearing, in your eyes, to be anti-American, I'd just be setting myself up, so I won't go there.

What i will say is that American news content is a great illistration of the American perspective, as is the content of Al Jazeera and the perspective of the muslim world.

Do you think a good perspective of this world we live in can be derrived from CNN or FOX alone? Wouldn't that single source of information lend itself to, dare I say it, brainwashing the American ideal?

I'm all for Al Jazeera broadcasting here in N.America, along with all other stations world wide. Think of it this way: do you agree that someone (anyone) may become somewhat disillusioned of the American perspective by watching Al Jazeera, and others like it, day and night? I'm of the mind that the best Muslim perspective we can get is from the Muslim world [Al Jazeera], not CNN or FOX.

i'll repeat ... the west is not ready for their radical programming


Man, that is fear personified and far more radical in nature than Al Jazeera programming.

What would you say if the Muslim world stated, 'I repeat, the Muslim world is not ready for western radical programming.'?

It's about perspectives man.

I welcome the Muslim perspective into my livingroom via Al Jazeera, as I do the American Perspective via CNN, the English perspective via BBC, the Australian perspective via ABC as well as my beloved CBC...

Oh yeah, one more thing....

fireguy, it's about time they did that, don't you think? and what a coincidence, this happened no more than a few days before the CRTC issued a ruling on whether al-Jazeera is eligible to be broadcasted here.

Actually, what I'm thinking, or rather wondering, is if CNN or Fox have similar policies. As for the second part of your statement: whats your point? Don't get caught up in process, think product.



:m:

otheadp, i dont see what was so bad about that quoute from AJ about why they lost the '67 war. whats wrong? and anyway, like i said before Fox, CNN and ALL western media are biased. not becasue they lie, its just that they completely forget the WHOLE picture and focus on what is happening and COMPLETELY (and when i say completely i mean completely. they totally forget major parts of world history) ignore many facts about America and so on but say everything aouut what the "terrorists" do.

also, it is ok for zionists to control some media just as it would be with anyone else but zionists own (or have strong influence) on almost all western media and also certain people (say Rupart Murdoch) own a lot of media and that is also wrong.

sory guys, but to me Al Jazeera does speak the truth about America so no wonder people try to ban it. and Othedheap if you think Al Jazeera is biased what about your stupid zionist media which has now gone into Amercia and Europe and now controls it. and please read my other post about chess and shit!
[/COLOR]

well otheadp, what about your stupid zionist media, still no reply!

uzi,
zionist media?
you mean "The Zionists" "controling" the media? mhm... just like they control the economy and the white house... you are a racist, son!

re: the talk about '67 loss is fine, but this guy is beating the drums of war.
"we lost because we weren't prepared spiritually. we now must prepare spiritually" etc. etc.

firefly, it's one thing to show a perspective, another thing is to charge Arab- and Muslim-Canadians / -Americans with extremist views - something called "incitement". there are very strict laws about incitement in Canada (i'm from t-dot, so i know) and i'm guessing the same for America... well maybe less because of the first amendment.

but it's very strict for Canada

i'm glad al-Jazeera sometimes shows opposing views, but it's not even the issue.
let's say we have a half-hour show on CBC debating the topic of "should we expel all Arabs from Canada?"
who cares there is a proponent and an oponent? it's a racist and inciting show. this sort of programming is exactly what al-Jazeera is about. as i said before, they have other non-political shows, but that's not what's controvercial about them - their inciting content is

then there's the lack of objectivity and integrity where they make up polls and flat-out lie, which i guess you and others are trying to compare to FOX. FOX, as much as it may be skewed to the right, its objectivity is no where near as bad as al-Jazeera.

let's say we have a half-hour show on CBC debating the topic of "should we expel all Arabs from Canada?" ... it's a racist and inciting show.

Yeah, you're right, the CBC wouldn't get away with airing a program with that title but......

Islam is the fastest growing religion in western jails, particularly among black inmates.
Converts feel new-found faith gives them a new sense of identity, pride and power.
But its rise in popularity has some authorities worried that their prisons
could become a breeding ground for extremists.
Source (http://www.cbc.ca/witness/islambehindbars/)

... can get away with 'inciting' Islamics are extremists by a play on words, no?

It's perspectives my friend.

Late me reiterate: ALL media is bias.

as bias it a view point of the individual and everyone has their opinion based of what they beleive in and culture then you can see why Uzi and otheadp have such different views, to many of us both of their sides are the extreme and they are the delusional ones, thus the law of “Media Bais is Relativity” (MBR) is formed

firefly, i'm not sure what you're trying to say there.

fetus:
yep. "Jews are sons of monkeys and pigs" is just a point of view.. and every one is entitled to their own point of view.. moreover, everyone is entitled to broadcast their point of view in Canada, so it seems.

another point of view is "suicide bombings are ok" and another one is "we Muslims must prepare ourselves for violent confrontation with the west".
they're all valid, and any negative opinion about this is "biased"
right?

Its not about what is true or not (or what is right and wrong) its about what people believe and human belief is horribly flawed, you can make a person believe anything and worst of all convincing them that their beliefs are wrong is extremely hard. The Canadian government finds more offense in neo-conservative bias TV then in Muslim fundamentalist bias TV, yes it may seem stupid but that’s what they believe.

"The Canadian government finds more offense in neo-conservative bias TV then in Muslim fundamentalist bias TV"

Al-Jazeera does not exhibit a fundamentalist Muslim bias.

that’s what you think, hence the relativity in all this.

What the hell is all the fuss about? We (Canada) already have access to Fox. check (http://www.bell.ca/shop/application/commercewf?origin=noorigin.jsp&event=link(goto)&content=/jsp/content/personal/catalog/satellites/channels/programming.jsp&REF=SATTV_HP) for yourselves.

Edit: Oh. I see. We don't (and will not) have Fox News Network. Doesn't matter. There's lots of crap coming out of the regular Fox network anyway.

Edit some more: I'll take some of my comments back on Fox. Did anyone catch the Simpsons yesterday (Bart-mangled banner FABF17 / SI-1517)? Any network that pokes fun (http://www.snpp.com/guides/foxswipe.html) at itself can't be all that bad.

I've never seen Al-Jazeera so I have no idea if it's biased or not. But I would point out that this is a matter of perception -- most people THINK A-J is biased; ditto Fox News. I've read articles that suggest that it is not, but I've also seen enough Fox News to know that you can make a case that FNC isn't biased either. Both arguments are crap, as WCF points out -- all news is biased.

Clearly the Canadian officials in charge of this sort of thing feel that one type of bias is allowable and another type is not. And they're making that decision at a governmental level.

That's called censorship.

And it's an abuse of freedom. Hence the subject of this thread, which is about Canada, not Al-Jazeera.

I don't see Al-Jazeera here in the states either, of course you can get a live feed over the internet :D
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

Hi all......Here's an interesting pair of quotes I came across from two media insiders:

***** "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have."
- Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.

and.......

***** "If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. "
- John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Times, called "The Dean of His Profession" by other newsmen, when asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club.

While I agree completely with WellCookedFetus's statement 'all media is biased', I think that the bias comes down to one deciding factor. Whichever side of the ideological fence [or fences] one is on, the simple overriding truth is this: Television networks are owned by corporations. Corporations are run for profit. Money rules the content and perspective of the news in America. This is true of Fox, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC et al. They all run essentially the same stories, from essentially the same perspective. There are, of course, varying degrees of 'overtness' [lol....okay, I don't think that's even a word... :) .] - some hide it better than others......but at the end of the day, it's all about the money and our corporation's best interests [I'm not putting this link up to support anyone's arguments either way, but I did find this chart from 'The Nation' interesting: http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html ]. It's so interesting, strictly from an academic standpoint, to see the manner in which news stories can be 'spun', without anyone actually lying [not counting lies of omission]. This is a fantastic page that gets very specific when deciphering fact from fiction in mainstream American news stories: http://www.fair.org/ . Fox, especially managing editor Brit Hume and anchor Bill O'Reilly, tend to be among the worst offenders in my opinion [In my opinion, CNN is pretty relentlessly obvious in their bias as well...]. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, linked above, has a rather illuminating 'Fox Archive' on the whole subject.
The truth is, if one wants to have any chance of being informed, it takes quite a bit of time and effort. In my opinion, one has absolutely no chance of getting an accurate picture of world events from any one source - especially from the 'main' televised news sources. You have to put a lot of work into it - which, if one has a job and/or family, is pretty tough to do. The payoff though, is that the more sources you expose yourself to, the more likely you are to start seeing the same stories being reported from different perspectives.......The more often it happens, the better you get at immediately noticing the perspective the story is being written from. It becomes more obvious more quickly whether or not the story's author has his or her own agenda. I used to test my own bias/perspective by simply trying to disprove [just to myself] news stories that I found to be overtly slanted or spun. Good way of keeping yourself honest with yourself :) . Most of the time, I find that the main 'offenses' are that of omission..... Frequently, if an aspect of a story doesn't support the ideology of it's reporter[s], they simply leave that aspect out. If a story doesn't fit with the editorial perspective of a particular news organization, they won't consider it worthy of airtime. I don't know of course, but I think it will be a very long time before there is a single news source that any of us can truly trust. Thx for listening! :)

I don't see Al-Jazeera here in the states either, of course you can get a live feed over the internet

It is available in much of the US, but the point is that its lack of availability is not the result of censorship.

