Published: July 3, 2007 TheTyee.ca

Among other things — high drama, low journalism — Conrad Black’s fraud trial in Chicago has provided a rare inside glimpse into the divvying up of much of this country’s news media seven years ago. (Keep reading…)

CommonDreams.org June 1, 2007

To read and view the U.S. news media over the past week, there is an episode of grand tyranny unfolding, one repugnant to all who cherish democratic freedoms. The Venezuelan government under “strongman” Hugo Chavez refused to renew the 20-year broadcast license for RCTV, because that medium had the temerity to be critical of his regime. It is a familiar story. (Keep reading…)

The Guardian June 7, 2007

The protests in Venezuela are motivated by more than a TV station. The oligarchy fears it is losing its right to run the country (Keep reading…)

June 1, 2007

In the mid 70s the non aligned countries demanded a New World Information and Economic Order. Some time later, this decision led the United States to withdraw from UNESCO. For many decades only five or so monopolies controlled flows of information. It is only now that the demand to understand information as a human right and to democratize access to the media is being seen as a necessary requirement for building systems that are really democratic. The existence of media like Telesur or Al Jazeera, the proliferation of community radio and television stations, the expansion of computer networks and free software and the efforts states are making to take back control of their airwaves are all part of this effort to democratize the airwaves, (Keep reading…)

Los Angeles Times May 30, 2007

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s refusal to renew the license of Radio Caracas Television might seem to justify fears that Chavez is crushing free speech and eliminating any voices critical of him. (Keep reading…)

Rabble.ca May 31, 2007

The CRTC decision on May 17 to no longer regulate network advertising limits, and recent comments by its Chairman, Konrad Von Finckenstein, make it painfully obvious that this CRTC head is unfit for the job of regulating Canada’s broadcasting system. (Keep reading…)

Special to Canadian Dimension

Rick Salutin’s gift in his popular writing is taking an idea, as though it were a sculpture, and turning it this way and that, showing what it looks like from different positions. This invites his readers to reflect, to consider, and to engage with contemporary issues and critical thinking. But Salutin is no relativist. He is a careful, cautious commentator, whose ideas are informed by critical theory, a left-ish ideology, and by decades of writing, speaking and acting on social and political matters. We need more like him, public intellectuals committed to citizenship as a verb. By his singularity in the Globe and Mail, he demonstrates the paucity of critical thinking there and in other media. He makes us want more of it. As one of a very few critical or left-ish thinkers writing for a dominant, credible mainstream Canadian newspaper, Salutin has much to teach us about critical citizenship and about media complicity in hegemonic politics. (Keep reading…)

Globe and Mail March 2, 2007

So we now have our own Jack Bauer, hero of 24. He’s Stephen Harper, ready to take any step against terror, not squeamish like the terrsymps who voted down renewal of preventive arrest and forced testimony in Parliament this week. Oh, wait, we already had our own Jack Bauer: Canadian (and grandson of Tommy Douglas) Kiefer Sutherland, who is Jack Bauer on 24. (Keep reading…)

Posted @: http://www.safewatergroup.org/Specials/gaianicity_index.htm, February 23rd 2007

In her February 23rd article in the Canadian business magazine The Financial Post Diane Francis, a Senior Editor, writes: (Keep reading…)

January 11, 2007

With the announcement of a deal by CanWest Global and American financial house Goldman Sachs Capital to buy Alliance Atlantis Communications’ 13 specialty TV stations, adding them to an already huge newspaper and television empire, Canada’s media landscape is poised for still greater concentration. (Keep reading…)