Could Fox News North be awesome? Opinions differ
One thing is certain, based on the press conference that Quebecor head honcho Pierre-Karl Peladeau and Kory Teneycke held downtown yesterday: the Sun News plan is quite real. If it gets regulatory approval, it will be up and running next January. Apart from that, opinions differ. Old-school journos like Don Newman are lamenting that a brash, upstart news channel is “the absolute last thing this country needs,” and left-wing voices all over the Canadian media are worrying about what it will mean for the nation’s politics. Teneycke himself believes that the network will be “unapologetically patriotic. We will offer the type of raw debate that Canadians only find today in coffee shops and around the dinner table. Sun News will be controversially Canadian.”
Chris Selley of the National Post, a paper that was once a brash, conservative upstart, agrees:
“Controversially Canadian” — good line. And I imagine that schpiel is enough to bring a good number of Canadians to their feet in applause all on its own. There really is a lot of smug, condescending, irrelevant and politically correct journalism out there, and there really are a lot of people who hate it.
Of course, Selley also notes that Sun Media hasn’t exactly won the ground war with its newspapers. Nevertheless, he comes away excited. And no wonder: nothing quite says “shaking up the Canadian media landscape” like holding a press conference in downtown Toronto and bashing “political correctness” and the CBC, something we’re pretty sure has never been done before.
• Sun News may offer needed jolt [National Post]
• ‘Straight talk’ Sun TV News coming soon [Toronto Sun]
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/could-fox-news-north-be-awesome-opinions-differ/&title=Could Fox News North be awesome? Opinions differ&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/SUNtv.jpg&description=One thing is certain, based on the press conference that Quebecor head honcho Pierre-Karl Peladeau and Kory Teneycke held downtown yesterday: the Sun News plan is quite real. If it gets regulatory approval, it will be up and running next January. Apart from that, opinions differ. Old-school journos like Don Newman are lamenting that a brash, upstart news channel is “the absolute last thing this country needs,” and left-wing voices all over the Canadian media are worrying about what it will mean for the nation’s politics. Teneycke himself believes that the network will be "unapologetically patriotic. We will offer the type of raw debate that Canadians only find today in coffee shops and around the dinner table. Sun News will be controversially Canadian."
Chris Selley of the National Post, a paper that was once a brash, conservative upstart, agrees:
"Controversially Canadian" — good line. And I imagine that schpiel is enough to bring a good number of Canadians to their feet in applause all on its own. There really is a lot of smug, condescending, irrelevant and politically correct journalism out there, and there really are a lot of people who hate it.
Of course, Selley also notes that Sun Media hasn't exactly won the ground war with its newspapers. Nevertheless, he comes away excited. And no wonder: nothing quite says “shaking up the Canadian media landscape” like holding a press conference in downtown Toronto and bashing “political correctness” and the CBC, something we're pretty sure has never been done before.
• Sun News may offer needed jolt [National Post]
• 'Straight talk' Sun TV News coming soon [Toronto Sun]){kind=link}
Harper tried to establish a dedicated media department soon after he was elected. He changed his mind; we wonder if he was advised that his propoganda people planned to be so vicious the public would clamour for it to be shut down. Much better for him to establish a private media pit bull. And that’s all this is. These “free speech” “differing opinion” arguments are laughable. Our media is already biased towards the public, and Harper’s pit bull would be attacking the public who demand that our politicians be held accountable, and shielding corporations from accountability, pointing the finger at minority citizens for causing trouble that industrialists cause. Look at how political astroturfers are at the moment claiming we need to spend Billions on G20 security because there are violent protesters out there, as if suddenly we’re a crazy population. 15% of the population are psychopaths, alright, but I think they carry a political party membership. And by the way, why does our government need a voice in the media when they already have one? They’re simply trying to drown out the public by using public media to confuse issues. Exactly the way Hitler used his Ministry of Propoganda and Enlightenment to control the population from the bottom up while he held an iron grip at the top. A little sports, a little theater, a little people bashing, a little “Heil Harper”. Whereas the CBC and CTV take a populist view, Harper’s Fox News North will be a tool of political propoganda, stirring up emotions and unrest, creating problems and preventing space for reasonable solutions. It is easy to control a populace that’s angry and confused. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
Let’s look at the propoganda techniques our current Cons use that no doubt be the formula for “success” for their media arm: Demonizing the enemy; Flag-waving; Cult of personality; Name-calling; Managing the news; Obfuscation; Quotes out of context; Oversimplification; Common man; Black and white fallacy; Big lie; appeal to authority; appeal to fear; appeal to prejudice; bandwagon…more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda