Once upon a time, a committee of the Senate of Canada undertook to “consider and report upon the ownership and control of the major means of mass public communication in Canada.” Diversity of voices, that was the issue. “The more separate voices we have telling us what’s going on, telling us how we’re doing, telling us how we should be doing, the more effectively we can govern ourselves.”
But diversity is an endangered species, imperilled by the utter corporatization of the media. “The purpose of this Committee was not to ascertain whether concentration of ownership is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. Of course it is a bad thing; in a land of bubblegum forests and lollipop trees, every man would have his own newspaper or broadcasting station, devoted exclusively to programming that man’s opinions and perceptions.”
Bubblegum forests? Lollipop trees? What are these people, hippies?
But of course they were. The year was 1970, and even...
Christopher Dornan teaches in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. He contributed chapters to the first two volumes of the How Canadians Communicate series.
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