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FREEDOM OF REPRESSION
What passes for the celebration of freedom of expression and excellence in Canadian journalism ended up for me unraveling as freedom of repression and suppression as practiced by the mainstream Canadian media against minority views and publications. Someone whom I don’t know who had read my legal articles and letters in Pride; Share; Globe and Mail; National Post; Toronto Star; Law Times; Lawyers Weekly; Canadian Lawyer and For the Defence and heard my legal commentaries on CKLN; CHRY; CHIN; and CFRB radio stations; thought that I was a legal affairs journalist who deserved to be invited to this year’s Canadian National Newspaper (CNN) awards gala held at Hotel Hilton Bonaventure in Montreal on Friday, May 12th, 2000.
When I got the invitation, my immediate thought was to do an inventory on the state of Canadian journalism, in comparison to what I already knew about this topic from my experiences in living and travelling all over the world. A quick research disclosed that not much has ever been written about the state of Canadian journalism. Conrad Black of the National Post is one of the very few journalists and businessmen who have ever taken a critical look at Canadian journalism. He has referred to some journalists as lazy, dimwitted and not very imaginative.
I myself have lambasted Canadian journalists and mainstream media when I ran for Mayor of Toronto in 1997. I stated that the mainstream media is narrow-minded, suppressive and repressive of non-mainstream views, it is corrupt; it is held captive to business interests; it is a disgrace; it is undemocratic and so forth. I stated these views on national TV and compiled a litany of complaints, which I sent to the Press Council on Gould Street in Toronto.
I have concluded that Canadian journalism is sycophantic, non-crusading, lazy, repressive and suppressive. It excludes a lot of unpalatable truths. Nigerian, American, British, Australian, South African and other journalism are outstanding in comparison.
It was with this set of framework that I attended the Canadian National Newspaper awards gala in Montreal May 12th, 2000. Were my views going to be changed? An opening act was a duo that performed musical comedy, which I found more interesting than the whole awards ceremony. The comics mocked Canada and Quebec by respectively stating that Canada thinks it is bi-lingual when it is not and that Quebec thinks it is not bi-lingual when it is. Reversal of expectations. I found the whole awards ceremony a charade and the organizers did not even have a clue about it. The whole show was called Canadian National Newspapers Awards when in fact it was an entirely Anglo-Franco newspapers awards ceremony. Only English and French newspapers were represented and only journalists writing for mainstream Anglo and Franco newspapers were nominated and rewarded. Canada is rich in Italian, Indian, Russian, Caribbean, Greek, etc. community newspapers. Where were they? There were no minorities at all. These Anglo and Franco newspapers do not even hire minorities to write for them!
The organizers thought that the awards were national and multicultural, when in fact they were bi-national, bi-cultural and bi-lingual. They reflected perfectly Canadian bi-national, bi-cultural and bi-lingual nature. How much can Canadian journalists delude themselves? Even the comics did not realize the charade of the awards ceremony. But they gave me another window to understanding the Canadian psyche. There is much self-delusion. What this ceremony demonstrated is that only that which is Anglo or Franco and published in an Anglo or Franco newspaper is worth celebrating. Mind you, some of the newspapers are local and most selected stories were local. Thus the yardstick was not that the newspaper or story is national.
Some journalists were commended and rewarded for bravery for covering courtroom cases and pointing out certain issues that other journalists did not point out. If the organizers read other equivalent newspapers in other countries about courtroom coverage, they would discover that what mainly passes for courtroom coverage in Canada is amateurish and infantile. Many journalists including the so-called courageous ones, misapprehend rules of evidence. If court cases were covered live on TV, the public would soon discover that they have often been misled about what really transpires in the courtroom. They would discover that there is much ignorance, repression and suppression in Canadian journalism.
Canada could do with more investigative, speculative, combative, critical, theoretical, legal, historical, comparative and analytical journalism than we have now.
I came away from the Canadian National Newspaper gala awards disillusioned about the state of Canadian journalism. What exists here is no so much freedom of expression for diverse minorities but freedom of repression and suppression.
Member Of:
Criminal Lawyers Association The Law Society Of Upper Canada
Last Modified: August 7, 2007
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