Well it was a Canadian “Jewish” organization that tried to stop Al Jazeera being shown here in Canada. Disgusting imo, considering we get this crap: http://www.thegospel.org/Pages/JVIM.asp which is the most anti-intellectual show on EARTH, but is pro-Israel. Why of course, we shant shut them up now shall we? I think Fox News, Al- Jazeera, whatever should be allowed to be shown here in Canada, it is up to the discretion of the viewer not special interest groups, or the government.

What are you talking about, "here". You live in Pyongyang, remember? :-)

Yes I was in Pyongyang watching over a Dirty Dancing competition btwn “Dear leader” Kim Jong Il, and that cocky bastard Hu Jintao. Of course Kim won… now that I’m back in Canada I can safely say, after seeing that display I am verifiably blind.

WorriedAmerican
The payoff though, is that the more sources you expose yourself to, the more likely you are to start seeing the same stories being reported from different perspectives.......The more often it happens, the better you get at immediately noticing the perspective the story is being written from. It becomes more obvious more quickly whether or not the story's author has his or her own agenda.

Exactly - It's all about perspectives. ;)

Pang...
Clearly the Canadian officials in charge of this sort of thing feel that one type of bias is allowable and another type is not. And they're making that decision at a governmental level.

Not exactly. The following is an excerpt from the 'Broadcasting Act' , the act which serves as the CRTCs' regulatory authority:
(i) the programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system should

(i) be varied and comprehensive, providing a balance of information, enlightenment and entertainment for men, women and children of all ages, interests and tastes,

(ii) be drawn from local, regional, national and international sources,

(iii) include educational and community programs,

(iv) provide a reasonable opportunity for the public to be exposed to the expression of differing views on matters of public concern, and

(v) include a significant contribution from the Canadian independent production sector;

Source (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/LEGAL/BROAD.htm)

Now prove this bias you speak of, in terms of the act? I'm not sure but if in fact Fox News Channel [an American view] is not available in Canada so what.... CNBC, CNN and CNN Headline News Channels [American views] are all available... What? Do we need Fox too? I don't think so.

That's called censorship.

No, no it isn't...

And it's an abuse of freedom. Hence the subject of this thread, which is about Canada, not Al-Jazeera.

No it isn't. And yes, the subject of this thread has everything to do with Aljazeera.

As WCF stated, 'all news is bias'. Therefor we need different perspectives if we wish to get the entire story, hence: (iv) provide a reasonable opportunity for the public to be exposed to the expression of differing views on matters of public concern, and

If CNN, CNBC, BBC etc. are available to Canadians, why not Aljazeera? Further, I just don't see how a claim of censorship can be made when Canadians have access to many differing world-wide views. As a matter of fact, adding Aljazeera to the line-up enriches that differeing view, don't ya think?

Apparently Canadians will be allowed to watch Al-Jazeera, but still will not be allowed to watch Fox News. So apparently one form of bias is allowed, just not the other one.

The CRTC only received an application for the Fox News Channel 10 days ago ( http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2004/pb2004-45.htm ). The reason Canadians do not currently get Fox News has nothing to do with the CRTC and everything to do with the fact that an application had not been lodged. Fox got approval for a "Fox News Canada" variant 4 years ago, but did nothing with it and has since totally abandoned the plan. It is Fox's apathy and inaction, not Canadian 'censorship'.

But hey, you right-wing Americans love to ignore the facts, so keep coming up with wild stories.

well after the big boss smack down I think we can call this thread closed anyone disagree?

well after the big boss smack down I think we can call this thread closed anyone disagree?

Yeah but..........

so keep coming up with wild stories.

:)

The fact that Canada *has* a broadcasting authority that decides what Canadians can or cannot see is the whole point of this thread. This business of who is biased and who is not is just a matter of opinion. And yes, of course it's a matter of censorship. That's the very definition of the word.

You liberals can't have it both ways -- either censorship is wrong -- all the time -- or it is not. There isn't even non-ideological issue to stand on here, aside perhaps from protectivism, and that nonsense was supposed to stop with NAFTA, so I don't want to hear it. The programming comes along with the manufacturing jobs. Think of it as a package deal. :-)

So unless you can explain to me how Canadian televisions can't tune as many channels because of the Northern Lights or something (forcing the government to step in) I've made a prima facie case here. Dislike it all you want, but this is not a debatable point. It's only a spinable one.

The fact that Canada *has* a broadcasting authority that decides what Canadians can or cannot see is the whole point of this thread.

aah does it? I think the thread is now in the stage of questioning if Canada actually is preventing fox from being seen, read above.

I've given counterpoint to that information previously.

If ya'd like to debate the CRTC and what it does; start a new thread...
Porf... has essentially put this thread to bed.

EDIT: You liberals
Thanks! :)

Pangloss,

really where?

this thread will go on as the CRTC is part of the issue no new thread needed.

this thread will go on as the CRTC is part of the issue no new thread needed.
Okay.

Pang...
The fact that Canada *has* a broadcasting authority that decides what Canadians can or cannot see is the whole point of this thread...And yes, of course it's a matter of censorship. That's the very definition of the word.

Not exactly...
Censor (sen-ser) noun a person authorized to examine letters, books, films etc. and remove or ban anything regarded as harmful...

The CRTC does nothing of the sort....

That's one definition. Another would be to say that it's any act which prevents the broadcasting of information to the public. For example:

"Not allowing certain information to be disseminated."
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072492260/student_view0/glossary.html

"Restricting free expression of the editing of public information which as banning of books and movies. "
http://schools.cbe.ab.ca/b836/curriculum/social/socialgloss.html

You can spin and spin and spin all you like, but in the final analysis you have a government agency deciding what you can or cannot see.


Now if you want to say that they do so for benevolent reasons, great, more power to you. I disagree, and the basis of my disagreement is that you haven't given an alternate reason for their censorship which is not partisan or ideological in nature (such as a technical problem).

Canadian here. We have Fox News. Not that I'm a particular fan of it, but it's here, as is CNN, a couple of Spanish news stations, and various Canadian news programs.

I see what you're saying Pang..., and I do agree with you - that the principles of censorship are counter to the principles of democracy.

Where I have trouble is: understanding how the regulatory power of the CRTC has restricted or censored anything you, or I(I'm Canadian too), have access to.

Television is but one medium. Get off your ass, go to the library and read to your hearts content.... I assure you, no CRTC presence there...

The CRTC regulates what's broadcast over the airwaves, pumped into every home housing a TV, for a number of reasons, most of which I don't think you'd argue against i.e. kiddie porn, racism, snuff...whatever you can imagine.

I suppose what I'm stating is: The CRTC plays a very influential role in whats broadcast (through television) in our homes, but that does not mean the truth is unavailable to you... It is... Get off your ass and find it... It's there... Sorry you can't just flip the channel and find it...

The FCC in the US censors bad words, and is increasing the fines and punishment to those who break those rules that also amount to censorship. I am sure the FCC censors other things during day time, and prime time as well. Censorship isn’t all that bad, surely for legitimate news and other things that convey and opinion that is non-offensive there should be no censorship. Of course Canada needs the CRTC, if we didn’t have it Canadians would get all these American channels sacrificing Canadian content. Unlike in the US, Canadians are very protective of the little culture we do have.

