Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has single-handedly shut down Parliament. It is the second time he has done this since being re-elected in October of 2008. Critics claim that the move was used this time in order to postpone an inquiry into accusations of war crimes complicity for members of his administration and the Canadian military. Stemming from evidence that Canada continued handing- over people detained in the War in Afghanistan over to Afghan prisons that they knew practiced torture.

Click on image to view online PDF.

For printer-friendly PDF, please click here. Feel free to print and distribute to your heart’s content.

Mainstream Media generally consists of media outlets owned by major corporations and are strongly influenced by their commercial interests. This type of media is represented in London by A-channel and the London Free Press, both of which were taken over by conglomerates in recent times.

Media Consolidation is the process whereby multiple corporate media outlets merge, forming a single, larger company - thus concentrating the ownership of our media into the hands of a shrinking number of powerful corporate shareholders (many of whom are, in fact, other multinational corporations.).

Alternative Media tend to express alternative values, points of view and lifestyles to what is commonly found in mainstream media. Alternative texts are often challenging in content and tone. These media frequently attempt to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable’.

The mass media of North America are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without significant overt coercion.

We feel that there is much too little inquiry into these matters. It is our opinion that citizens in our society should undertake a course of intellectual self-defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for more meaningful democracy.

We aim to provide an alternative framework of analysis and understanding that contests the dominant systems of representation in mainstream corporate media.

By The Voice of Treason

By now everyone is familiar with the dispute over ‘TV tax’ or ‘Local Television Matters’. The Local TV Matters campaign was launched by Canadian television broadcasters with a focus on the protection and preservation of local television. This current battle over revenues is between two groups of corporations, pitting cable and satellite providers against large me­dia companies, such as CanWest and CTV.

In the 1970’s, when the cable companies first began to intercept aerial broadcasts of local network feeds in order to sell them to their customers, media corporations cried foul - but to no avail. Now this issue is being portrayed as one of survival for local media; this is only partially correct. While the media companies seem to have a legitimate concern with the distributors, there still remains a stranglehold on the media by corporate interests. Surely, many community efforts depend on local televi­sion, and would suffer in the absence of these outlets. We say that it is true that ‘local media matters’, but that local alternative media matters more.

Corporate concentration of media owner­ship is high and rising. London’s major me­dia outlets have followed this trend, having more than a decade ago been swallowed up by monolithic media conglomerates. Furthermore, those who occupy managerial positions in the media, or gain status within them as commentators, belong to these privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions, aspirations, and attitudes of their associates – thereby shaping their own class interests as well.

Journalists entering the system are unlikely to make their way up the corporate ladder unless they conform to these ideological pressures, generally internalizing the values.

The news business isn’t like any other business. The democratic process depends on people having access to information. Our society pays a price when profit rules what news we receive through mainstream channels. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are the linchpins of democracy. The idea behind freedom of the press, in particular, is to have media sources that are genuinely independent and diverse so that citizens become aware of a range of perspectives and can take action on issues that are important to them.

Given that the vast majority of our media is not genuinely independent, it is important to always consider the source of the news we receive. Given that media corporations’ primary

commitment is to making money, not to helping citizens become better informed, we need to critically examine which news stories are reported - and why. Ideally, we should go to many sources to get a more accurate picture of what is going on in the world.

As long as we rely on the same corporate TV and newspaper for our news, the most we can do is change the channel but not the message.

By Darius Mirshahi

The enemy of truth is corporate media. The media’s role is to serve the public interest, keeping a check on those who hold power. The media’s role is to inform us when the elite, whether government or private-interest, abuses their power and becomes detrimental to the rest of society. Our corporate media does not serve us; instead they serve themselves.

Just as government-controlled media in totalitar­ian dictatorships cannot be counted on to keep the governments they serve accountable to the people, corporate-controlled media cannot be counted on to keep the corporations that they are partnered with accountable to the consumers they profit from; us.

The competition-fueled market-based capitalist ideal has been hijacked and turned into something completely different. Instead of competing, corpora­tions are merging in order to monopolize the market. Although all mega-corporations are merging at such an unprecedented rate, media corporations have been cannibalizing each other at even higher and more alarming speed. Since 1983, according to Ben Bagdikian’s book, The New Media Monopoly, the number of corporations controlling the vast majority of news media in the U.S. has fallen from 50 to only five. The mega-merged AOL Time Warner leads the pack as the world’s largest media company.

