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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.President, Waterkeeper Alliance; Professor, Pace
University
Posted: February 28, 2011 09:54 PM
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Regulators Reject Proposal That Would Bring Fox-Style News to Canada
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Read More: Fox News , Stephen Harper , Sun News , Media News

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As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin
barricades -- against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate
toadies at Fox News -- fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice
can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border.
Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada
regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's
right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that
forbids lying on broadcast news.

Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast....any
false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right
wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for
liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians
enjoy high quality news coverage including the kind of foreign affairs
and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before
Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political
dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty,
collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the
U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying
provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing
that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by
the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage
familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio.
Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right
wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."

Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for
having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data
collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard
of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry,
fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.

Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a
stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate
national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-
taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or
broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and
financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public.
In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of
billionaires and corporate robber barons have become the masters of
propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News's
notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests
is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly
avoided.