Well if what Crimson is saying is true then I have no idea what the situation is. Maybe Fox is just blowing smoke up everyone's arse. I'm certainly no Fox apologist, but like I said, the situation is confusing due to Fox's organizational structure, not to mention the politics. (shrug)

I am Canadian and we allow freedom of speech. It's not an abuse of freedom. Why should we censor the middle east opinions on the war? They have a right to express themselves too. We aren't all caught up in censorship, we usually tell things the way they are. Even on The National, our Canadian news, there is the odd "fuck" in interviews. Americans would be freaked out, especially in Utah :) I get the Osbournes uncensored every night on public channels, big deal. People can say what they want. The American FCC makes a warped picture of realty in American mids. Since I pay extra, I get some American networks. They constantly try to brainwash in the news. It makes me sick. I wouldn't be surprised if the Middle East banned CNN due to propoganda. It just makes me upset that you said that it is an abuse of freedom. It IS freedom. Say whatever you want. Most Canadains are smart enough to make up our own minds. THat's why we are against the war.

Of course Canada needs the CRTC, if we didn’t have it Canadians would get all these American channels sacrificing Canadian content. Unlike in the US, Canadians are very protective of the little culture we do have.

We are bombarded with American culture and are virtually the 51st state. Canada has no identity despite the “I Am Canadian” beer commercials. We turn on the TV and we can’t escape US programming, news, and commercials. Everyone in Canada (probably even more than in US) knows the content and bias of Fox News even if they haven’t watched the channel. Sure, the CRTC censored Fox News but for what reason? Was it to keep “dangerous” information away from the Canadian people or was it to make room for more Canadian content?

The fact that Canada *has* a broadcasting authority that decides what Canadians can or cannot see is the whole point of this thread.

The American's have an equivalent authority in the FCC. Why is this thread not called "More American Abuse of Freedom"? It's certainly true that the CRTC enforces a certain cultural isolationism, denying channels that would compete with equivalent Canadian offerings. Nonetheless, Canada is a democracy and the CRTC is a reasonably transparent servant of our democracy. Providing a somewhat sheltered environment for Canadian content rather than auctioning off airwaves to the highest bidding transnational media conglomerate is apparently something we the Canadian electorate favour.

Or, here's a thought: Why not let the consumers decide which television programs they want to watch? Canadian, American, British, Indian, whatever.

Crazy idea, I know.

That's what I suggested long ago, but it just can't be anything. There is a thing called decency, and you aren't going to put a porn channel on readily available cable so children can see at any time. There are reasonable limits to freedom of expression and speech.

Why not let the consumers decide which television programs they want to watch? Canadian, American, British, Indian, whatever.

Because it's in a nation's interests to promote its own national culture and support its local arts. National culture is not a commodity to be bought and sold like pig's feet.

We don't like court proceedings being televised or ads from pharmaceutical companies. Our elected reps passed laws to prevent these but they still get rammed down our throats every night when we turn on TV to watch CNN.

Because it's in a nation's interests to promote its own national culture and support its local arts. National culture is not a commodity to be bought and sold like pig's feet.

This is the classic Canadian complex, and Americans don’t seem to understand this “inferiority” complex of Canadians when it comes to this concept. I think Pangloss and other Americans have to understand that Canada has a population of merely 30 million persons, the US has 290 million. Canada shouldn’t even really exist we are so meager in comparison to the US. But Canada does, and we are different then Americans (thank God). Canadians are much more socially developed, we are much more utilitarian in our treatment of the population, we don’t force people to assimilate we want diversity, Canadians are much more European in their outlook then Americans, and Canadians are some of the most respected people on Earth. Sure Canada may have American tendencies, sure most of us rather watch friends then some CBC show but there is one thing we Canadians do share, and that’s Peter Mansbridge, I mean which Canadian doesn’t watch The National? I guess as an immigrant to Canada I see the differences much more then a native Canadian, but they are there. Not a great deal many Canadians want to pay less tax if that means giving up healthcare, and imo that is a society based on morality, and consciousness. Imho I think what makes Canada, Canada is our compassion for true equality, and the respect for human dignity, that seems to be missing in the US as of late.

I think what Porfiry is saying is that American media is not to good; in fact American media has gone down in quality every since certain laws repelled in the 1990’s that prevented a single corporation from owning to much media and thus being able to pump out propaganda.

Even so Fox is the one to blame here as they have not had much interest in showing in Canada, not Canada stopping fox.

Oh I *understand* protectionist mentality. Americans are hardly immune from such. I just happen to disagree with it. Personally I don't care if you want to watch "Les Friends" instead of "Friends" (grin), but it seems to me that freedom is choice, not lack of it. Is there some sort of technical problem? Canadian television sets can't tune as many channels? Something to do with the Northern Lights, perhaps?

The quality of American media is certainly not in dispute, that's for sure. *shudder* But again, that's not the point either. EITHER CanadaGov doesn't think you're smart enough to decide for yourself what's worth seeing, OR the American media is actually better than the Canadian. Take your pick.

Politically correct censorship: Canada protecting its media market so that its own miserably bad shows can be shown instead of America's miserably bad shows.

Politically incorrect censorship: America using the FCC to protect its underage citizens from premature exposure to indecent behavior.

Am I the only one who sees this as bass-ackwards?

By the way, I don't mean to belabor the point. If I'm getting needlessly repetitive here, I apologize.

Why not let the consumers decide which television programs they want to watch?

After a while, pornography becomes boring.

The flip-side, of course, being worship television.

Pangloss, you are correct that censorship exists in the abstract, but I'm unsure what specific issue you take with it.

Watch carefully ... in the US, at least, it's commercial regulation and not "censorship." Well, okay--then there's the bit about fines, and that's censorship. But the biggest damage the "censors" do is in the course of "not censoring a thing" and administrating bandwidth. For instance, Clinton and bandwidth and the FCC is a disgraceful story for any politician, even moreso for a Democrat. I remember a time when part of my cable-television allotment required two community networks and two Christian stations. I hate to pull an ageism, but if you're in high school right now, you might not remember the days when you had to fight over the question of "educational channel, sports channel, religious channel, or MTV?" By the end there were markets with two country-music, two Christian, seven "public" (2 PBS, 2 CSPAN, 1 local gov't affairs, 1 public access, and 1 local university), one sports network, the broadcast networks, two to four shopping channels, and no MTV or Comedy Central (what was it's name back then?)

I don't know how it works in Canada, but "commerce" is a better reason for doing anything in this country inasmuch as commercial "necessity" is accepted more often than the moral assertion.

looky what i found (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=34012) :D

somebody was talking about FOX's bias and how al-Jihad (aka A.J) is the "honest voice of the middle east"?

rotflmao

Are you sure that's the right link?

fixed lnk

Alright, I'm confused.

Normally, when someone puts something in quotation marks, such as when you wrote "honest voice of the middle east", I'm inclined to go look for some notion of that phrase.

I read the page twice. Figured I must have missed it. Ran a browser "find" on the words honest, voice, middle, middle east, and ME.

Help me out here: What am I missing?

Because I just don't see what you're referring to. Is a post missing?

Edit some more: I'll take some of my comments back on Fox. Did anyone catch the Simpsons yesterday (Bart-mangled banner FABF17 / SI-1517)? Any network that pokes fun (http://www.snpp.com/guides/foxswipe.html) at itself can't be all that bad.

The Simpsons has routinely mocked Fox. Since it was, for a long time, Fox's only watchable show, they had no leverage to complain about it. Now, it's fairly entrenched.

Fox once faced the prospect of suing itself. Instead they changed their policies to cut out some of The Simpsons jokes in the future. They're really pissed about the fake news ticker.

Canada certainly seems in no way unified on the issue of whether this constitutes censorship, or whether it should be allowed.

Rosie DiManno's column from the July 19th Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1090188610380

The nature of the beast that is Al-Jazeera — reviled both in Washington and by Arab regimes in the region that accuse the network of stirring up opposition to their dictatorial "governments'' — is pertinent right now to Canadians, since the CRTC announced last week that it will permit the network to air here, via cable and satellite. In an anti-Solomonic decision, however, cable providers will take on censoring duties so onerous that few will likely seize the opportunity.