The media monopoly is global, and the control of Canadian media is just as monopolized as that of the U.S., if not worse. CanWest Global, Canada’s largest media corporation, is also the most blatantly biased, rivaling Murdoch’s Fox News Corp. for its lack of journalistic integrity. The Canadian Association of Journalists has denounced the media giant for its relentless repression and censorship of journalists with dissenting views. There are only a handful other mega-corporations controlling the rest of Canadian television, radio, print, and web media, these include Bell Canada, CTV, Torstar, Quebecor and Rogers.

This mass concentration of what is supposed to be the peoples’ voice by mega-corporations is frightening. Can any of our mainstream media outlets be expect­ed to serve the interests of any other sector than the elite class of society when the owners of these outlets are all multi-millionaires and billionaires? Corporate money always serves corporate interest, not the com­mon interest of us average Canadians. It would not be in any of these corporations’ interests to inform us of the Canadian companies that are war-profiteering in Afghanistan, nor would it be in their interests to expose the notorious activities of Canadian mining corporations, who are devastating indigenous com­munities and the environment, while exploiting third-world countries.

On a greater scale, the Canadian public, as well as the rest of the world, cannot rely on the conventional media outlets to expose the truth about the relevant issues that are facing humanity today.

Our media has been vastly reduced to the vehicle for other trans-national mega-corporations’ advertising. Instead of the awful truth about the real motives of ‘war-Presidents’ (and Prime Ministers), we are fed lies by weapons and energy corporations. Instead of the truth about terrorism, our media uses scare tactics to pump us with fear without reason and leaves us with unanswered questions and impossible explanations.

If you want to free yourself, free the media. We all have the power to take back our media

By Rabble Rouser

The war drums are bearing down on you from all angles and they give no quarter. Welcome to the struggle for your body and mind. The forces of capitalism are now so intertwined with our liberal democracy that they barely need distinction. A wise man once noted that the only thing big business hates about the state is the possibility that it could become more democratic.

The state demands your allegiance to its rules, to its pig running dogs, and to its policies. The state spies on you and your family for the very Orwellian euphemism of “security”. When you protest its grotesque policies, it unleashes a swarm of pigs to keep you in line, or if matters escalate, to beat you into submission or kill you. Who is the beneficiary of this aggression? It is of course the many multinational corporations that profit off of the misery of starving children, the toil of wage slaves, and the worldwide victims of white privilege and imperialism. It is these same corporations that ensure that it is their interests that are protected by the state, rather than those of the citizens they purport to serve.

The corporate media is the both the partner of the state and the master of its politicians. Pig talking heads like Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reiley, and Anne Coulter use racist and dividing rhetoric to frame the boundaries of important issues and demonize the victims of state and corporate policies. The corporate media stands between us and revolution. There will be no lasting victory without its absolute and total dismemberment. The sooner the better.

By Heatscore

It may seem paradoxical that in our current era of corporate media consolidation, in which a shrinking number of mega-corporations command a vast and growing share of the global media market, alternative media has never itself been stronger or more vibrant.

The truth, however, is that many of the same processes and techno­logical advances that have stripped away traditional barriers to the emergence of globe-spanning media monopolies have also paved the way for the rise of a more diverse and participatory media com­mons. While neo-liberal ‘globalization’ and the normalization of sat­ellite and Internet communications have led to the rise of monolithic media conglomerates and an accompanying explosion in corporate advertising, they have also revolutionized the way that information is perceived and distributed - thereby creating the space for an alternative media that is increasingly democratic and internationalist in scope.

And why not? Communication is, after all, not the sole province of corporate advertisers or the ruling class, and history is replete with individuals and groups who used whatever technological means available to them to rail against social injustice - or simply to share their own personal perspectives with the publics in which they lived.

The practice stretches back at least as far as Ancient Greece, where graffiti was first adopted as a means of public protest. This sub­versive habit was inherited by the Romans and thus spread across Europe and beyond – into the disparate lands assimilated into their vast empire. Archaeologists have unearthed many documented examples of this crude ancestor of facebook: political slogans and personal messages laboriously carved into the granite pillars and walls of ancient ruins stretching from England to Asia Minor (modern day Turkey).

