When I first moved to the US from Canada, it took me a while to figure out which TV channels were worth watching. Once, I was really tired after a long day at school and felt like watching some comedy. After flipping through a dozen channels, I alighted at a program that was absolutely hilarious. It was a brilliant parody of a newscast, where "journalists" offered a set of completely Medieval beliefs as "facts", introducing them with a phrase "some people say. . ." and opening their eyes very wide, as if that were supposed to lend credence to the junk they were spouting. There was also this hilarious gentleman who parodied the process of interviewing a guest. He kept chattering in a completely crazy way, never letting the interviewee get a word in, raising his voice to the point of screaming, and offering a barrage of disjointed and completely ridiculous statements. I had a blast watching it and shared my discovery of this fantastic comedy channel with my American friends. They burst my illusion, though, by informing me that this was supposed to be an actual news channel. This is how I discovered Fox News.
As if it weren't enough that so many Americans made complete fools out of themselves believing that Fox News had anything to do with news reporting, we will now get our own Fox News channel in Canada:
"It will aim to challenge conventional wisdom and offer Canadians a new choice and a new voice on TV," Quebecor Media CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau said as the conservative news channel faces stiff competition from existing cable news channels operated by the CBC and CTV networks.
If by "conventional wisdom" Fox News means intelligence, basic decency and honesty in reporting, then I have no doubt that the new channel will do a great job challenging these standards. I hope that my fellow Canadians are smart enough to see this new channel for what it is: a parody of journalism that would be really funny if it weren't as scary as it is.
7 comments:
One of the delights of driving in the US, for me, is to listen to Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Evangelical Christian radio on the car stereo.
It's a pity the "Reactions" line at the bottom of your posts does not have a box for "horrifying beyond all reason."
Google Alerts tells me that half a dozen Canadian websites published this post with very horrified comments. This gives me hope that the venture will fail in Canada, as it so richly deserves.
As a comedy channel, it won't. How do we know that Americans don's see it as such?
“If by "conventional wisdom" Fox News means intelligence, basic decency and honesty in reporting, then I have no doubt that the new channel will do a great job challenging these standards.”
I’d like to make an update based on an article in the Toronto Star today. A piece by Stephen Scharper stated that the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission) “is seeking to relax restrictions concerning the broadcasting of specious information on radio and television.” Currently a Fox news or right wing American style radio shows cannot exist in Canada because the law stipulates that broadcasters “shall not broadcast any false or misleading news.” Last month the CRTC put a notice on its website that it wants to modify this law to “any news that the licensee knows is false or misleading and that endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.”
So who decides which information is false and endangers the public or is false and just funny entertainment for the masses? - A triumvirate appointed by (guess who?) our Conservative government. Of course we have nothing to worry about based on their long and distinguished commitment to transparency and evidence based policy i.e. two prorogations of parliament in one year, eliminating the census, increasing spending on prisons due to an increase in unreported crime. I could continue but I think that you get the picture. I can see in the near future where this new news channel which starts broadcasting in March could call the Liberal party a communist front organization which wants to bring a Soviet style regime to Canada while the CBC , referred to by conservatives as the Communist Broadcasting Company could not offer an accurate rebuttal without the threat of having its licence removed.
At a time of increasing economic turmoil and insecurity for the majority of citizens in North America, we seem to have a developing anti-democratic impulse on the right. Is a Kristallnacht coming? The CRTC is accepting comments on its proposed ruling change until Feb. 9. For information on how to submit comments, visit http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-14.htm.
Clarissa,
I disagree that Fox News needs to be censored. By doing that we're just playing into their hands. My opinion is that we need to challenge their arguments they put forth. We need to challenge those like Hannity, Limbaugh, and others. We need to challenge their fundamental belief system. In my opinion, there are some things they could be correct about.
If hannity talked against pedophila and bashed nambla I would be up in arms and side by side with him.
Nobody can be more anti-NAMBLA than I am. So for the great cause of putting them out of business I'd militate by the side of the devil.
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