Who Owns the News?

Why are your blogs and this one important? Some of course are better than others. We see more and more people tuning into our writing or re-posting. What are we doing that is bringing people to see what we have to say?

The media are driving people to us. Many of the mainstream media even have their own blogs to get their stories out.

The reason alternative media forums are becoming popular are many. Often blogs are the first to get the news out of live events, beating the likes of CNN and others. Another reason is the disenchantment with mainstream media.

With consolidation we have lost many independent or smaller players in the media. Looking for an alternative point of view in Vancouver for example. Don't buy a paper other than the Georgia Straight or watch the news on TV. The rest are owned by just a few folks. With consolidation, reporters were laid off, fewer indepth pieces are done. We get fluff in its place, or the same story written for 2o other papers. There is no Canadian "Washington Post or New York Times". Both papers while owned by conglomerates, maintain some objectivity and actually do some investigative work.

In Vancouver and Canada if it wasn't on the AP or CP wire it is not likely news. Some folks in Greater Vancouver will be discussing this in a couple of days.

Who Owns The News? An Event in Support of Independent Local Media Vancouver suffers from the highest concentration of media ownership in the country. CanWest Global controls 100% of our daily newspapers, 70% of our evening news, and the content of 12 of the Lower Mainland's community papers.

This adds up to media control never seen before in Canadian history. In this glut of media concentration, locally owned and operated media are often the lost voices of real journalism, telling the stories of our diversity, of the communities we live in, and of the issues that matter most to us.