As the Roman Empire collapsed into a feudal dark age administered by the Catholic Church, literacy was virtually wiped out – in Europe, that is. While this period witnessed a severe decline in recorded knowledge – one that corresponded to a barbaric rise in religious ignorance – the spirit of dissent lived on in the form of folk songs and political slogans passed down by generations of European peasants.

The invention of the printing press in 1453 ended the Catholic priest­ly class’ monopoly over the written word. Although the technology was still far from what we would today consider publicly accessible, it was nonetheless an essential precursor to the Reformation, which splintered the Roman Catholic Church into dozens of competing sects, thus ending its undisputed supremacy in Europe.

The advent of the newspaper brought with it a corresponding rise in liberal political philosophy. Guided by luminaries such as Thomas Paine and Voltaire, a dissident press was pivotal to the success of bourgeois revolutions in America and France. Freedom of the Press was championed in both cases as a cornerstone of republican de­mocracy, and enshrined in the constitutions of both nations.

In the United States, an alternative press soon flourished, with new publications emerging in many of the country’s various immigrant communities. By 1820 a militant underground black press had emerged, demanding the abolition of slavery.

In 1848, Marx and Engles published The Communist Manifesto, a manu­script that would soon come to revolutionize the dissident press, spawn­ing the creation of radical, class-conscious publications across Europe.

In Russia, the writings of Marx were to heavily influence two new politi­cal philosophies which would plant the seeds for future revolutionary agitation: nihilism and anarchism. The Russian nihilist movement, known as the Narodniks relied heavily on mobile printing presses to propa­gate their revolutionary messages, often playing a cat-and-mouse game with the Tsar’s security forces. More than once did this culminate in dramatic shoot outs, in which nihilists clashed with authorities sent to shut down their illegal underground presses. Although the Narodniks were ultimately unsuccessful in their attempts to overthrow the Russian monarchy, their actions cleared the way for a new generation of Rus­sian revolutionaries, led by Lenin and Trotsky, to seize power.

The writings of early anarchist thinkers such as Bakunin, Proudhon and Kropotkin would give birth to a vibrant anarchist press, whose ideas would permeate throughout Europe and the Americas, and inspire short-lived anarchist revolutions in the Ukraine and Spain. In Spain, espe­cially, the anarchist press played a tremendous role in the development of revolutionary sentiment. The anarchist publications Le Libertaire and Solidaridad Obrera were the organs of working class agitation, and faced the perpetual repression of the Spanish ruling class.

In the decades that followed the Second World War, alternative media contributed to a wave of nationalistic wars of independence, which swept through the developing world – leading to the dissolution of the colonial empires of the European Great Powers. In Cuba, the guerillas of the Sierra Maestra effectively capitalized on the widespread pro­liferation of home radios, using guerilla radio broadcasts to mobilize Cuban peasants and workers to their cause.

In today’s highly saturated media landscape, we no longer suffer from a scarcity of information, but rather struggle with the effects of its over-abundance. In the age of unbridled technological convenience in which we live, it is indeed humbling to look back on the history of those who have struggled so valiantly to progress the human condition and free the oppressed peoples of the world from the shackles of bond­age. May their struggles continue to inspire us in our collective march towards the emancipation of the human race from the forces of domina­tion - currently personified by capricious multinational corporations.

By Greg Macdougall

Independent media has a rich, long history. Iconoclast is following in and updating a tradition known for dissent, diversity, and the creation, cultivation and communication of new and challenging ideas.

While there may be longstanding problems with the way mainstream media works, what doesn’t have such a long and storied history is the rise of ‘mega-media’, the mass corporate media institutions that put control of ever more of our society’s means of communica­tion into the hands of fewer and fewer for-profit companies. It is only in the past decade or two that this problem has reached critical levels, yet it’s been ushered in as if this is ‘business as usual.’

But it isn’t business as usual. Laws regulating media have been changed, media companies have been bought up and/or merged at an alarming rate, and the media landscape is vastly different now than it was a generation ago.

Not only does this result in a distracting ‘if it bleeds it leads’ monoculture that delivers a worldview encouraging non-action and the acceptance of an insane status quo, but there is the continuing problem of an inherent conflict of interest between what is good for society and what makes money. We need to seriously consider the fundamental purpose of our society’s communication tools and structure.

As Robert McChesney states, “regardless of what a progressive group’s first issue of importance is, its second issue should be media and communication, because so long as the media are in corporate hands, the task of social change will be vastly more difficult, if not impossible, across the board.”