This is patronizing in the extreme. Canadians should be able to watch Al-Jazeera unplugged, with all its anti-Western and anti-Semitic rhetoric uncleansed, so that all can judge for themselves whether the network is worthy of the journalistic accolades it has received as a still-evolving — and far from mature — voice of independent reportage in the Arab world.

re: "honest voice of the ME",
that is what the pundits here consider al-Jazeera to be.
they also claim that FOX is biased.
i am contrasting that with CNN, BBC, and the other "honest" networks (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=34012)

more precisely, the point is not to say whether they're al-Jazeera is biased or not, or whether they flatly lie or not. sure they are and do, but that's not [the main reason] why they should be banned.

the channel gives a platform to inciters of violence and religious intolerance to spread their message across, even in a context of a "debate" this is inexcusable.

i do not want my Arab neighbours to be watching this inciting content about "the sons of monkeys and pigs" how "The Jews" are trying to conquer Saudi Arabia or ruin the Kharam al-Sharif mosque in Jerusalem.

Right. You want to control what your neighbors are allowed to see.

Right. You want to control what your neighbors are allowed to see.

i have a right to be protected against incitement, don't i?
my government, which so shamelessly takes lots of taxes from me, which assures me protection from incitement in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in many other laws, the government of a country which prides itself being a mosaic of cultures who get along so well, that same government is obligated by its own rules to protect me and the Jewish-Canadian community.

if al-Jazeera from this day forth agrees to never bring on their shows propagandists and "experts" then i'd welcome them in Canada. but how likely is that?

if someone in the Middle East calls Jews the "Jewish Community" they will be branded Mossad agents since their comments are "suspicious". instead, when they don't call us "sons of monkeys and pigs" they call us "Zionist criminals"

this is the tip of the iceberg.. they have "experts" that
1) call for the annihilation of Israel (is that not extreme?)
2) propagate that Muslim youth should prepare for a big Jihad against the west (incitement)
3) suicide bombings are morally and religiously OK (is that not insane?)

they also show graphic images and are the official press-release office for al-Qaeda and other terror organizations

----

having a "different opinion" is fine. but having a terrorist-breeding incitement station in my own back yard is something Jews don't want (as the specific targeted group) and many non Jews don't want (as the broader targeted group)

if there was no inciting content and/or religious fanatism being dissiminated by al-Jihad TV then i'd have absolutely no problem having them in Canada.
i'd probably even subscribe because Arab culture is pretty interesting.

The quality of American media is certainly not in dispute, that's for sure. *shudder* But again, that's not the point either. EITHER CanadaGov doesn't think you're smart enough to decide for yourself what's worth seeing, OR the American media is actually better than the Canadian. Take your pick.

It’s neither; the Canadian gov’t is going to allow for FOX news to be shown here should an application be made. Canadian news is much better then American news; we have awards to show that. American “media” isn’t necessarily better, but it is done better. The fear is that Canadian programs that showcase Canadian talent aren’t going to get a fair shake. I mean Canada has made some pretty good shows, Kids in the Hall, and others which escape me right now…Canada is culturally very protectionist.

i have a right to be protected against incitement, don't i?

There's no shortage of rationlization for censorship. Some of them are objectively valid ("fire" in a crowded theater), others are debatable.

Freedom of speech is a protection *against* the will of the majority, as much as it is protection *for* the majority. When it comes to basic human rights, the rights of the individual are equally as important as the rights of society. That's the whole point. You balance that against other kinds of rights which benefit society more, such as popular vote.

Not saying this is the case with you, otheadp, but in terms of this thread in general, I wonder why it is that when one side (such as the far right) tries to violate a basic human right, people fall all over themselves to chastise and deride it. But when the other political extreme *uses exactly the same arguments* to promote their own violation of exactly the same right, they seem to need a basic civics lesson.


The fear is that Canadian programs that showcase Canadian talent aren’t going to get a fair shake. I mean Canada has made some pretty good shows, Kids in the Hall, and others which escape me right now…Canada is culturally very protectionist.

Uh huh. Your argument is basically that Canadian entertainment is better but Canadians don't want to watch it. I wonder why that might be the case. Certainly you're putting forth here that Canadians shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves.

This line of reasoning is certainly familiar. What's unusual is to hear it coming from the center/left.

Your argument is basically that Canadian entertainment is better but Canadians don't want to watch it.

I didn’t say that Canadian entertainment is better all I said is that it’s Canadian, and for an American that doesn’t make much sense. But here we get bombarded with your Television (not that it is a bad thing I like some American TV), but Canada needs to maintain her own identity as well. If that means restrictions so be it, I think most Canadians would abide.

Certainly you're putting forth here that Canadians shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves.

They should, I didn’t say otherwise. What I am talking about here is a certain amount of Canadian content on Canadian TV. I maintained that the consumer should watch what he wants, and there should be no restrictions on availability.

Right. You want to control what your neighbors are allowed to see.

Actually, it's even worse than that. He wants to control what his neighbors are allowed to be.

tiassa, please elaborate

btw, would you support allowing a network in the US that demonizes all Muslims and Arabs? the KKK crowd would probably like it.

What I am talking about here is a certain amount of Canadian content on Canadian TV. I maintained that the consumer should watch what he wants, and there should be no restrictions on availability.

I agree, that's how it should be. Canadian content should just view American content as competition. If you're feeling bombarded by American TV (a point which I can certainly sympathize with), compete with it. Make something people want to see.

By the way, you might agree with me on this as well: Entertainment is no small matter. We're talking about billions upon billions of dollars spent each year. Some (not necessarily anybody here) might view this as not comparable with protectionism of the steel industry, for example, or protectionism of other industries. In fact entertainment is one of the biggest industries there is.


Atheist Xtians for aXtian race

Love the new user title. :-)

Canadian content should just view American content as competition.

It’s not that cut and dry, Canada doesn’t have the same amount of resources your networks get. Here in Canada almost all Canadian make programming is funded by the government. I don’t know if you have ever watched a Canadian program but at the end you see a little Canadian flag, and it says Canada. Another problem is that Canadian television isn’t widely broadcast in the US like yours is here, and that’s a shame.

Make something people want to see.

Canadian programming is starting to get better, although Canadian TV has her own crimes.

In fact entertainment is one of the biggest industries there is.


True, but the difference btwn the steel industry and the entertainment one is that one is tradable commodity the other is not. Canadian protectionism does not affect anyone.

Love the new user title. :-)

I hope you get it…

I wonder why it is that when one side (such as the far right) tries to violate a basic human right, people fall all over themselves to chastise and deride it. But when the other political extreme *uses exactly the same arguments* to promote their own violation of exactly the same right, they seem to need a basic civics lesson.

the 2 sides can cry about it all they want but the urgency to protect the individual from undeserved harm (guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedom) is still there.

the violation of "free speech" is much greater by the "Canadian content quota" the CRTC is using. people should be bitching about that much more. by the way, by this reason alone al-Jazeera should not be allowed in. but the more important reason is the protection that the government owes its minorities. it will violate "free speech" but some speech should be (and is) restricted and censored. some speech should even be (and is) punishable by fines and jail time. this is nothing new.

He wants to control what his neighbors are allowed to be
yeah. i do not want them to be suicide bombers or cemetary vandals.
this is not about plurality / mosaic of peoples and opinions. it's about protecting minorities from abuse and incitement spewed at them.
who cares if it's not the only thing that comes from AJ. they may have the best cooking show in the world but it doesn't erease their inciting element.

i remember once you wrote something with sarcam "you are just not free unless you're free to hate and to opress". you are free in Canada to express opinions but not to hate, at least openly. so i don't know what's the big deal is.

are you ok with allowing KKKs and Neo-Nazi organizations in your neighbourhood? would you not want protection from people like that? would you not like the gov't to interfere and stop their activities and not let them "be" what they are?

i know it is less of an issue for someone who is not the target of incitement... but the victims are there.
actually Americans, Canadians, and the west in general are targeted (albeit less) but i guess that can be tolerated.
but let's asume they're not.
just because you and your group are not targeted does not mean there is no targeting.

Can you show me examples of which the actual channel endorses such measures against certain groups? I am not asking for pundits who occasionally come on the show and say something stupid, the news anchors, journalists?

No hate? Please. Sometimes I wonder if the rule in Canada is actually "it's not okay to spew hate, unless the hate being spewed is against America, then it's fine".


Atheist Xtians for aXtian race

You're making a joke about genericism in religion, I assume. X as a variable, etc.


True, but the difference btwn the steel industry and the entertainment one is that one is tradable commodity the other is not. Canadian protectionism does not affect anyone.

How is entertainment not a tradable commodity? Does it not get bought and sold on an international market? You don't think those episodes of Friends showing up on Canadian television were pirated off the Buffalo airwaves, do you?

I don't see how Canadian protectionism of television programming is any different from Japanese protectionism of industrial output markets, etc. If GM can complain about not being able to sell Saturns in Yokohama then surely Viacom can make the same complaint about Canada.

My point being, as above, that it's not really about protecting Canada's social values or moral views or (as otheadp thinks) whether Canadians are going to become suicide bombers if they watch the latest episode of Touched by an Angel.

It's about which companies get to make money in Canadian markets. That's it.

How is entertainment not a tradable commodity?

If were to sell a cheap Canadian film in the US, would that lower the price of American films? No, a commodity is something that can affect the price of a good across borders. Oil, Lumber, etc.

Does it not get bought and sold on an international market? You don't think those episodes of Friends showing up on Canadian television were pirated off the Buffalo airwaves, do you?

Actually we get to see the shows straight off NBC here in Canada, we get all your channels. Surely our channels also buy the show to have the rights to show it. But that is not being a commodity.

I don't see how Canadian protectionism of television programming is any different from Japanese protectionism of industrial output markets, etc. If GM can complain about not being able to sell Saturns in Yokohama then surely Viacom can make the same complaint about Canada.

Do Americans lose jobs, the industry, etc if Canada restricts the amount of entertainment gets in here? No, would most Americans care? No, would most even know? No.

It's about which companies get to make money in Canadian markets. That's it.

That is not the Canadian perspective, we aren’t American Pangloss we are a different people. This is why I said you wouldn’t understand this position.

Okay, I looked into this further and: One can get Fox news if one has Satallite, or if one orders it from some (but not all) cable providers. Other news channels almost always come with any basic package you can order. Now, I'm not entirely sure that this issue is clear - a few students at the University of Calgary are lobbying hard for Fox and say that most Canadians probably haven't heard of Fox News (I read that this morning in the Calgary herald). However, just about every single Canadian I know knows that Fox News exists. By the same token, most who have it dont' watch it for a few simple reasons a) Canadians like local coverage. Fox isnt' local. b) Canadians are far more liberal than Americans. Canadian Conservatives are still more liberal that US Republicans. Further still, the vast majority of Canadians don't like Bush and as a result anti-Americanism in Canada is going up.

Summation: Fox news isnt' yet a big issue. I'll let you all know if it becomes otherwise (I'm in the conservative heartland of Canada)

Oh you meant commodity in the literal sense. Sure, that's fine.

Do Americans lose jobs, the industry, etc if Canada restricts the amount of entertainment gets in here?

Um, that's not why goods should be allowed into protected markets. You don't open trade between nations because of a fear that people will die of starvation otherwise. You open them because you want competition, and you recognize that said competition will improve the value of domestic goods, and improve the quality of what the consumer will be able to buy.

And that priciple applies perfectly to entertainment.


That is not the Canadian perspective, we aren’t American Pangloss we are a different people. This is why I said you wouldn’t understand this position.

So I'm not able to understand it because I'm not Canadian? How nice.

As I've stated previously, I understand the position perfectly. I just don't agree with it. There's no need to insult me just because I disagree. I'm simply presenting arguments to the contrary. :-)

the first issue, this fox stuff, isn't an issue at all. If you don't pay for cable here you get three channels with bad reception, true there is no fox in this case but there's also no abc, cbs or cnn either. If you do pay you can get whatever you want.

As far as canada protecting certain markets, that's harder. In theory I'm against it, in practice though our small entertainment industry would be squashed in seconds without protection. Canada is a friken HUGE country so people often forget our population is miniscule, about 30,000,000. Technically the fair thing to do is let the american and canadian industries fight it out giving neither an advantage and allow market forces to decide. The problem is a fair fight between our two industries is impossible, in the same sense that a fair fight between a body builder and an eight year old child is impossible. Now if you tied one hand behind the bodybuilders back and gave the child a knife it could be considered unfair but let's face the kid would still lose.

Thats kind of how I see this. It's technically unfair but in practice it just barely keeps our artistic head above the water.

Can you show me examples of which the actual channel endorses such measures against certain groups? I am not asking for pundits who occasionally come on the show and say something stupid, the news anchors, journalists?

them letting these pundit speak out, giving them a microphone, a podium, an acknowledgement, that is enough.

does CNN often invite the Grand Dragon to debates on Crossfire or Larry King?
does FOX?
does NBC invite neo-nazis to debate illegal immigrants?

them letting these pundit speak out, giving them a microphone, a podium, an acknowledgement, that is enough.

But that’s not the actual channel; they are doing what all channels do allow the freedom of expression. That is uniquely rare in the Middle East, and instead of closing our ears and crying like little bitches we should stop our fake outrage and realize that is the position many in the Arabic world take, like it or not. The channel imo hasn’t done anything wrong. Calling Israeli’s Zionists is more appropriate then calling them Jews, why is Zionist a bad word now too? I am sure we get Israeli TV here too, and I am pretty certain you hear some radicals from there doing the same thing to the Arabs. So I personally don’t see why we shouldn’t allow Al Jez, let’s get some balls please.

does CNN often invite the Grand Dragon to debates on Crossfire or Larry King?
does FOX?
does NBC invite neo-nazis to debate illegal immigrants?

But I know who does:

http://www.celebritydetective.com/jerry-springer.jpg

Um, that's not why goods should be allowed into protected markets. You don't open trade between nations because of a fear that people will die of starvation otherwise.

Not necessarily true, we trade because we have too. If we didn’t trade all of us were in autarky we would all pretty much starve. Entertainment is not an industry where everyone benefits from foreign competition; the US has almost monopolistic powers when it comes to English language entertainment.

You open them because you want competition, and you recognize that said competition will improve the value of domestic goods, and improve the quality of what the consumer will be able to buy.

We have more American TV then Canadian, that theorem doesn’t seem to work here. If we were to cut all restrictions then Canadian TV would sink very quickly. The reason why is because Canadian culture is at a comparative disadvantage compared to American. When you are C.D-ed your screwed once you lose protection.

And that priciple applies perfectly to entertainment.

You assume entertainment is merely economic, it’s much more. It is part of an identity, and that’s why your principles don’t fit.

So I'm not able to understand it because I'm not Canadian? How nice.

By the looks of it, you can’t comprehend no. You assume that this is an economic issue over a cultural issue. That is the difference btwn an American and Canadian; culturally Americans are concerned with the economics of the situation before anything else. Here we care about the cultural aspect before the monetary. You live in the US; your culture is not in danger from anyone.

There's no need to insult me just because I disagree.

I didn’t insult you, but should you be insulted by reality I shall refrain.

nice one nico, but there is a difference.

the Jerry Springer show is ridiculed, but al-Jazeera is "the Arabic CNN" - i.e. it holds stature and respect.

another thing - the KKK is a "legal" organization because of some loopholes and technicalities, but neo-nazi movements are not. so Springer brings the "technically legal" KKKers on to the show, but not neo-nazis

also, what is the viewership of Springer and al-Jazeera?

did his guests ever advocate for extermination of this or killing of that?

freedom of expression. That is uniquely rare in the Middle East
chasing your own tale again?
i don't care how unique it is. it's great they have open debates about "whether to murder the sons of monkey and pigs or not" .. see, they have an opposing view nowadays. that's all pretty exciting and i can totally feel the love pulsating from Qatar.

these discussions though, until the Middle East (by your account this is the general feeling of people there, so let's go from there) reforms its barbaric mentality, these discussions have no place in Canadian living rooms, and so does the channel.

the Jerry Springer show is ridiculed, but al-Jazeera is "the Arabic CNN" - i.e. it holds stature and respect.

Excuse me, but you ridicule both so thus for you this is not a valid argument.

the KKK is a "legal" organization because of some loopholes and technicalities, but neo-nazi movements are not.

