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A proposal by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to loosen rules requiring accuracy on TV is drawing fear of the influx of punditry of the type often seen on right-wing US talk shows.
New Democrat Party MPs Charlie Angus (Timmins James Bay) and Thomas Mulcair (Outremont) took to the press conference airwaves to suggest that the Conservative government is actually just paving the way for right-leaning Sun TV News--known as 'FOX North' by some wags--to have a field day with rhetoric.
The CRTC's move comes at the behest of a joint Senate-House of Commons regulatory committee to review the rule hat says a broadcast licensee "shall not broadcast any false or misleading news." That rule holds Canadian newscasters to the facts, leaving little room for free-wheeling opinion and speculation not backed up by actual evidence.
Some have said that hampers the idea-vetting that feeds discussion and the marketplace of ideas. The proposed change would add a slight tweak, to prevent broadcasters from airing anything "the licensee knows is false or misleading and that endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public."
The NDP MPs said the change is actually much more dangerous than it sounds. "If you change [the rules of accuracy] you could see a very different media landscape," said Angus during his news conference. "You could have the kind of FOX News in Canada, you could see the hate radio that"s all over the United States," Angus told a news conference.
CRTC spokesman Denis Carmel said that the legislative regulatory committee is simply reviewing an ineffectual rule, which, in its 20 years of existence, as never been violated by a broadcaster. "They have been saying that this regulation is too wide and too vague . . . and had little chance of standing up against the Charter," Carmel said.
There's more afoot, the MP said. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office, Angus maintained, was interested when Sun TV applied for its license in 2009. Then Kory Teneycke, director of communications, left the Prime Minister's office shortly thereafter to run the network.
"I found it very unusual that the Prime Minister would get a personal briefing on a CRTC application as was done in the case of this Fox News network north. I found it very unusual that the communications of the Prime Minister suddenly quits his job and reappears as an expert broadcaster," he said.
Source: Rapid TV News, 02/08/2011
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