The media is the story Part II--CBC under attack from Sun Media

Simon Houpt's column in today's Globe and Mail sheds new light on the Harper agenda:  "Sun burns CBC in bid to hype conservative TV." 

On April 18, Sun Media will launch its new broadcasting medium, Sun TV, promising "Hard News and Straight Talk."  Talk about a built-in propaganda machine.

Last week Sun newspapers such as The Ottawa Sun screamed "CBC Full of Grit," claiming that the CBC's VoteCompass was really a Liberal indoctrination tool and that one of its developers had worked for Ignatieff's political campaign.  Turns out Peter Loewen had also worked for Tom Flanagan in 2004 and a Tory MP in Nova Scotia, but Sun Media neglected to mention those details or to point out that "Mr. Flanagan is on record noting that . . . Loewen is an outstanding researcher without an ounce of partisan in him."

These unjustified attacks on our public broadcaster for self-serving interests only underscore how vigilant a society must remain in order to protect its vital institutions--and in this case, an organ of democracy.  It's hardly news to say that the CBC informs us, unites us, and encourages us to reflect thoughtfully on affairs both local and national.  But this institution, widely valued regardless of one's political stripes and held to a high standard of accountability, is no longer something we can assume will always be there. 

It sounds ultra-cynical to say that Harper doesn't want the people of this country to think, let alone exercise intellectual integrity, but it's hard to draw any other conclusion.  When everything blurs outward from a frenzy of Fox News Network-style broadcasting in which "biases are a part of [the] appeal", meaningful public discourse is not only diminished, it threatens to disappear.  We become not citizens but mere commodities in a dark, little world.