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Today, two major events occurred in two separate countries with the same media reaction – indifference. In the States, the One Nation rally drew twice as many attendees as Glenn Beck’s rally a few weeks before it. The difference? The smaller crowd at Beck’s rally was much ballyhooed in the media, receiving live coverage on Fox News and CNN with reporters broadcasting from the scene. Likewise, the poorly-attended tea parties have been followed religiously by the networks.
Today, the networks ignored One Nation. I kept checking CNN but nada. MSNBC covered the morning portion – good for them. You already knew to forget about Fox News. CBC showed a deceptive image of the edges of the crowd, intimating that the crowd was small.
In Canada, George Galloway landed in Toronto and was allowed in. This was an important twist in a longer story that will resonate for a long time. While the media was out in force, no live coverage was offered on any Canadian network. On CBC News channel, a rerun of an earlier broadcast was showing, followed by an interview with James Cameron by Peter Mansbridge.
No matter where you stand on George Galloway, this is an essential news story that demanded to be covered live with analysis and commentary. It was history. Then again, CBC ain’t the History Channel. Too bad it’s not much a news channel, either.
- Cross-posted at Let Freedom Rain.
The Globe and Mail seems to have taken a turn to the right and Adrian MacNair is embedded in Afghanistan with our military. Canada is loosing news in favour of propaganda… it can only lead to brainwashing of the population.
We need our own media. Groups like Prog Blog are great, but we’re all speaking to the converted. We need to fund our own independent media that will make applications for TV stations and news shows, newspapers that will compete with the rags that we already have and sites that will generate funding from advertising that Canadians may actually be interested in supporting.
We need an umbrella organization that will fund all of the above and have a mandate or seeking and getting cash from people that care about the future of our country and our planet.
However, the biggest cost to the progressive voice right now is complacency. Inaction is no longer an option.
The Huffington Post has more than 18,000 comments on
the event. Here’s the link.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/02/one-nation-working-together-progressives-rally_n_748071.html#s149207