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Fox vs. the CBC

Posted by saedigh at 09:58 PM on March 30, 2005

To paraphrase Trent Reznor and David Bowie, I'm afraid of American Conservatives.
Last night, CBC's the fifth estate rebroadcast its documentary on the decline of public discourse in the media, Sticks and Stones.
The original broadcast was probably the first time most Canadians had the opportunity to hear Ann Coulter say things like "They're lucky we allow them to share the same continent as us", with regards to citizens of the Great White North. And it was likely the first time people like Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly had the opportunity to make pompous asses of themselves on a national television program not airing on an American network. "Without the US, Canada is essentially Honduras." Uh huh.
At one point, Ann Coulter decried Canada's unwillingness to send troops to Iraq, when we had sent troops into Vietnam. Which we didn't. Canadians who wished to fight crossed the border to do so, just as Americans who didn't wish to fight came up North. The Canadian Military was not directly involved in the Vietnam war. But that's beside the point: if Ann Coulter knew she was appearing on a Canadian news program, shouldn't she have done some homework? Of course, Ann back pedaled once she was back home, and called the journalist who had clobbered her a "bubblehead". That's right Ann, don't dispute the facts, just stick to name calling.
Bill O'Reilly didn't have anything nice to say about the documentary either. He declined to be interviewed for it, but was more than eager to blast the CBC's integrity on his Fox News show, The O'Reilly Factor. This is the same Bill O'Reilly who made up (by which I mean "pulled out of his ass") the publication The Paris Business Review to prove his fallacious claim that the French economy was tanking as a direct result of the Capitol's insistence on serving "Freedom Fries" and banning any sort of decent cheese, and that Canada would surely share the same fate if they didn't step in line. "No spin zone" indeed.
Of course, we have our fair share of scary conservatives on this side of the border as well. Rachel Marsden, a Vancouver radio personality, and "United Press Representative" for the O'Reilly Factor, consistently compares Canada to Sodom and Gemorrah. She believes that Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda, and that the US found the WMDs it was looking for (when the US Administration has acquiesced that neither of these claims were true). She believes that liberals don't like debate, and yet she appears regularly on a television show where the host tells people who disagree with his right-wing opinion to "shut up", and threatens to cut their mics?
The CBC may well be state-run television, but at least it's honest about it. And it's not like CBC shows don't take potshots at the politicians paying their bills or salivate over scandals like the Sponsorship Debacle currently underway. But that's just my Canadian, liberal opinion: better the propoganda-mill you know.

Comments

damn - I wish I had known that was on. Any chance you know anyone who taped it?

Posted by: heather at March 31, 2005 04:07 PM

Unfortunately, I didn't tape it. However, transcripts or a video of the broadcast can be purchased from the CBC. There is information at the show's Web site: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/.

Posted by: Saedigh at March 31, 2005 04:54 PM