American Media

[Cops]

How has American media, specifically FOX NEWS, MSNBC, and CNN fallen into ranks with the likes of Ann Coulter? It's not just Ann Coulter, it's Bill O'Reily and the other half ass pieces of shit that call themselves 'journalists' that have been able to take over the people's ability to inform themselves with quality news.

The CRTC in Canada can revoke licenses but what regulations are put in place to make it so Fox News, as well as many other companies are accountable to what they're reporting?

The Fifth Estate which is CBC's flagship for investigative journalism has some of the best quality news you can find, we also have a wide variety of papers (The globe, the star, the sun, the national post) that not only focus on Canadian politics but also American politics. I think that's the great divide in our two countries, we talk about what's going on in America as well as Canada and American news focuses only on itself and what other countries are doing that pose a threat to America as a 'whole'. The disconnect between our two outlets of media showcases how little the average American knows about Canada.

If you're keen to reading news articles, instead of looking up Fox News or CNN on Google try CBC or The Globe and Mail. I think we all should be getting different information from different sources, ie BBC, CBC, as well as American Sources.

I know this is more of rant than a discussion, but do you actually look for outside sources of news or are you prone to just using the same traditional 2-3 sources?

[Jeenyuss]

america (or more specifically the american media and entertainment industry) is more important to canada than canada is to america. i mean besides trailer park boys and steve nash, what use are we to them? as a canadian i'm not bothered by it. the fact that i don't have to deal with fox news is a relief and if they're fine with it south of the border, so be it. to each their own, i suppose. however, don't go singing praises about all the canadian media outlets because even though the national post and the globe usually are pretty sensible, cbc and ctv news can be a joke at times. i don't understand why some canadians get in a huff because big brother isn't paying enough attention to us, fuck it.

[gran guerrero]

america (or more specifically the american media and entertainment industry) is more important to canada than canada is to america. i mean besides trailer park boys and steve nash, what use are we to them? as a canadian i'm not bothered by it. the fact that i don't have to deal with fox news is a relief and if they're fine with it south of the border, so be it. to each their own, i suppose. however, don't go singing praises about all the canadian media outlets because even though the national post and the globe usually are pretty sensible, cbc and ctv news can be a joke at times. i don't understand why some canadians get in a huff because big brother isn't paying enough attention to us, fuck it.

damn, I'm in love.

[Jerome Scuggs]

american media is pretty much a joke to most people under the age of 30, let mother nature deal with anyone who believes in anything those people say

the internet does wonders for news. daily i check reddit, digg, fark, dailyrotten, then drudgereport (a habit from debate) and then different forums and blogs.

i think economically, national news channels will ideally abandon their TV news in favor of internet alternatives. it'll bring TV news broadcast to local and regional stations.

the only news i get from my TV (i dont count daily show because they usually discuss day-old news which isnt 'new's to me) is c-span. c-span is like a 24-hour version of the daily show... except the jokes write themselves. everytime jon stewart plays a clip from a senate hearing and then does that face of his... trust me, those clips are nothing. what they don't show is like the 300+ OTHER politicians from like, nebraska and alaska who are seriously batshit. it's informative and hilarious. also at like 5am they do a live phone call-in, and they always have people doing crank calls, which is really surreal and weird when you're in one of those 5am drug-dazes where you cant sleep

[gran guerrero]

I also see tw forums as best source for news :bigups:

[Kolar]

however, don't go singing praises about all the canadian media outlets because even though the national post and the globe usually are pretty sensible, cbc and ctv news can be a joke at times. i don't understand why some canadians get in a huff because big brother isn't paying enough attention to us, fuck it.

The post is a joke, they've lowered their quality and standards to appeal to a wider audience. The Toronto Star is more balanced then the post most of the time. CTV is the worst for broadcast media. I use to use Google news more often for stories that caught my interest but now I mostly use Digg, CBC (for international and national news) and TO Star on my google page.

There's a couple of small news papers around here like Metro and 24 Hours that are decent and free. I think they rely heavily on Reuters and other wire services so I don't know if they really add anything to the diversity of media sources.

[Cops]

america (or more specifically the american media and entertainment industry) is more important to canada than canada is to america. i mean besides trailer park boys and steve nash, what use are we to them? as a canadian i'm not bothered by it. the fact that i don't have to deal with fox news is a relief and if they're fine with it south of the border, so be it. to each their own, i suppose. however, don't go singing praises about all the canadian media outlets because even though the national post and the globe usually are pretty sensible, cbc and ctv news can be a joke at times. i don't understand why some canadians get in a huff because big brother isn't paying enough attention to us, fuck it.

I completly agree with you that CBC has fucked up on more than one occasion, a few of the things they've gotten sued over is 'Samosa Politics', which pegged a Sikh group to be a terrorist group. There's also The Fifth Estate losing a libel case to Dr. Leenen a neurologist who was made out to look like a mad doctor. CBC is by far a lot better than CTV, but when you look at 'our' media and Americas media ours is a lot less of a fucking joke. I think that's what I've come to realize after spending a year studying our two types of media, ours is a lot less drama and fireworks and this isn't appealing to ratings so people dismiss our media as boring or unimportant but truthfully it's some of best journalism out there, it also does matter a lot.

