Since last week's explosion of editorials regarding the OHRC, the bloggers and mag writers have been jumping all over the free speech debate.
The place to go for the latest stuff is Mark Steyn's website, as he provides a link to every new editorial on the matter. Many of them are pro-speech and anti-star chamber, but for good reason: most people in the papers say they're against the gagging of free speech, and even a couple of lefty bloggers have started to change their tune.
For the record, I think a great debt is owed to Levant and Steyn on this account, because they kept the debate going in the blogosphere for months before the media finally woke up to it.
Recently, Steyn linked to a George Jonas piece, in which Jonas asks why some stories draw attention, while other stories don't.
I dig Jonas. He's cool, and I like his stuff. I thought Vengeance was a great read, but Munich was crap. Anyway, Jonas says something in his column that I have been seeing a lot lately: the utter bewilderment as to why the human rights issue is suddenly worthy of an op-ed. Champagne corks are popping all around, as the editors and columnists pat themselves on the back for presenting themselves as champions of free speech. Yet, to their curiosity, they wonder what took them so long.
The Star, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Sun, The Hamilton Spectator, The Calgary Herald, so forth and so on. They've all gotten into the act. And nobody knows why.
I do.
I said it a couple of weeks ago, and I'll say it again: self-preservation. It is no coincidence that the heavy hitters in the newspaper biz didn't get into the free speech debate until the OHRC wrote a press release that contained the word media.
The gagging of free speech: not just for bloggers anymore.
After this press release, the papers started hitting the issue fast and furious. They were now all for the rights of free expression and free speech.
Hog wash. I find it very amusing that free speech defenders are linking to these editorials like mad. The editorials contain next to nothing about the on-going debate regarding free speech. The papers let Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn twist, and only entered the fray when the magical word "media" appeared. These editorials are chock full of the letters "OHRC," but not very many "CHRC."
There is not a doubt in my mind that if the OHRC's decision had only used Mark Steyn's name, and not Maclean's, then the Calgary Herald et al wouldn't even have noticed.
Bloggers and free speech defenders better watch it. I've said that framing the debate as freedom of the press is the winning strategy, as long as bloggers insert themselves into the idea of "press."
If not, here's what's going to happen: The OHRC will capitulate to the papers, and back off quickly. That will shut the mouths of the editorialists, who will go back to their day jobs. It will also put the internet and the bloggers right back where they were: a separate entity, and a separate issue. Isolated. This will let the CHRC (remember them?) continue to frame the internet as a place where hate mongers hang out and a place that needs supervision.
In a funny way, the lambasting of the OHRC is the best news the CHRC has had in ages. It let them off the ropes, just when free speech advocates were gaining steam. Vitally, it changed the topic from "private citizen rights" to "media rights."
It could swing back just as quickly.
2 comments:
Hmmm could be...
Canadian mainstream media may have awoken to the Steyn/Levant/HRC issue due to their sense of self-preservation, but I doubt it.
I suspect the reason why Canadian mainstream media were SO LATE in waking up to the issue because of something far scarier - the eroding Canadian average level of literacy.
First of all. "investigative journalism" is virtually DEAD in Canada with a few notable exceptions (Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant being two of the most visible exceptions to the dumbed-down standard of Canadian contemporary journalism).
Second, MANY Canadians think that "freedom of expression" is an "American concept", and anti-Amercian sentiment is as Canadian as as boring and derivative feature films. In other words, Canadians are largely ignorant of Canada, its history and the threats to its future and, therefore, cannot feign interest in same or discuss it. Since "Canadians" know, on average, "diddly squat" about Canada, well...let me just say that you can't defend or protect what you've already lost to your own ignorance (and Canadians are overarchingly ignorant of most things Canadian.)
Nah, I think the reason why Canadian mainstream media have finally awakened to this issue is this: $1.25.
That's the average price of a daily mainstream paper. With $1.25 in the offing, you can bet those farsighted Canadian media moguls (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) are going to GRAB for it.
Canada - choosing the short-term dime over the long-term dollar ever since "shooting yourself in the foot" has been an idiom of speech. In Canada, it's the state religion!
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