Independent journalist Justin Podur has some advice (Dissident Voice, 1/9/09) for his fellow Canadians: “Today, if you want to have the first idea what is happening in Israel/Palestine (or most of the rest of the world), the best thing to do would be to turn [national Canadian media] off completely.”
A friend of mine, Brooks Kind, spent some time going through the least biased of the Canadian media, CBC radio, over the past two weeks. He found that the CBC suppressed crucial facts, presented an unrepresentative spectrum of opinion, and falsified the historical record. The suppressions and omissions are in the service of the perspective of the U.S. and Israeli governments (and Canadian politicians), but they are no less false for that. With the reminder that I am picking on the CBC not because it is the worst, but because it is by far the best.
Given that “the days when Canadians would be stuck listening to local radio, picking up the local print newspaper, or watching local television packaged by Canadian media corporations for their consumption are over,” Podur has a stern reminder for traditional media in his country: “There is, for the time being, media choice. And given the choice, on Israel/Palestine, it would be foolish to turn to the Canadian media.”