Ok what does this have to do with anything? Does Al Jez bring on Neo-Nazi’s? I very highly doubt that, secondly you cannot censor anything that you feel is bad. Too bad too sad, I don’t think you would hear someone say “Kill all the X” on Al Jez, I am pretty sure they frown on that as well. Al Jez is a legitimate news organization who shows us the Arabic perspective, and if we are too ignorant to deal with it. It says a lot about us not them.

did his guests ever advocate for extermination of this or killing of that?

I am pretty sure that they did, but the difference is that we aren’t punishing the messenger. Al Jez doesn’t say “Today’s top stories: How to kill Americans, Anthrax, or small Pox you decide, etc.” As long as Al Jez doesn’t give instructions or it actively sponsors hateful acts, there is no reason to stop them.

i don't care how unique it is.

That’s exactly the problem, you think you matter! No, no little one your opinion is not only hyperbolic, and largely illogical it’s laughable. The fact that we have an asset to see the Arabic world speak for once is one we shouldn’t let go so easily. If we ban Al Jez, then some Israeli TV better get off as well.

until the Middle East (by your account this is the general feeling of people there, so let's go from there) reforms its barbaric mentality, these discussions have no place in Canadian living rooms, and so does the channel.

Barbaric Mentality, yes and only Arabs suffer from that… you who talks about Arabs having sex with goats, and camels is not barbaric at all. You know it’s uniquely hypocritical for you an ethnic Russian to be talking about “Barbarism” I mean Russians and their Slavic brothers not to long ago were called “White Niggers”. So oth, my suggestion is to learn from your own history because you weren’t exactly the most civilized of people on Earth, shall we say?

I bet you'd rather have a show like Fox's The O'Reilly Factor in Canadadian Living Rooms, eh Otheadp?. (content below taken from here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News#Comments_of_former_producer) )

All Bill's quotes are from his w:Fox News show, w:The O'Reilly Factor, unless otherwise indicated
On poverty:
· "It's hard to do it because you gotta look people in the eye and tell 'em they're irresponsible and lazy. And who's gonna wanna do that? Because that's what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. Period." [6/16/04]

On the ACLU:
· "Finally, the ACLU -- we talked about this yesterday and I -- and, you know, I have to pick on the ACLU because they're the most dangerous organization in the United States of America right now. There's by far. There's nobody even close to that. They're, like, second next to Al Qaeda." [6/2/04]

On women from Muslim countries:
· "..the most unattractive women in the world are probably in the Muslim countries." - From a w:Stuff magazine interview in 11/02.

On Africa:
· "I've been to Africa three times. All right? You can't bring Western reasoning into the culture. The same way you can't bring it into fundamental Islam" [5/6/02]

On African-Americans:
· "Will African-Americans break away from the pack thinking and reject immorality-- because that's the reason the family's breaking apart--alcohol, drugs, infidelity. You have to reject that, and it doesn't seem--and I'm broadly speaking here, but a lot of African-Americans won't reject it" [2/25/99]

· "I don't understand why in the year 2000, with all of the media that we have, that a certain segment of the African-American community does not understand that they must aggressively pursue their child's welfare. That is they have to stop drinking, they have to stop taking drugs and boozing, and--and whites do it, too! Whites do it, too!" [1/17/00]

What about the dress-down explosion?

O'Reilly: "Shut up. Shut up."
Jeremy Glick: "Oh, please don't tell me to shut up."
O'Reilly: "As respect—as respect—in respect for your father, who was a Port Authority worker, a fine American, who got killed unnecessarily by barbarians—"
Glick: "By radical extremists who were trained by this government—"
O'Reilly: "Out of respect for him—"
Glick: "—not the people of America."
O'Reilly: "—I'm not going to—"
Glick: "—the people of the ruling class, the small minority."
O'Reilly: "Cut his mic. I'm not going to dress you down anymore, out of respect for your father. We will be back in a moment with more of The Factor."
Glick: "That means we're done?"
O'Reilly: "We're done."

Transcript from: Slate (http://slate.msn.com/id/2087706/)

Read Franken's chapter on O'Reilly.

What's the moral here? Well, according to Bill, if your father died on 9/11, you must be a supporter of terrorism.
____________________

• Shafer, Jack. "Bill O'Reilly Wants You To Shut Up." Slate, August 28, 2003. See http://slate.msn.com/id/2087706/

Question:

Can anyone describe Canadian libel/slander laws?

I mean, O'Reilly lies so frequently that he alone is reason to consider whether FOX should be in a given market.

this O'Riley guy is quite a character. gotta read up on him.

nico, you as usual go in circles - be my guest
i was just thinking: comparing al-Jazeera to Jerry Springer - brilliant :D

nico, you as usual go in circles - be my guest

Well for you I would imagine I would, it seems my arguments are outside your little childlike grasp.

i was just thinking: comparing al-Jazeera to Jerry Springer – brilliant


Only you…only you…

Franken is hardly an unbiased observer, so his opinion on O-Really has to be taken in that context.

As for Jeremy Glick, he was clearly pushing an agenda and therefore subject to debate-form criticism. O'Reilly has an abrassive style, so the question here would be whether he treated him as he has other guests. I've seen nothing in the interview to indicate otherwise. The only people attacking O'Reilly on that interview are partisan ideologues.

- He called the murder of his father an assassination undertaken by the Bush administration
- He claimed the Bush administration was the direct cause of 9/11
- He claimed the 2000 election was a "coup"

Understand, I'm not saying he can't say what he likes. I'm saying that by making such claims he opens the door to response. O'Reilly had every right to challenge those assertions. Doing so does not make O'Reilly some kind of evil person bashing a 9/11 victim's family member. Such an assertion is patently unfair and ridiculous.

(Not that anyone here was claiming that. I'm making a general point.)

By the way, Tiassa, to respond to your post, I've never heard Bill O'Reilly ever say anything like "if your father died on 9/11, you must be a supporter of terrorism".


Not that I really care, mind you. Bill O'Reilly is far more moderate than Al Franken, but as far as I'm concerned they can jump off a bridge and take Rush Limbaugh and George Soros with them. Ideologues are as divisive and useless for this country as special interest groups, if not worse.


You live in the US; your culture is not in danger from anyone.

I don't think culture is endangered by other cultural input, but we'll have to agree to disagree here, because we're getting into opinions.

By the way, I just watched the interview again, and it's clear that O'Reilly didn't attack the kid until the kid attacked him. The kid threw out the debate rules, and he's lucky he didn't get smacked for behaving like that.

As for Jeremy Glick, he was clearly pushing an agenda and therefore subject to debate-form criticism

One of the reasons I like the fact that the Glick episode gets so much attention is that I saw it. O'Reilly was out of line. For instance:

By the way, Tiassa, to respond to your post, I've never heard Bill O'Reilly ever say anything like "if your father died on 9/11, you must be a supporter of terrorism".

What you have to consider, despite the assassination, Bush-as-cause, or the "coup" line is that O'Reilly was already laying in wait for him. O'Reilly had a serious problem with the folks who signed the "Not in Our Name" petition to the Bush administration against the Iraqi invasion. Glick was one of those folks. I'd love for us to have a transcript to pick through, but I haven't found it yet, regardless of whether or not O'Reilly transcripts are scrubbed.

Ah ... found one. The whole interview is rather amazing. But to address your points--


- He called the murder of his father an assassination undertaken by the Bush administration
- He claimed the Bush administration was the direct cause of 9/11
- He claimed the 2000 election was a "coup"

--we might look to the first part of the interview:

O'REILLY: In the "Personal Stories" segment tonight, we were surprised to find out than an American who lost his father in the World Trade Center attack had signed an anti-war advertisement that accused the USA itself of terrorism. The offending passage read, "We too watched with shock the horrific events of September 11... we too mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the terrible scenes of carnage -- even as we recalled similar scenes in Baghdad, Panama City, and a generation ago, Vietnam." With us now is Jeremy Glick, whose father, Barry, was a Port Authority worker at the Trade Center. Mr. Glick is a co-author of the book "Another World is Possible." I'm surprised you signed this. You were the only one of all of the families who signed...

JEREMY GLICK: Well, actually, that's not true.

O'REILLY: Who signed the advertisement?

GLICK: Peaceful Tomorrow, which represents 9/11 families, were also involved.

O'REILLY: Hold it, hold it, hold it, Jeremy. You're the only one who signed this advertisement.

GLICK: As an individual.

