The latest opinion poll from Angus Reid Public Opinion shows that a new paradigm in BC politics has held and even increased in the last three months, most notably with a widening gap between the NDP, now up 2 to 42%, and the Liberals, down 3 to only 28%, which in an election held now would produce a large majority for the NDP; but also important is that support for the Conservatives went sideways, up only 1 to 19%, and for the Green Party was up 2 to only 10%.
When you see what’s happening with wild salmon because of farmed fish cages, what’s happened to BC Hydro and our rivers because of sweetheart deals it’s been forced to make, what’s happened and is happening to lakes to be mined, to say nothing of the pipelines from the Tar Sands, then tankers down the coast, you must ask yourself where has the mainstream media been? The answer is short and clear: Up Big Business' ass. You simply cannot have a functioning democracy without a media that keeps pressure on the government.
Read this scathing response to a recent column by the Vancouver Sun's Barbara Yaffe, titled "First Nations Need to Embrace Resource Projects" - from the Vice Tribal Chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and the Tribal Chief of the Tsilhqot'in National Government. (Aug 2, 2011)
Rafe on the history of muzzling DFO scientists for political reasons - including his own role in revealing the cover-up of a key report condemning Alcan's planned Nechako River dam in the 80s and 90s - and the media's consistent ignoring of this pattern of behaviour. "The revelation by the Sun and the Province that a scientist in DFO, Kristi Miller, has been muzzled by the DFO and the Privy Council (which supports the Prime Minister’s Office) simply underscores how badly they have covered environmental matters in general and salmon concerns specifically."
I freely admit my bias – I don’t like the Postmedia papers and didn’t like them when they were Canwest or Pacific Press and before. But I tell you that there’s no malice here - just decades of demanding that they report what’s happening in our province fairly. There have been good years such as when the late Marjorie Nichols, the late Jack Wasserman, Allan Fotheringham, Jim Hume held the government’s feet to the fire – especially the government that I was in...Today’s columnists know that if they get down and dirty on some subjects they don’t get printed.
Read this republication by the Tyee of recently retired CTV Quebec bureau chief Kai Nagata's account of why he quit the business - a story that has become a lightning rod for heated discussion about the state of Canada's mainstream media in recent days.
Op-ed by Al Gore in Rolling Stone. Excerpt: "The answer to the question 'Is [professional wrestling] real?' seemed connected to the
question of whether the referee was somehow confused about his role: Was
he too an entertainer?
"That is pretty much the role now being played by most of the news
media in refereeing the current wrestling match over whether global
warming is 'real,' and whether it has any connection to the constant
dumping of 90 million tons of heat-trapping emissions into the Earth's
thin shell of atmosphere every 24 hours.
"Admittedly, the contest over global warming is a challenge for the
referee because it's a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one
corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner:
Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues."
Written by Administrator
- Monday, 13 September 2010
We've all heard about the Florida pastor and the Korans.. it was just about the Number One Story in the world. WHY? Because the Corporate owned media WANTED to make it news - because they want us to focus on stories involving hate and division and the 'war of civilisations' they are trying to start ... that is what they want us focused on, so that is what they tell us about. Otherwise, the guy could have done this stupid thing and it would have been a 'nothing event' that nobody ever knew about... zero!
If you had just arrived from Mars and looked at old issues of the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun going back a decade you would never, for a moment, know that there have been any environmental issues in BC let alone the disastrous Rivers and Fish Farms catastrophe. In fact you would assume that Premier Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell is a very popular politician.
Article by Elizabeth James in the North Shore News.
"Readers haven't gone to the Internet and other news media because it is cheaper or easier; they've gone because they no longer trust what the major newspapers are printing."
- Edward Reagan, editor, Camas Courier, Fairfield, Idaho (Pop. 395)
Read article
Written by Damien Gillis
- Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Article in The Tyee by Nick Fillmore - former CBC editor and co-founder of the Centre for Investigative Journalism - on the pandering of business news and Canadian media to corporate interests. Read article
In the wake of the bogus deal Enbridge attempted to foist on the Gitxsan people of Northwest BC last month to help pave the way for its controversial proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, the community has banded together in inspiring fashion - with camcorders and the Web as their weapons of choice.
Watch this series of clips by independent filmmaker Craig Delahunt from the Cohen Commission, including a key hour of testimony from the final day of ISAv hearings and interviews with experts outside the Commission.
See how the Gitxsan are banding together in a moment of crisis, following the unauthorized deal with Enbridge signed by rogue treaty negotiator Elmer Derrick.
The Tsilhqot'in First Nations and their supporters fought for and won an injunction at the BC Supreme Court to keep Taseko Mines from commencing work on the controversial proposed Prosperity Mine.
Video from the Natural Resources Defence Council - narrated by Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon - on the battle to protect BC's iconic Spirit Bear and its habitat in the Great Bear Rainforest, from the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and supertankers loaded with Alberta bitumen.
Damien Gillis on the proposed doubling of Deltaport and conversion of prime farmland, fish and wildlife habitat into an industrialized Foreign Trade Zone.
Several hundred concerned citizens and First Nations gathered recently in Burnaby to speak out against KinderMorgan's plans to pipe 700,000 barrels a day of Tar Sands bitumen to supertankers in Vancouver's harbour.
Part 2 of Rafe and Damien's discussion on Shaw's EVOTV. In this episode, the pair talk wild salmon and aquaculture, private power and environmental politics in BC.
Rafe Mair and Damien Gillis discuss The Common Sense Canadian and their coverage of key environmental and public policy issues in BC and Canada on Shaw's EVOTV, with host Irma Arkus.
The Musgamagw-Tsawataineuk peoples of the Broughton Archipelago recently gathered in the village of Gwayasdums in response to a serious breach of protocol by Marine Harvest. They emerged united, with renewed resolve to rid their territory of open net cage salmon farms.
Smart meters are a tax-payer rip-off and pose serious health threats to British Columbians, a crowd gathered at BC Hydro's Vancouver headquarters heard from the spokespeople of an number of organizations opposed to the provincial government-mandated program. (2 min)
Biologist and Peace Valley Environment Association representative Diane Culling discusses the enormous consequences of the proposed Site C Dam - including the flooding of prime farmland at a time when the province faces major food security challenges. (3 min)
The Wilderness Committee's Joe Foy picks apart the BC Liberal Government's faulty case for Site C Dam - discussing better alternatives to power our future needs and the enormous cost of a dam whose real purpose is to subsidize shale gas and coal mines.