'Maher Arar was portrayed as a sly fox, a predator working with al-Qaeda. He turned out to be a hare, an innocent family man'. Our media completly fucked up and reported on things they shouldn't have, this man was tortured and taken out of Canada into the hands of Americans who also lead a smear campaign against him. There's evidence of our media failing, but on a global level, we fail a lot less. It gets back to the Ann Coulter issue, how on gods green earth is a racist piece of shit used as analyst for different news organizations. Andrew Mitrovica is a teacher at my school but he use to work for CTV, he was the only voice inside CTV criticizing their lack of concern for 'factual information'. Lloyd Robertson Chief Anchor and Senior Editor at CTV, still to this day refuses to apologize for his involvement in the Maher Arar incident. In fact only one person at CTV has actually apologized to this man.

here's a link to the story deathfrombelow.wordpress.com/2006/12/17/hear-no-evil-write-no-lies-the-walrus-decjan-2006-07

his website
www.maherarar.ca/

coverage from CBC
www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/

american media is pretty much a joke to most people under the age of 30, let mother nature deal with anyone who believes in anything those people say

the internet does wonders for news. daily i check reddit, digg, fark, dailyrotten, then drudgereport (a habit from debate) and then different forums and blogs.

i think economically, national news channels will ideally abandon their TV news in favor of internet alternatives. it'll bring TV news broadcast to local and regional stations.

the only news i get from my TV (i dont count daily show because they usually discuss day-old news which isnt 'new's to me) is c-span. c-span is like a 24-hour version of the daily show... except the jokes write themselves. everytime jon stewart plays a clip from a senate hearing and then does that face of his... trust me, those clips are nothing. what they don't show is like the 300+ OTHER politicians from like, nebraska and alaska who are seriously batshit. it's informative and hilarious. also at like 5am they do a live phone call-in, and they always have people doing crank calls, which is really surreal and weird when you're in one of those 5am drug-dazes where you cant sleep

I like the drudgereport as well as digg, there's a lot of good sites out there. I do knock the credibility of some of these sites, because truthfully American media is turning into 'blog-country' but how can good credible news actually take place when you've got 5-6 major broadcasting news not doing their job. It's sad that the Daily Show does what other media outlets refuse to do, which is go at people who fuck up.

[DoTheFandango]

the office makes everything ok.

[Jerome Scuggs]

the office makes everything ok.

scranton, pennsylvania

[DoTheFandango]

scranton, pennsylvania

did you see last night's episode?
it was honestly like the most awkward experience of my life.
and it was just a TV show!

[404 Not Found]

I read and look for news from many outlets.

Just browsing news online, I check worldnews.com

They encompass news from every country and outlet. It gives a better view and an expansive one at that. Sydnicated columns from every outlet around the world!

American news companies are bent on making profits and not being true news reporters. There is no money in reporting the news. It's all about marketing and profits...just look at Murdoch.

Hard to believe that Murdoch and Microsoft are looking at a joint venture in buying Yahoo.

[Jeenyuss]

last night's episode was a huge disappointment. i'm wondering when they'll go back to having episodes actually take place in an office, that'll be the day.

[Kolar]

If they had extended episodes like at the beginning of season 3 the whole episode would have gone better.

[DoTheFandango]

last night's episode was a huge disappointment. i'm wondering when they'll go back to having episodes actually take place in an office, that'll be the day.

it's not just about the office, it's about the people in the office, and considering michael's social life is about as fertile as the sahara desert, i thought that breaking out of the office made for ample and bountiful funny. come on, tell me you didn't laugh when Dwight said that their relationship is "Purely carnal, and that's all you need to know."

[Epinephrine]

I think it depends on what news outlets you're watching. Fox news is responsible for Ann Coulter and O'Reilly, and it's not fair to pin them on the rest of it. From what I've seen, ABC news is by far the best news on TV from America. They have the most balanced and fair coverage with the most international scope. Meanwhile CNN post-9/11 really dropped the ball. That was reflected in their ratings which plummeted, but now that they are slowly going back to the real news that made them relavent in the first place, they are slowly regaining credibility.

As far as Canadian news goes, it's true the CBC is quite good and also has very good shows such as The Fifth Estate, but keep in mind the CBC is a publicly funded enterprise. PBS also has excellent coverage, including my favorite documentary style news show Frontline. Meanwhile the other Canadian national news broadcasts such as Global and CTV are no better than NBC or CBS.

As for the print media, generally I'd say that America has very good print journalism, of far higher quality than what Canada could ever hope for. Publications such as The New York Times, and The Washington Post are of extremely high quality and they feature extensive international coverage as well. In terms of news magazines, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The New Yorker, and of course the New York Times magazines are all extremely good, balanced and well written publications.

The Toronto Star by comparison is sort of a joke. They have quite good local coverage, but other than that, their national news is very Liberal-party bent (which I'm okay with as I support the Liberals), and their international news is largely outsourced to AP and Reuters. Where they win is by a lot of good locally relavent things such as the condo section, life section, and the GTA section. The Globe and Mail is quite a better paper for national news and of course the National Post is a completely joke of a paper.

Meanwhile in terms of magazines we didn't have much in Canada until The Walrus arrived last year which finally brought high quality magazine-style journalism to Canada as good as the American ones I mentioned.


Blogs I find are useful, but they also are not too useful without the general background that the mainstream media provides. Blogs are by definition opinion sites, and the 'news' that they provide are usually only small but controversial pieces within a much larger framework, a consequence of having only one person provide the news vs. a large organization.

Once in a while I do check out the BBC and The Guardian for a British version of events, the Mainichi Shimbum for a Japanese bent (they are the largest paper in Japan), The South China Morning Post (which unfortunately is mostly locked away as you need to pay), and Xinhuanews to see how the Chinese Government views the world, which is always interesting.