O'REILLY: Yes, as -- with your name. You were the only one. I was surprised, and the reason I was surprised is that this ad equates the United States with the terrorists. And I was offended by that.

GLICK: Well, you say -- I remember earlier you said it was a moral equivalency, and it's actually a material equivalency. And just to back up for a second about your surprise, I'm actually shocked that you're surprised. If you think about it, our current president, who I feel and many feel is in this position illegitimately by neglecting the voices of Afro- Americans in the Florida coup, which, actually, somebody got impeached for during the Reconstruction period -- Our current president now inherited a legacy from his father and inherited a political legacy that's responsible for training militarily, economically, and situating geopolitically the parties involved in the alleged assassination and the murder of my father and countless of thousands of others. So I don't see why it's surprising...

O'REILLY: All right. Now let me stop you here. So...

Source: O'Reilly Sucks (http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/transcripts/oreillyglick.htm) (who else?)

So now let's go look at what Glick said, versus the accusation:

• "He called the murder of his father an assassination undertaken by the Bush administration." - Wrong. Mr. Glick accused that the current president had inherited from his father a policy paradigm that "(situated) geopolitically the parties involved in the assassination and the murder of my father and countless thousands of others."

Mr. Glick is referring, obviously, to the American foreign policy in the Middle East and others in which "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." There are members of this executive administration who were pushing these causes in the executive all the way back to the early 1970s. It is the circle that leads us from Schwarzkopf (Iran) to Schwarzkopf (Iraq). It is the policies that trained Osama bin Laden, the Taleban, and others. It is the policies that have coddled the very people we now hold dangerous (e.g. the recently deposed Saddam Hussein, the recently-deposed Taleban, &c. We who learned in childhood to fear the notion of Ayatollah Khomeni, who were also pissed when CBS' broadcast of Real Genius was interrupted by news of his death, were unpleasantly surprised when our further education brought to light the meaning of various cultural side references to the Shah of Iran. (e.g. V--in the novelization of the miniseries there is a reference to someone not believing the country could go lower than shepherding the Shah.) The thing is that Mr. Glick was not inventing anything new to pick on, but reiterating a longstanding complaint in an American political debate that spans six decades at least.

- "He claimed the Bush administration was the direct cause of 9/11." - Wrong, it seems. I just don't see it. The closest the interview came was when O'Reilly tried to claim the people of Afghanistan killed Glick's father (there are no innocent Afghanis?) because, "The al Qaeda people were trained there"; and Glick tried to point out that the US, even under Poppy Bush, trained "the al Qaeda people." The point O'Reilly was afraid of is simple: If the people of Afghanistan killed the senior Glick simply by "allowing" al Qaeda to train there, then the people of the United States can be held equally guilty for funding and coordinating that training in the first place. When put that way, the absurdity of O'Reilly's blanket condemnation of all Afghanis becomes rather apparent.

- "He claimed the 2000 election was a 'coup'." - That he did. And here's the thing about that: At the time, as far as I could tell, the only people following this aspect of the 2000 election were myself and the one and only Michael Moore. Take, for instance, Moore's book, Stupid White Men. The chapter on the 2000 election was the first occasion since November, 2000, that anyone of any prominence had mentioned the canceled voter registrations. The story had no effect then. It wasn't important. It's only now that Moore has put it to celluloid and is firing it up two stories tall on the silver screen that people are paying attention. A vital argument, which only Moore makes, is that "Bush" (Jeb, I think) lawyers allegedly argued for a broad interpretation of Florida election law in order to effect the cancellations, yet appealed for a strict interpretation of Florida election law in order to end the recounts. While this says something about the lawyers on the other side of the case, I have no objections to calling the 2000 election a coup. Florida has recently dumped the very purge list which caused all the problems; though they still worry about voter fraud, it's obvious now that they won't get away with saying the idea of a felon voting is a more severe problem than the suspension of civil rights from law-abiding citizens. I think Mr. Glick is largely vindicated by history, and if O'Reilly didn't know about the voter cancellation-issue at the time, he ought not have such a show. If he chose to ignore the stench coming from the 2000 election, well, that's what we expect.

Understand, I'm not saying he can't say what he likes. I'm saying that by making such claims he opens the door to response. O'Reilly had every right to challenge those assertions. Doing so does not make O'Reilly some kind of evil person bashing a 9/11 victim's family member. Such an assertion is patently unfair and ridiculous.

O'Reilly can say what he likes. But he's obviously false, and I will go so far as to say that, By constructing such situations as he does, O'Reilly is abusing the power of television host on a "news" network by ambushing people with intentionally-politicized misconstruction. As we see, while anyone has the right to challenge O'Reilly on those assertions, it had better not be to his face because he will not tolerate being corrected. You say O'Reilly had every right to challenge those assertions. On that point I call bullsh@t: Glick had every right to correct O'Reilly's intentional distortions and spring O'Reilly's intended ambush.

Bill O'Reilly is far more moderate than Al Franken

(chortle.)

Franken is hardly an unbiased observer, so his opinion on O-Really has to be taken in that context.

Franken is a great place to start on either FOX or O'Reilly. The thing about Franken is that, unlike O'Reilly, his recounting of events can be verified. One may not like what Franken has to say, but especially in the case of hammering O'Reilly, he's got the leg up. (I've been reading an anti-Franken site, and what's curious is that if we accept their allegations, we now have a three-layer argument of "lie," "Franken lie," "anti-Franken response." Except that it goes, "lie," "Franken lie," "anti-Franken lie." The anti-Franken folks, when you read through their lists, are rather desperate. What they're banking on is that they really are the biggest losers in the equation and that nobody will waste time being so petty about anti-Frankenisms. It's a great conservative strategy in American politics; it's what Ann Coulter was banking on, for instance. She was wrong. Will the anti-Franken line stand as the outer valence? Perhaps. But given Franken's part in Air America, anything's possible.)
___________________

• OReilly-Sucks.com. "Transcript (partial): Bill O'Relly vs. Jeremy Glick." O'Reilly Factor, February 4, 2003. See http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/transcripts/oreillyglick.htm

By the way, I just watched the interview again, and it's clear that O'Reilly didn't attack the kid until the kid attacked him. The kid threw out the debate rules, and he's lucky he didn't get smacked for behaving like that.

Obviously, I disagree with your analysis, but in the meantime, what's this dunderheaded thing with conservatism and violence? "He's lucky he didn't get smacked for behaving like that"? Oh, come on. Why is the solution to a difficult question always violence?

I mean, by the same measure, Glick never would have gotten his chance with O'Reilly, anyway, because someone should have beat the shit out of Bill a long time before that.

I mean ... what ... he lied about his political affiliations, lied about journalistic awards, got upset at Ludicrus when in fact his own novel (http://www.billoreilly.com/pg/jsp/general/genericpage.jsp?pageID=25) from 1998 contains its own dose of sex and violence. Now, you might not like Franken's editorial spin, but the factual dose remains valid:

In Ludacris's hit album, Word of Mouf ... there are depictions of four murders. In Those Who Trespass, there are six murders, one of which involves jamming a spoon through the roof of the victim's mouth and up into his brain stem. O'Reilly's book also depicts a fifteen-year-old crack whore performing this "fellatio" business on her pimp, "Robo." ("Say, baby, put that pipe down and get my pipe up.") While Ludacris, like O'Reilly, enjoys describing oral sex scenes, there are none on his album involving a teen crack whore.

(Franken, 80)

Point being is that by the measure of Glick being lucky to not get smacked, O'Reilly is lucky to not have had his skull smashed in with a length of pipe.

But he did cop to being wrong about the WMD. That buys him a couple points.
____________________

• Franken, Al. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. New York: Dutton, 2003.

I don't have a problem with things like this:

O'Reilly was already laying in wait for him

Or this:

By constructing such situations as he does, O'Reilly is abusing the power of television host on a "news" network by ambushing people with intenti...

Etc. That's your opinion, and I don't even disagree with it.

But I'm not about to take partisan, ideological rhetoric and even call it "a great place to start". That doesn't work for me because most of the time these guys are just trying to marginalize each other's arguments, rendering them moot. Well they're successful in one sense -- as far as I'm concerned they're ALL a pack of dishonest ideologues, and I trust them about as much as I trust some of these joker politicians.

