Special to Canadian Dimension Wednesday, September 27, 2006

What’s wrong with Canadian news media? In the US, they have ceased being meek and gentle with these Bushers. Films, T.V. dramas, comedians, and mainstream news media in the US have started to challenge the Bush administration’s effort to transform the world’s first liberal democracy into an illiberal pseudo-democracy. Such formidable voices of American establishment as The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and even Newsweek have begun to call it like it is with respect to Bush’s agenda. He is not the aggressive protector of American security and defender of its traditional Christian values. There is another game in play, and its nature is evident in his initiatives: replacing the separation of powers and the rule of law with an absolutist presidency that is above the law; replacing freedom of speech, assembly, religion and property with state managed fear, intimidation, and torture; and replacing fair ballot counting with rigged touch-screen computers. While US journalists are waking up, Canadian papers continue to keep the truth about the deterioration of the American political system hidden between the lines, despite the grave implications this holds for our own political interests. As outsiders, Canadian news media could have led the investigations and reporting of the decline of democracy in the US, instead of following. We could have been an unbiased news alternative for US citizens trapped in a five-year news blackout. But since we have chosen to follow, perhaps we could try not to fall too far behind. Now that they have tossed out habeas corpus in a recent legislation, do you think it might be time inform Canadians of the Vandal running amok in the White House. (Keep reading…)

http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/guardians_of_power.php September 11, 2006

Kidnapping Aristide

In a series of alerts in 2004 we examined media coverage of events surrounding the military coup that forced Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile on February 29, 2004. (Keep reading…)

(From http://www.counterpunch.org/sabawi02232006.html)

Canada’s national paper The Globe & Mail was caught last week with its hand in the unethical journalism jar. On February 15, 2006 the Globe and Mail published an editorial titled “See Hamas for What It Is” in which it argued that those who take the view that Hamas will moderate its position in regards to Israel now that it is an elected government should “take a look at a video presented on the Hamas website this week”. After a graphic depiction of the video, the editorial concluded “the fact that Hamas is airing it (the video) now shows it has not changed its depraved views or methods just because of winning an election.” (Keep reading…)