Media, Bought and Sold
The mercantile nature of journalism has finally come full circle, as the newspapers (well, given that many publish in other media, we should call them ‘news sources’) are now begging for public subsidies. As they face the imminent prospect of bankruptcy and financial ruin, they want to be funded, like nearly everyone else, by that mythical beast called ‘government’, which means, of course, you and me. So no longer will we be able to choose what news sources we pay, and do not pay, for, we will have to pay for them all. Except now the financial sky is the limit, as all those busy newshounds get a taste of the gravy train of government salaries, benefits and pension plans.
We Canadians already pay for the publicly-funded CBC, which receives close to a billion dollars annually in federal funding, with a large chunk of that going to produce such mind-numbing drivel as ‘Little Mosque on the Prarie‘, and dramas too dreary for anyone non-comatose to watch. I must confess I enjoy some of their podcasts, Under the Influence in particular, but I could get that, or something similar, for a lot less than a billion.
The CBC news is biased in a way that is often hard to pin down and localize, but it is all around one’s ears and brain like a fog, mostly in what the various announcers imply with innuendo and tone of voice, and what they do not, and never will, say. Some controversial terms, such as ‘unborn baby’, ‘sin’, and ‘evil’, ‘marriage covenant’, ‘vows’, ‘sacrament’, ‘pro-life’ are pretty much verboten, except perhaps on specialty programs, where they are largely dismissed. Many things that are in fact sins and societal evils are spoken of only in the most glowing of terms, with the impression that anyone who disagrees is a laughable and pitiable philistine and bigot. They rarely have any good to say about the Catholic Church, nor of Christianity in general, unless of the most modernist, watered-down and pablum-esque variety. Their focus on ‘Indian and Native affairs’ and ‘climate change’ borders on the obsessive. Any random callers who dare raise any rational and critical questions are quickly shut down, often by announcers of the female persuasion, who guard their politically-correct radio lairs with a quiet and restrained antiseptic rigour.
One need not be surprised, since the CBC, fully and lavishly funded by the aforementioned government, sings the government tune, almost invariably in the Liberal key.
Yet, now we want to fund all the rest of our media sources, so they too are domesticated into barking lap-dogs of the Liberal party? Will this include local papers and, ahem, those who pen critical but one hopes insightful articles on the web?
The absurdity of it all almost makes one weep, cry or laugh. Socialism, a pernicious doctrine in which almost every Canadian is mired, may be defined in one way as that state of affairs wherein the government apportions to itself property which should properly be private and in the control of free citizens. By ‘property’ we mean not just land, but, as Pope John Paul II put it in his brilliant Centesimus Annus, ‘technology, know-how and skill’.
The State should in fact have little direct control over property, including all the technology and skill of media. While we are with the great JP II, he describes the actual purpose of government in rather limited terms:
(a market economy) presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence the principal task of the State is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labors and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly.
We might smile at mention of those quaint notions of a ‘stable currency’ as our loonie wobbles and weaves, consistently declining in value, year by inevitable year. And ‘efficiency’ is not a phrase that would enter the mind of someone in a (publicly funded) hospital waiting room, nor, for that matter, of any government office or service. Our government does not do what it is meant to do, and meddles in what it should not.
Part of the purpose of a free and independent media, far more evident in the vibrant, if sometimes excessive, talk-radio of the United States than in staid-old-vanillla-statist Canada, is to hold our political leaders, public servants and other ‘elites’ to account, to keep the government in check and focused on its own job rather than someone else’s, so that what our vaunted leaders do not do out of interior virtue, they may at least be coerced to do out of public opinion and that panic-inducing talisman of all public figures, ‘media backlash’, the metaphorical flaying in the public square for all to see, usually now reserved only for the politically incorrect.
But there will be no back-lash, nor any back-bone, in a media that receives its paycheques and operating expenses from the government, besides the fact that the whole rickety and ever-more expensive edifice is simply unaffordable. He who pays the bills calls the shots, and an obsequious media will do and report as told, even more than they already do, as we all drift along with nary a backwards glance towards a Pravda-esque universe, replete with doublespeak and castrated thought.
Fine, if you want it, and build your own little safe-space enclave. But, please, pay for it yourself.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk
(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Canonizing Sister Faustina and Divine Mercy
HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER MASS IN ST PETER’S SQUARE FOR THE CANONIZATION OF SR MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA Sunday, 30 April 2000 1. “Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius”; “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever” (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of[…]Continue reading→
Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’… ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→