Give Big Media a one way ticket to the garbage disposal

I'm sure there are a large number of others pointing this out, but for the time being, Red Jenny and Canadian Cynic have the direct links to deal with this problem.

In the past month six different Big Media groups have merged to create three. The Canadian media landscape is now a virtual oligopoly and everything you read, hear and see in the media originates with a handful of large corporations.

Media convergence, where Big Media owns the TV stations, the radio stations, the newspapers and the online sites under the same corporate banner stifles the flow of information and reduces the diversity of voices.

Big Media is about maximizing profit; not about reporting the truth and not about offering diversity. Further, the corporate head offices have already demonstrated that they are unable to remain neutral with respect to the editorial policy of their media enterprizes, regardless of promises to the contrary, and they inject the political will of the corporation, not the local editorial board, on the full range of their media organs.

It needs to be stopped. Now.

Media diversity is the cornerstone of democracy. But media ownership is more highly concentrated in Canada than almost anywhere else in the industrialized world. Almost all private Canadian television stations are owned by national media conglomerates and, because of increasing cross-ownership, most of the daily newspapers we read are owned by the same corporations that own television and radio stations.

This means a handful of Big Media Conglomerates control what Canadians can most readily see, hear and read. It means less local and regional content, more direct control over content by owners and less analysis of the events that shape our lives. It also means less media choice for Canadians and fewer jobs for Canadian media workers.

We must also be wary of the impacts mergers have on the diversity and neutrality of new on-line media. We need to reverse this trend before big media gets even bigger!

Send a pre-formatted message to the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission by going here. It will only take a minute and with enough input, it will make a difference.

Go. You've spent enough time here. Go now.