This is advice that could be heeded by anyone look­ing to change the world for the better. Media activists have long been involved in creating alternative media, but there are other forms of activity that are also important in dealing with the problems we now face in our communication structures.

Robert Hackett of Simon Fraser University has classi­fied four major strands of media activism:

• “influencing content and practices of mainstream media” (ex: fair.org, mediachannel.org, projectcensored.org)

• “advocating for reform of government policy/regula­tion of media in order to change the very structure of media institutions” (ex: democraticmedia.ca, mediareform.ca, freepress.net)

• “building independent, democratic and participatory media” (ex: indymedia.org, indepedentmedia.ca, mediademocracyday.org)

• “changing the relationship between audiences and media, chiefly by empowering audiences to be more critical of hegemonic media” (ex: media-awareness.ca, aml.ca, adbusters.org)

[two sites that focus on more than one strand are mediademocracy.ca and prwatch.org]

This past decade, there has been a heartening level of action around these issues. In 2000, an independent media conference in Waterloo was held; in 2001 there was one in Toronto. In 2004, there was the Uncensoring Media Morphosis conference in Ottawa, and the Community Media Convergence in Guelph. In 2007, there was the Propaganada Model conference in Wind­sor, featuring Noam Chomsky amongst many other key presenters, and the first Media Democracy conference in Montreal.

Lower-key meetings keep on being held. And since 2001, Media Democracy Day has been celebrated in late October in cities across the country.

Choose to work on one or more of the four forms of media activism, and connect with others - either locally or further afield - to make a difference.

>> Greg Macdougall is an activist and organizer based in Ottawa, and a member of Common Cause, an anarchist organization with several chapters across Ontario. An earlier version of this article appeared in Issue 2 (Jan/Feb 2008) of Linchpin, Common Cause’s print publication (www.linchpin.ca). For further info on media activism/analysis, please visit www.mediamattersottawa.org

[Reprinted from Adbusters Magazine]

We, the undersigned, are troubled by the way information flows and the way meaning is produced in our society.

WE HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE in what we are seeing, hearing and reading: too much infotainment and not enough news; too many outlets telling the same stories; too much commercialism and too much hype. Every day, this commercial information system distorts our view of the world.

WE HAVE LOST FAITH in the institutions of the mass media. A handful of corporations now control more than half the information networks around the world. At a time when people worldwide face hunger, social disruption, war and ecological collapse, only those who know how to walk the walk, talk the talk or pay big bucks are getting their message across.

WE HAVE LOST HOPE that our national media regulators will act in the public interest. Essential rules limiting media ownership and concentration are being scrapped, while rules protecting local content and access are diluted.

WE HAVE LOST PATIENCE waiting for reform.

WE IMAGINE A DIFFERENT SYSTEM – a media democracy. We see great promise in the open communications of the internet and want that openness expanded into every form of media. We envision a global system of communications that has as its foundation the direct, democratic participation of citizens. To this end, we demand the timely transfer of key media sources back to the people.

As a start, we demand the right to buy radio and television airtime under the same rules and conditions as advertising agencies. We ask our media regulators to set aside two minutes of every broadcast hour for citizen-produced messages. We want the six largest media corporations in the world broken up into smaller units.

What we ultimately seek is a new human right for our information age, one that empowers freedom of speech with the right to access the media. This new human right is: The Right to Communicate.

WE HEREBY LAUNCH A MOVEMENT to enshrine The Right to Communicate in the constitutions of all free nations, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

SIGN THE MEDIA CARTA MANIFESTO:

https://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/sign

By Sunni Vann

Oh lonesome me. A journalism student who wants out of the main­stream. My fellow classmates, pale, young, soon-to-be-liberated students will be tripping from their internships into the newsrooms. It’s funny how we were taught to ask so many questions, but never encouraged to ask one in particular. Were these big newsrooms, corporately-owned and craving advertisers – the places we really belong?

Our ethics class taught us how to report on suicides, how to get the story of someone’s kid who’s just died, and what to do if someone buys us dinner. But we never learned about the ethical background of the journalistic field. We never questioned the ethics of those media giants in whose desks we were likely to end up.

Now, on the brink of a having a degree to hang on my wall, I’m spinning with a cyclone of questions. The easier route would be the traditional – getting a traditional internship at a traditional newspa­per, writing traditional news with traditional journalism ethics. I’ll have to answer to a certain kind of editor that has to answer to a certain kind of boss that is controlled by one corporation or another.

