CKNW Editorial
for December 28, 2001

I have a significant birthday on New Years Eve and it makes me feel like unburdening myself of some thoughts on what I think is a desperate situation – the muzzling of the media in this  country.

Canadian society has become, if I might coin an expression, corporatized – the "establishment" – and there is one, believe it - controls all major segments of society, the people who govern it and the people who report and comment.

Let’s look back to the Charlottetown referendum in 1992. For what was so obviously a badly flawed document that would have done irreparable harm to the nation, Prime Minister Mulroney obtained support from every segment of the Canadian establishment - all political parties, the business community, the labour unions, the artsy fartsy crowd and, yes, the media. What would have been shocking in the extreme, had the media done its job, came when Maclean/Hunter, a major media outlet, actually formally signed on with the Yes Committee. Every paper in Canada was onside … uncritically in favour. No thought to even a superficial critique. It was abject, fawning approval of what the government was doing. That’s a free press? So out of touch was the local Southam controlled press that when BC massively rejected the deal the Sun and Province were in shock.

A couple of years later, Southams took three prominent writers off the Kemano II controversy because they had asked uncomfortable questions of Alcan, a major advertiser. In fact, as a billion dollar hydro deal was brought to its knees, you would never have known that there was a controversy by reading the mainstream local press. There is, you see, an undefined but very real limit on dissent in this country and it is getting more limited and better defined. We make believe we live in a democracy where the people govern, where the judiciary is non political and where the press is free and courageous. The "establishment" all play along. The people know better but are helpless.

Daniel Webster once said "the contest of the ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power". Total executive power in this country is in the hands of one man at 24 Sussex Drive. The need for hell-raising has never been greater. We have a constitution constipated with vetoes just at a time when our instruments of government have been taken over by the command section of the Prime Minister's office ... with MPs truly, in Trudeau's term, nobodies. If they have no independent voice, then neither do you or I. Never has the voter felt and been so disconnected from those who sit in the parliaments and legislatures of the land. Politically divided into regions, the sense of nationhood wanes by the hour with the establishment occasionally rousing itself from its torpor to look and see what Quebec is up to – Quebec a province which, unlike B.C., could never last on its own and desperately hopes that Ottawa never discovers this fact.

And what do we have? A media getting more pallid, more anonymous, more obsequious, more submissive by the day. Most of the print media in this country and, with the exception of the always gutsy Georgia Straight, all of the local media are controlled by Issy Asper through his son Leonard. When the National Post got too close to the bone with the Shawinigan scandal involving Issy's pal and political soulmate Jean Chretien, they were defanged. Now we know that there are to be no editorials or op-ed pieces in Asper Newspapers or on his Global TV that are critical of the state of Israel and indeed these outlets must report Middle East news putting Israel in a favourable light. Does this spill over into commentators and columnists? It must. All must eat and support families. Moreover, the Aspers of the world hire people of their views to avoid the charge that they are manipulating opinion in this country. (Fortunately so far they still leave journalists like Vaughn Palmer, Mike Smyth and Barbara Yaffe unfettered but one must wonder how long that will last?) But what about radio? And what about radio here in Vancouver, where there is a long tradition of feistiness and irreverence towards authority?

The leading station, over the years, has been CKNW with Webster and Bannerman and in earlier days, CJOR with Webster and Pat Burns. CJOR is dead – so are Burns and Webster – Bannerman is out of the business and CKNW has fallen into the corporate hands of Bay Street and Wall Street. Instead of radio people making the decisions, we’re captive of the slash and burners in Toronto and New York with all important decisions being made by bean counters. That’s what it’s come to – people who haven’t any idea what the traditions of aggressive radio means are making decisions as instructed from above with the bottom line the only criterion. Don’t get me wrong – this is a capitalist society and the man who pays the piper calls the tune. It's just so desperately sad to think that tradition and heritage are hostage to the demands of the shareholder who, evidently, couldn’t care less whether issues are examined critically and politicians have their feet held to the fire.

It remains to be seen what will happen. I suppose one indication will be whether or not I am re-signed but it's more than that. Where's the bull pen? The one ray of light for those who like candid, tough radio, Shiral Tobin, was sacked by CKNW. Where are the hell raisers of tomorrow? Who will ask hard questions the next time the government gets the entire establishment behind a bad deal? Who will take on big business and indeed big labour? Who will speak for you and let you speak for yourselves? There will always be broadcasters who will gently probe and mildly rebuke, in a sort of "on the one hand, on the other hand" way, but who will stand against what they think is wrong with all the strength they can summon up? You see this business is much more than just asking the tough questions – anyone can do that - it’s persisting with those questions and following them up until the truth is evident, the truth often being that the politician doesn’t wish to answer.

My fear for CKNW is that it is going to become just another radio station ... safe, mildly controversial at best, with all broadcasters carefully selected as people who will not ruffle corporate accounts, actual or prospective and will treat those who govern us with gentle nudges at most. No one at headquarters has said this but the firing of Shiral and the flood of infomercials on the weekend surely provides clues of policy. It isn't a case of whether or not a Pat Burns, Jack Webster or Rafe Mair is permitted on the air but will they be actively recruited as in the past?

Let me tell you a story to illustrate what CKNW has Been. I left CJOR in 1984, after getting second prize in a contract dispute. Ted Smith, then General Manager of CKNW hired me to do a new show from midnight until two in the morning. I was scarcely a crucial part of their broadcasting day or a key member of their team. On one of my very first broadcasts I said to a caller "I ate a McDonalds hamburger about eight years ago and to this day, when I burp, I can taste the damned thing". Not especially bright or witty but there it was.

McDonalds set its hair on fire and demanded that I be taken off the air. Station manager Ted Smith politely but firmly told them to go to hell ... that CKNW stood behind their broadcasters. And they always have and I can tell you it hasn't always been easy. Most importantly, they have stood behind them when the majority of listeners thought they were wrong. They stood behind us when we were wrong.

I look back at the times when Bill Vander Zalm was premier. With half the province complaining about my editorials, then manager Ron Bremner never flinched. I can only imagine what it must have been like with the Prime Minister on down bashing at management over my position on the Charlottetown Accord and the heat they took from Alcan during the Kemano II struggle. Is the new management up to this? Or will we be seeing potential advertisers becoming featured guests on air as part of the advertising package? Will there be suggestions, not so subtle, that perhaps we should lay off Air Canada or some other advertiser in the news? I don't know. I have to hope for the best. This isn't special pleading ... it's not about me at all. My time is passing. What it is about is this – there’s damned little separating free speech and courageous journalism on the one hand and the corporatization of Canada on the other.

The new motto seems to be, dissent if you will ... but always be polite and don't ever get too close to the bone. And when push comes to shove, your company, your union, and especially your government is probably right ... best to go along. The evidence is there for all to see - we are more and more being treated as a nation of wimps by those who are set in authority over us and the day is not far off, I fear, when the process will be complete and the media will be merely unofficial organs of the establishment at worst; mild, respectful critics, within the accepted confines of dissent, at best. There will be no one to give voice to the growing anger and despair felt by people who, amongst other things, want their parliament back.

The future, it seems clear, belongs to the bland, ever respectful of authority, bottom line conscious bean counter who has all the passion and fervour for justice and reform for which the accounting profession is so well known.

British Columbians ... Canadians ... should think about this – a lot.

Though it’s probably too late.