CBC Privatized or CanWest Publicized?
by C. L. Cook
 In my service as managing editor at Pacific Free Press I vet comments and read the mail. The letter below I received this week, and read with growing alarm.
Sharon implored someone write an article on the amalgamation of parts of The National Post with the CBC.
The state-owned Canadian Broadcast Corporation's surviving employees have suffered a series of cuts and diminished numbers through attrition and contracting out for years. And it shows. Now, in twist of the knife fashion, the CBC is thrown into bed with one organ of the single greatest critic of State media, Canwest Global Communications.
The unholy honeymoon is in it's early days yet, so it's difficult to imagine the progeny this state-corporate media union is likely to spawn, but the media silence on the deal speaks volumes.
Canada's media scene is already one of the free world's most concentrated, and singular-minded. Breaking the tremulous membrane between the public and private media corporations is a bad political sign, and at what financial costs to taxpayers is a bit of a mystery.
As the Asper family behind the debt-laden Canwest angle mega real estate and media business ventures in Canada and beyond, the biggest single media operation in the country they run is filing for bankruptcy protection.
And this is where the New Government of Canada would have Canadians place their tax futures?
Could it be, when the biggest voice in the country (and operator of significant offshore papers, too) begs favours its imprecations come out sounding more like threats?
This deal should sound a clarion warning to Canadians, but who'll ring that bell?
The third player in this game of Canadian media monopolies is none other than Paul Godfrey, current CEO of The National Post (a Canwest organ) and past wunderkind at Sun media, and rumoured to have private equity backing to take-over the bulk of the ailing Canwest papers.
How that could affect the CBC deal, (or how dependent the Godfrey move is on the CBC/Canwest deal going through) is part of a bigger picture yet to be revealed.
Meanwhile, Sharon asks all concerned to consider the situation, writing;
"Dear Editor; PLEASE do an article about the CBC - for years now, I've contacted CBC producers and the Ombudsman regarding their change in ideology, their altering of programs/times/guests, and also challenging specific programs [and their responses to me] with copies to the Ombudsman. 'One, the National Post, a private newspaper, is now partially funded by the taxpayer. Two, the CBC has just been partially privatized.'
To read this latest info is just horrid. All I feared is now coming into place, and I'm mainly angry at Canadians for being so complacent and accepting. Friends of CBC is far too soft on Harper et al. Time to take off the gloves . . . but what to do, when the media is all sewn up.
Please do an investigative article on this whole theft of our national radio - people can then email/post on internet - it will save us much time and get many more to think about the loss/takeover of our only national communication system."
If Sharon sounds urgent, she's expressing the concern I'm confident millions of Canadians would share, if made aware of what's going on at the heart of the public broadcaster.
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