But the traditional is just raising too many questions. That tried-and-true line up – The Globe and Mail, the National Post, CTV, Global, etc. they’re all thundering with advertisements for condos, life insurance and Big Macs.

I’m starting to worry that every news story from a corporate source should end with a question mark. And that worry is enough to send me seeking for where the wild things are – the young bloods on the outskirts of media – the independents, the grassroots journalists. Journalists who talk first to people affected by the events and poli­cies at hand, and second to the policy makers and event organizers. The Dominion says that “Once a journalist thoroughly understands the story of those directly affected and has time and resources left over, she brings their questions to those making the decisions: politicians, corporate executives, and so on.” The story of what’s happening on the ground takes precedence over what those in positions of power have to say about it. Again, to The Dominion’s philosophy, “If we start by talking to the people who have a vested interest in (and experi­ence with) spinning, framing or outright lying to their own advantage, then we’re not likely to get the real story.”

I hate to crash the party of do-good journalists getting hard news to an otherwise ignorant public. But, in terms of media organizations, too few people own too much for honesty to abound. Too many news­rooms have lost too many reporters. The public relations industry is too strong, and the right-wing thinktanks and what they have to say are too seductive.

So what are the alternatives? There’s more independent media than there has been in decades, so it seems as if there ought to be lots of choices. Problem is, alternative media isn’t very lucrative. Although there are a myriad of opportunities to write content on a volunteer basis, there are few career options in the field. Many alternative media groups are registered not-for-profit organizations, and those that can pay their journalists do so from the funds they receive as donations. Freelancing regular pieces for several paying publications seems to be the best option, and comes with that terrible romance - undependable paycheques.

But, with a little skill and a little luck, I’m convinced that a full time, ethical journalistic job is out there to be had. So, I’ve included a short list below of organizations (magazines mostly seem like the best option) for whom someone like me could work – to earn a living and earn some self respect.

So, here’s to my fellow classmates, to go ahead and pass me by on their way to the lush pastures of the (Can)West.

I’ll be poor, but I’ll be free.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

1. The Dominion - A monthly paper published by an incipient network of independent journalists. provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles.

2. The Media Co-op – . Halifax & Vancouver. Coast-to-coast network of local Media Cooperatives dedicated to providing grassroots, democratic coverage. Publishes The Dominion.

3. Briarpatch – Regina. “A contemporary issues magazine with a chip on its shoulder and a fire in its belly.”

4. Columbia Journal - British Columbia. Positive progressive alter­native to the conservative corporate press in B.C. Dedicated to inform, entertain and advocate for the people of B.C.

5. Rabble.ca - News for the rest of us. original news stories, in-depth features, provocative interviews, commentaries, reprints articles from other alternative publications. Articles, podcast and television segments.

6. The Real News - “We won’t blindly follow wire services or official press releases that attempt to set the news agenda. We will cover the big stories of the day, but we will broaden the definition of what’s important.”

7. The Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) – Montreal.

An independent research organization and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activist. An archive of news articles, reports and analysis on issues which are barely covered by the mainstream media.

8. Peace Magazine – Toronto. Tracks the important work of peace­making, discussing disarmament, conflict resolution, nonviolent sanctions, world conflicts and crises, etc.

9. Shunpiking – The Discovery Magazine. Nova Scotia. Shunpike shun.pike n: a side road used to avoid the toll on or the speed and traffic of a superhighway- shun.pik.er n- shun.pik.ing n (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

10. This Magazine: Because everything is political. Toronto. Focuses on Canadian politics, pop culture and the arts, in keeping with its radical roots.

11.The Canadian - Progressive and cross-cultural national newspaper.

12. The ACTivist Magazine – Toronto. Covers activism not through event coverage, but by presenting the broader scope of activism.

13. Herizons – Canadian feminist magazine that delivers the inside scoop on the Canadian women’s movement: health, activism, the environ­ment and legal cases affecting women.

14. Bitch Magazine - Provides a feminist critique & analysis of pop culture, to encourage discussion about how the media influences us, and to promote the connection between cultural critique and social-justice activism.

15. Alternatives Journal – Waterloo. An environmental magazine, delivers thoughtful analysis and intelligent debate on Canadian and world environmental issues.