The Canadian Standards Broadcast Council, your Thought Police in action, see Post 150 for more on these National Socialists' work, have sanctimoniously decided, Juliet O'Neill reports in this mornings' National Post, that "CTV was unfair and unethical when it broadcast outtakes of an interview with then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who repeatedly did not understand a question, during the election campaign last fall..."
Uh, and I am wearing a Stephane Dion hat as I write this, may be CTV was being unfair and may be their ethics were questionable but, so what? To remind you, Steve Murphy, anchor at ATV Halifax, asked-the-man-who-would-have-been-so-much-better-as-Prime-Minister-than-the-guy-we-have-now "If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?"
Mr. Dion had a brain pause and then another and then another and it was all on tape and the tape made it to the broadcast waves. End of story.
One would think. But it only takes one complaint to get the CSBC Anti Free Speech Squad to go into action.
Again the CSBC has decided that they are going to decide what is funny, what is satire, what is right in this country.
They are a cancer and anti free speech. You have to decide, do you want to live in a country, and we are perilously close to living there, where all speech is carefully constructed as so not to offend? Or do you want to live in a country with freedom? Free speech is there, or should be there, to defend those that colour outside the lines. And certainly someone who asks a question as benign as the one Mr. Murphy asked should not be chastised. One would think.
Imagine how much broader the discourse in this country would be with more voices, especially on the local levels, like they have in that country below us. Left, right and center. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Drew Lane, Jay Severin, Sean Hannity, John Stewart, Steven Colbert, Allan Colmes, Mancow Muller and on and on and on. In this country, because of self righteous groups like the CSBC, freedom of expression on air is virtually non existent and none of the above would be able to work the way they do, which is often in an outrageous manner.
Voltaire said "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write".
The CSBC takes a different tact.
Bullies.
WFDS
Free speech for a news organization is a different thing from that of an individual's free speech right. CTV has every right to go after you or I, find real dirt on us, and broadcast it, that's free speech. But it's not ethical because what did we do to deserve an attack?
ReplyDeleteYou are missing the point: It is very common for such outtakes to be be present for all politicians and not be broadcast. They likely have a few miles of footage featuring Harper screwing up we will never see.
ReplyDeleteIf they do it to one, they must do it to all. They didn't, thus they have done a disservice.
BTW, Voltaire never said that, but it's a fair paraphrase, I suppose.
Well, Dan, I gather that CTV said what it wanted to say and did what it wanted to do. That is called freedom. I defend their right to do so. When that entails maliciously causing harm to a person by breaking codes and rules to one which recognized it must adhere, I think the victim has the right to redress. I hope Dion sues. That too is called freedom.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, CTV voluntarily joined this organization and agrees to its rules.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I agree with you that the political discourse in this country should be way broader. I'm sick of CBC panels with centre, centre-right and centre-left. Michael Coren's panels are far more diverse and interesting.
And btw, I liked the other template better.
ReplyDelete"If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?"
ReplyDeleteThat isn't even proper grammar. If he was PM now, what would he have done 2 or 3 years ago? Come on, even someone with English as a first language would have a tough time following that line of questioning.
hey Dan, If you were the coach of the Sens NOW what would you have done about LAST YEAR'S performance?
See what I'm saying?
Oh, one need not worry. If it were the CBC broadcasting a Conservative politician unable to answer a question in French, the CBSC would probably be A-OK with it.
ReplyDeleteAs for above anonymous commenter:
You may want to check your time frame. The economic crisis was becoming apparent right about the time that this interview was conducted.