"News as the conversation of democracy"--Bill Moyers

My interest in American political and economic scenario wasn't really caused by my whim to look somewhere else for exciting news. The problem was that with the horrific 9-11 attack I first felt touched as everybody else by the extreme violence now engulfing North America; later, I realized how our international relationships are so dependent on the United States domestic and foreign policies and how the analysis of these policies can be immediately transferred to understand our Canadian's (or other countries') social and economic policies.

For example, we have referred to our anti-terror legislation Bill 36 and we found a direct relationship to the USA PATRIOT Act. Also, we covered the whitewashing of the American corporate media and we found the same whitewashing of our CanWest media run by the Asper family. It is interesting that as we have bee uncovering the legalized conspiracy of the Free Market so we have found its connection with the military and economic power of the United States along with the complementary erosion of our democracies.

It was just recently that I wrote an article dealing with the fascist management of Saskatchewan health care, that I mentioned how former Minister of Public Works Alfonso Gagliano would order the hiring of his friends by governmental agencies, and today we have the Asper's order to ban journalist Peter Worthington from writing in any of the Asper's chain of newspapers.

We are definitely heading for a fascist New World Order ordered by the big corporations and fortunate sons, and therefore we must all exercise our civil responsibilities to take back our individual rights and our democracies. An independent media is essential for the functioning of democracy and we are pleased that Peter Worthington has written an invective against the Aspers' direction to command uniform and ideological national editorials from their headquarter in Winnipeg.

Worthington mentions the Asper's killing of articles at the Montreal Gazette, the killing of an article by Saskatchewan aboriginal journalist Doug Cuthand, and the resignation of journalist and professor Stephen Kimber after he suggested that the Aspers saw their newspapers as "promotion vehicles for their television network" and as "private, personal pulpits from which to express their views." Worthington writes "I think the Aspers' mandatory editorial policy damages their own reputations, hurts journalism in general, cheats the public of divergent views and undermines Canada."

References:
Pertinent articles in Ensign

Blind Faith, Shermelle Biffle, Grade 10/Salem High School, Virginia Beach, VA, Elie Wiesel Student Writing Competition, http://www.holocaustcommission.org/writing_competition/1998/wiesel_competition_sr_winner_1_1998.html

Do the Media Affect the Democratic Process? Second Place Essay by Jonathan Keck http://www.primett.org/medialiteracy/2001_contest/2001_second_essay.htm

Bitten by the Aspers The latest victim in drive to ensure identical editorials in all Southam papers is -- me! By Peter Worthington, January 15, 2002, Toronto Sun

Montreal Gazette reporters protest David Asper's one-size-fits-all editorial policy http://www.injusticebusters.com/index.htm/Gazette_newsroom.htm