Mergers create media giants: Laxity in Canada competition laws seems primitive.It has been a while since I opened the front page of a national newspaper and just started to laugh. Newspapers are generally serious places and full of serious headlines. News is not, as a rule, funny. This morning I opened the National Post and there on the front page of this fast disappearing little paper is a puff piece on Aline Chretien, the prime minister's wife, with the breathless headline - Aline Chretien's first interview with an English newspaper since Jean became prime minister. This accompanied by a nice colour photo of Aline sitting at her piano. It had all the punch of an Entertainment Tonight television interview. Most of you will immediately get the hilarity of this turn of events given the Post's relentless pursuit of the prime minister'sshady dealings in Shawinigan under Conrad Black's proprietorship and the prime minister's return of favour denying the man his appointment to the British House of Lords Noun 1. British House of Lords - the upper house of the British parliament House of Lords house - an official assembly having legislative powers; "a bicameral legislature has two houses" British Parliament - the British legislative body while still a Canadian citizen. It has all the elements of a good practical joke. Of course if you care about newspapers in Canada National English-language newspapers
Alberta
One is tempted to berate the Aspers. Their latest dictum from on high is a decree that head office will write three editorials a week for their major metropolitan newspapers out of Winnipeg. Forgetting about the quality of the writing, which is dubious and apparently self-serving, the effect is to destroy the importance of local newspapers. To begin with, an editorial written by a hack in Winnipeg and masquerading 1. (networking) masquerading - "NAT" (Linux kernel name). 2. (messaging) masquerading - Hiding the names of internal e-mail client and gateway machines from the outside world by rewriting the "From" address and other headers as the message leaves the as an editorial written and sanctioned by the local editorial board of a local newspaper is an insult to the local staff and community. The Aspers say we are taking the national view. The local paper will take the local view. They do not even understand insult. The Montreal Gazette has a national view. The Vancouver Sun has a national view. The Calgary Herald The Calgary Herald is a daily newspaper published in the Canadian city of Calgary, Alberta . Its major competitor is The Calgary Sun. History It was first published on August 31 1883 by Andrew Armour and Thomas Braden as has a national view, or at least it did before national editorials pre-empted it. It is preposterous. The message to the local team is you have neither the brains nor the wherewithal where·with·al n. The necessary means, especially financial means: didn't have the wherewithal to survive an economic downturn. conj. Wherewith. pron. Wherewith. to rise above your parochial interests. One can only speculate on how it feels to edit the National Post, presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. the appropriate place for the national view in the CanWest group of papers. One can assume it is not a vote of confidence. The Aspers, however, are not the important issue. A newspaper is a public trust. It is a higher standard and I do not blame the Aspers for not even knowing what it is, much less aspiring to it. The question is how does it come to pass that this clan gets to own the second largest private television network in Canada, and almost all of its important newspapers. Blame Canada. There are no enforceable competition laws in Canada. Few countries would put up with this kind of nonsense. Blame the Liberals. They gutted the competition act and have given up any intelligent analysis of the effects of cross-media ownership. Blame the Southam family. They owned many of the CanWest papers and although they gave lots of independence they did not have the wherewithal to run them as businesses. Blame the Toronto Star The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, though its print edition is distributed almost entirely within Ontario. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., a division of Star Media Group, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation. . They could have owned Southam, but they blew it. Blame Conrad Black Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, PC, OC, KCSG (born 25 August, 1944, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a former financier, newspaper magnate, and biographer. . He quit. The truth is we are entering the new Dark Ages for media in Canada Canada has a well-developed media sector, but cultural output—particularly in English Canada—is often overshadowed by imports from the United States. Media are primarily for-profit corporations based on advertising, subscription, and other sales-related revenues, although a . Media is not converging, it is merging. A very small number of people control the radio, cable, television and newspaper assets in this country, and it is getting smaller all the time. In fact it looks very much like a Third World country model. A country where the telephone company and the prime minister's buddy control a massive amount of media is not healthy for our democracy. The telephone company and Can West both seek regulatory approvals from the federal government. The fact that CanWest and Quebecor (newspapers, cable and television in Quebec) and Bell Canada Bell Canada Enterprises (TSX: BCE, NYSE: BCE), legally BCE Inc., is a major Canadian telecommunications company. Through its subsidiaries including Bell Canada, Bell Aliant, Northwestel, Télébec, and NorthernTel, it is the incumbent local exchange carrier for (TV, telephone and Globe and Mall) are so obviously unsuited unsuited Adjective 1. not appropriate for a particular task or situation: a likeable man unsuited to a military career 2. for these responsibilities, may be our last chance to make a change. They make the dangers of this absurd consolidation crystal clear. Maybe Izzy is our friend. Michael Atkins is the president of Laurentian Publishing. |
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