I have a lot of respect for your arguments above and around the board, I just won't go there with you. I need more. I need objectivity. :-)

I need more. I need objectivity.

I've found that objectivity is something I have to go out and construct. I'm just as willing to start with a loser like P.J. O'Rourke and work back toward objectivity.

The thing is that as the FOX silliness gets even broader, people are constantly going to be asking, "What's the argument? What's this about?"

Well, whether or not you like Al Franken, he's squarely at the center of the O'Reilly debate. You know what a pain in the ass it is searching for eight year-old press releases? Additionally, I don't have the funds to run my research operation the way I want. I don't pretend I'm unusual in that. And the reason Franken is a great place to start is that he, like Moore, is a focal point in his chosen battle.

Sometimes it takes a little obsession to get to the heart of certain things. And at least Franken undertook the obsession so that you or I don't have to.

But I would also remind you of two points of mine throughout the topic that don't necessarily come up in the O'Reilly discussion: regulation and FOX itself. To wit, the question seems to be how FOX News isn't in the Canadian cable packages. Well, first off, as I pointed out, in official lingo it's "regulation," and not censorship. I even alluded to the "olden days" when conditions could make it as impossible to get FOX News (were they around back then) as it was to get MTV or Comedy Central. So it becomes a two-part argument. Does the market demand/require/allow "yet another news station"? And also, "Is it really a news station?" I'm happy to follow the O'Reilly digression because it sheds some light on whether or not FOX is really a news station. Of course, I'm also the only one who remembers how FOX News used to talk loudly about how they were out to break the liberal media bias. (Eight years old ... eight years of press releases that are hard enough to find.)

In the meantime, though ... if you want to know what the actual centerpiece of the anti-O'Reilly argument is, Franken is a gerat place to start. Besides, as you noted: his opinion on O'Reilly has to be taken in the context of his bias. But there are certain factual issues that can be examined without that context. Did O'Reilly publicly claim--as a plank of his integrity--to be a registered independent while being a registered Republican? It certainly appears so, and that Franken dislikes O'Reilly--perhaps even hates him--doesn't change that fact. Did O'Reilly have a beef with the content of Ludacris's music? Yes. That's certainly facutal. Does O'Reilly's novel (for sale online) contain more violence, and even what can be defined as child pornography? Well, I'm not going to read the damn thing anytime soon, but given that FOX has already sued Franken over the "fair and balanced" issue, don't you think O'Reilly would sue Franken for direct libel? Nobody seems to be taking issue with Franken's claims about the content of O'Reilly's novel. Now ... that's all I mean when I say Franken's a great place to start. You can certainly disagree with Franken or anyone else you want to. You can certainly believe that lying about one's political affiliations only increases the appearance of their personal integrity. You can certainly believe that taking profits for what one calls obscene when it comes from someone else isn't at least a conceptual contradiction.

Franken's a good place to start because that's where the battlefield is these days. Anyone else want to publish a detailed account? Great. But right now Franken's the flagship. And if you don't want to go there with me, then please consider whether or not you should have gotten on the boat.

It's just that in this case, it doesn't necessarily matter whether or not Al Franken is biased.

Franken doesn't hold a higher truth level than O'Reilly, Tiassa. He does exactly the same thing: Spins the truth, and puts up ambiguous arguments that are more deflections than honest analysis. The rule of thumb at his web site is the same as it is at O'Reilly's: Spin, spin, spin, and when you're done with that, here's some more spin. Rinse and repeat.

Like that business you keep quoting about comparing Ludicris' music to O'Reilly's book. It doesn't defray O'Reilly's point, because it's possible for BOTH to be inappropriate. I realize YOU gave it as an example of O'Reilly being *hypocritical*, but *Franken* gives it as an example of O'Reilly being *dishonest*, which is not approproate because O'Reilly has an objectively valid argument: Ludicrus is being blasted on open airwaves during prime children's listening/viewing time, and O'Reilly's book is not.

Whether or not that's fair is a matter of opinion. But there is a clear, objective line of demarkation between adult-themed fiction on the shelves and adult-themed television and radio content during children's consumption time-frames (for example, the book has to be purchased; the music and video are free and right in the kid's face). That makes the argument invalid and simply a matter of spin. (Franken's argument, mind you, not yours -- we agree O'Reilly's a hypocrit.)

Finally, the issue of OhReally doesn't touch on the issue of whether Fox News Channel is biased. It's billed and sold as an opinion show, so it's simply not relevent to the debate over the legitimacy of Fox's reporting.

It's billed and sold as an opinion show, so it's simply not relevent to the debate over the legitimacy of Fox's reporting.

First off, I just think you're placing too much value in my recommendation of Franken.

As to O'Reilly and Fox ... it's just another something to consider. How does it relate to FOX's reporting? Well, it's more of a composite picture.

• Viewers who preferred FOX News tend to have a distorted view of the news. (1 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A27061-2003Oct14))
• As recently as the Franken lawsuit°, FOX News billed itself as "a specific alternative to what its founders perceived as a liberal bias in the American media." (2 (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Fox_News))
• Former FOX News producer Charlie Reina wrote a scathing review of bias at FOX News, which was published at the Poynter Forums, even calling the network "Roger's Revenge" against the perceived but yet-to-be established liberal media bias. (3 (http://poynter.org/forum/?id=thememo))
• FOX News erroneously called the 2000 presidential election for George W. Bush; that call was made by John Ellis, who is Dubya's cousin.° (4 (http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/15/ellis/index.html))
• FOX News loads up disproportionately with conservative--and often irresponsibly so--voices for commentary and "analysis".

That last point, of course, referring to O'Reilly and his cohorts. Lined up with the other four points, it suggests a trend of affirming FOX News' own posturing as a voice against liberalism.

All of this tailing back to my general argument that "FOX News" is a woeful misnomer.
____________________

Notes:

° Franken lawsuit - And here I was looking back eight years for that little blurb about countering the liberal media bias.
° Dubya's cousin - This has always been a weird thing for me to consider. I understand the sheer appearance of impropriety, but the polls were closed when the "bad call" came down. The point, apparently, was to make the call first in a similar assertion of "possession is nine-tenths of the law." The Bush camp played the "unfairly assailed winner," the whole time--a great sleight of hand that focused everyone on chads and recounts, and not outright voter fraud--though that fraud is separate from our discussion here. I'm dubious about the value of this attempt, and would be sorely disappointed if we anoint an overstated value to what seems a rather juvenile way of going about things. I just think that hiring a Bush cousin to cover election night is a bad move, and that said Bush cousin caused much journalistic confusion when he should not have, and furthermore seems to take pride in that confusion, tells us quite clearly what FOX News is actually worth--misinformation.

Reference Notes:

(1) Meyerson, Harold. "Fact-Free News." Washington Post, October 15, 2003; page A23. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A27061-2003Oct14
(2) Disinfopedia. "Fox News." See http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Fox_News
(3) Reina, Charlie. "The Fox News Memo." PoynterOnline, October 31, 2003. See http://poynter.org/forum/?id=thememo
(4) Boehlert, Eric. "Fox guarding the henhouse." Salon.com, November 15, 2004. See http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/15/ellis/index.html

First off, I just think you're placing too much value in my recommendation of Franken.

Sure, that may be. We all know about miscommunication and the written word. :-)

The rest of the post was interesting, but I think you must have misunderstood me. You're preaching to the converted -- we already agree FNC is conservatively biased. (Just as the three major networks are liberal biased, although I have no idea if you agree with that.)

What I said above was that whether O'Reilly is biased is not relevent to whether Fox News Channel is biased. Just because the New York Times puts William Safire on its pages doesn't make them conservative, nor does it indicate conservative bias in their editorial staff. If anything, they're just the opposite, and in spite of Jayson Blair, they still seem quite capable of serious reporting (winning a Pulitzer with PBS Frontline just this past year).

The rest of the post was interesting, but I think you must have misunderstood me. You're preaching to the converted -- we already agree FNC is conservatively biased

There is that, but I also like to use these occasions for a soapbox. Porfiry's note (http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=639271) pretty much took the wind out of the sails of the "censor-ship" (go ahead, shoot me), so I'm left holding an aggressive anti-FOX thesis that I feel the need to play out. It just happens that our discussion is very conducive to that.

Well my compliments on your posts once again, very thoughtfully detailed and incisive. And I enjoyed the links. :-)