Some journalists and news reporting institutions are overstepping what I or any citizen should expect from them. They aren’t moral or political gatekeepers. Both sides of the political spectrum do this. Fox News has made a reputation from it.
I’m fed up with observing progressivists, who’re certain they’re right in their opinions, engineering a “better society” (better according to a self-righteous ideal of self-evident universal truths about what’s best for human progress) – and to do that, resort to fine-tuning what news Canadians are regularly offered and the tone used in informing us.
CBC is a prime example. The mother corp of Canadian TV and radio journalism wants to shape us all into progressivists: feminists; environmentalists; secularists; humanists; anti-colonial, anti-racist, pro-LGBTQ Nice People — by how news is reported. CBC doesn’t balance news as professionally as BBC. I won’t reveal my stand on the ideologies I listed. I can oppose social engineering without being judged “guilty of wrong ideas,” can’t I?
Maybe I’ll be censured for failing perfect conformity with progressivism’s agenda. That happens on campuses now, sadly; universities are places where free speech is cancelled by higher rights: students demand safety from objectionable opinions (“safe spaces”).
Note, Canada isn’t totalitarian; China is the prime example of that beast. But Noam Chomsky demonstrates the falsity of complete information-freedom that democracies assume. We’re never adequately informed by private media nor public institutions (government, schools). Self-education and research is an obligation for the responsible democratic citizen, and as letter-writer Ben Carson says in a recent Nelson Star (Separating opinions from disinformation, Feb. 18), we should determinedly eradicate disinformation by fact-checking.
Charles Jeanes
Nelson