Seize Opportunity to Restore More Independent Community Newspapers, Urges Green Party
OTTAWA -- As the Asper empire of newspapers, CanWest Limited Partnership (LP), is being sold to the highest bidder, the creditors and the Canadian government are ignoring the critical public policy question of concentration of media ownership.
The Asper family built up a large, vertically integrated media empire, including Global Television, but lost control of CanWest LP last year. When CanWest LP moved to bankruptcy protection, the Aspers tried to regain control but Shaw Cable won the bids to take over the television division. The newspaper arm is now being sold separately, but the creditors are rejecting bids to allow the empire to be broken up and sold in pieces. CanWest LP owns 46 publications across Canada, including all the major BC dailies – the Vancouver sun, The Province and the Times Colonist, as well as the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, the Calgary Herald, and the Montreal Gazette.
“Now is the time to help restore an ailing aspect of Canadian democracy – an independent media serving a local audience,” said Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party. “Royal Commissions and Senate reports have warned for decades that Canada has an unhealthy level of corporate concentration in our news media. In 1981, the Kent Commission described the situation as ‘monstrous,’ noting ‘too much power is put in too few hands.’ And this was more than two decades ago when the concentration of ownership was far less monopolistic. This moment is likely the best chance to allow the repatriation of local papers to local ownership.”
The large corporate concentration has not enhanced profitability. In fact, the Asper family’s misadventure on risking too much to expand their empire in Australia led to their collapse. In contrast, the Dennis family in Nova Scotia has managed to keep the Chronicle Herald afloat, with stringers covering events in large and small centres across the province, as well as maintaining a parliamentary reporter in Ottawa.
“The first casualty in corporate concentration of media is quality coverage of local events. The news rooms are severely cut, with filler content from the chain. With that we lose civic engagement and participation in important decision-making,” said Ms. May.
The Green Party urges the government and the creditors to open up the bidding process and allow for a fresh approach to a healthy media in Canada.
For backgrounder on media concentration in Canada see attached file.
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Contact Information:
Debra Eindiguer
Press Secretary
C: 613.240.8921
media@greenparty.ca
www.greenparty.ca
Attachment(s):
