Fox News Banned From Canada for Lying - Page 4 - OG Myth-Weavers

Notices


Worldly Talk

Civil discussion and debate on real world events and issues.


Fox News Banned From Canada for Lying

 
You bring up a good point prox, news wise, most americans really don't care what happens in the north of us, you guys have been great neighbors in the fact that we never notice you . (( Which is not a insult, the best neighborliness really are the ones you never notice sometimes. compared to lets say mexico.))

http://www.skepticmoney.com/fox-news...roadcast-news/

Speaking of being banned for lying, very little in that original post (quoted above) is true.

1) If the Canadian PM wanted to repeal the law, he could do so without any interference whatsoever. As has been proven again in the courts with another government agency resisting change (the Canadian Wheat Board) it is unconstitutional in Canada for a past government to affect any future government from passing any laws it so chooses. The discussion is not about changing the laws, but about a regulator saying that it will continue to enforce existing regulations until such time that the regulations change.

2) The issue isn't one of truth or lies, it's whether a part of the government civil service (the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission - an arm's length commission similar in operation to the EPA to name a well-known American analogue) should have any say in what any Canadian can and will say. The Canadian Supreme Court (also not the Conservative Government) has sided against limiting free speech, regardless of whether it is true or not. The court's decision is based on Section 2.(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
Quote:
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
There are very few limitations to free speech, expression and whatnot that remain in Canada. Those that remain include inciting violence against an individual or group or mischief likely to cause harm (yelling Fire in a crowded theatre).

3) To wit: Fox News is in fact broadcast in Canada and has been for many years. The discussion in the article was about a Canadian Fox channel broadcasting on Canadian issues.

We have essentially the same channel as Fox News in Canada called SunTV (started operation this year after the articles quoted above were written), which operates under a very-similar model as FOX does in the US - lots of op-ed/interviews, not too much for real news, a fair amount of stretching the truth/embellishment/lying depending on your political bent. Both stations (and MSNBC for that matter) carry a ton of Opinion and Editorializing under the guise of news, and it shouldn't be up to any government to tell them what they can and cannot say.

NBC didn't say the Aurora shooter was part of the tea party.
They said they found a post online in which someone with uis name and in that area had joined the tea party a year earlier, but they could not be sure it was him.
An hour later they discovered it was not him and announced that on the air.
Classy? No. Irresponsible? Yes. A lie? No. They did in fact find the web site, it just was not him.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greycloak View Post
1) If the Canadian PM wanted to repeal the law, he could do so without any interference whatsoever.
He tried to, and he met interference large enough to stop him.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert..._b_829473.html

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greycloak View Post
2) The issue isn't one of truth or lies, it's whether a part of the government civil service (the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission - an arm's length commission similar in operation to the EPA to name a well-known American analogue) should have any say in what any Canadian can and will say.
It should be noted, here, that the government tried to repeal this law, and the people opposed them. So if the law is some sort of ploy by the government to control all the journalism in the country, they did the world's best job of reverse psychology.

Beyond what Ikul said which is wholly correct, the laws that forbid lying and misrepresentation in broadcasts presented as news remain stringently in place. While Fox News can broadcast to Canada, and has been doing so for years as several people have noted, they cannot broadcast domestically within our borders assuming they were to follow their American model, because it is simply illegal to do so here.

Though the Sun News Network proves a sort of Canadian equivalence to Fox, they must be careful about what they actually represent as news lest the FCC and CRTC come down on it.

Finally, yes, I believe the government and government regulators have a role to play in ensuring accuracy in the news so long as their oversight and acts of sanction/intervention are evidence based and consumer/constituent motivated. Openly abusing mass media to distort the political landscape and push agendas through wholesale dissemination of lies is unacceptable no matter who does it.

The truth doesn't get viewers. The truth is boring. How many stations that tell the truth are a topic in so many circles? Until people stop watching and believing neurotic news, it will continued to be broadcasted in one form or another. I would like to see this passed in the U.S.A.(Congrats Canada), but I doubt it would ever make it. The politicians are too invested in these big businesses to pass such a law.

It's worth pointing out that Press TV (Iran's propaganda channel) has lost its UK operation due to Ofcom banning it - concerns over local control of news and refusing to pay a fine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
Openly abusing mass media to distort the political landscape and push agendas
Let's be honest with ourselves, this is ALL the mass media does. Whether it's selective editing or lazy journalism on the left, or rabidity of the right, none of them are any good. Typically, people simply defend that which they agree with, because it's comfortable.

The media sees itself as the "Kingmaker" in American politics, they have ever since they realized how much power they have over public opinion. I'm not saying I have a solution to the issue, but covering your ears to one side's bias and accusing the other side of bias is... childish.

I have many friends on the left, many friends on the right, and many somewhere in the middle. I have many people I can't stand to talk to on the left, and many people I can't stand to talk to on the right. The simple fact is that Americans either feel they don't have the time or energy to come up with their own opinions and challenge their own beliefs, so they'll absorb somebody else's and regurgitate it as their own.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Powderhorn View Post
The media sees itself as the "Kingmaker" in American politics, they have ever since they realized how much power they have over public opinion. I'm not saying I have a solution to the issue, but covering your ears to one side's bias and accusing the other side of bias is... childish.
If you've any doubt of this, check out how they shaped the Republican nominations. That was downright diabolical.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ikul View Post
He tried to, and he met interference large enough to stop him.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert..._b_829473.html

It should be noted, here, that the government tried to repeal this law, and the people opposed them. So if the law is some sort of ploy by the government to control all the journalism in the country, they did the world's best job of reverse psychology.
Sorry, I missed that this is an 18-month old op/ed Huffington Post article. Yes, at the time, the committee blocked the regulation change because the government was in a minority situation. Now, we are in a majority so if the PM wanted to change the law, it would be changed. On a similar issue, the government recently rescinded the section of the Human Rights Act that refers to inciting hatred through speech, because of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling that is behind this entire discussion (i.e. limiting free speech that does no harm). There are still protections against Libel, incitements to violence etc. in Canadian Law.

This particular issue will most likely be settled in the Court, as has almost every contentious rights issue in Canadian history (Sufferage, Death Penalty, Abortion, Gay Marriage). PM did not try to repeal any law, else it would have been repealed or there would have been an election on that particular issue.

The article you quote is out of date and is invalidated by two very important points:
1) US Fox News is broadcast in Canada and has been since the early 2000's (6 or 7 years before that article was published)
2) SunTV is also being broadcast in Canada currently and it is the hypothetical station that was being discussed at the time that article came out. Subsequent to that article, it passed the regulations as is and it's currently on the air. There are active disputes between individual hosts on that channel and the CRTC to do with on-air conduct that will, I believe, ultimately lead to a court challenge that will strike down the regulation in question, if the majority government doesn't get to them first.




 

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Last Database Backup 2024-03-19 08:45:18am local time
Myth-Weavers Status