While a mortally wounded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation defiantly fights back against the Harper government, the last of the supposedly independent news shows seems to have sold out. That last news show to capitulate was Tom Clark’s West Block Sunday morning show on Global Television. It looks as though Tom has lost his independence.
Since Ivan Fecan put CTV firmly in the hands of Bell Canada in 2011, CTV news has been a lapdog for the Harper Conservatives. If you have ever wondered why the kids in the Prime Minister’s Office can be so arrogant, it is because they have a lot to be arrogant about. Having the dominant Canadian television networks in both official languages at your beck and call is no small accomplishment.
But we had hopes for Shaw. Even though Global’s Toronto’ evening news was too long, too repetitious, too self-serving, it was still not as bad as the CTV sham. It was actually appreciated for its attempts to maintain balance in its politics. CTV in English and TVA in French on the other side of the coin appear to buy into the Conservative government’s propaganda—which is hardly subtle.
While many considered Tom Clark’s precipitous leaving of CTV over Lisa LaFlamme being chosen late news host replacing Lloyd Robertson as something of a prima-donna act, we were pleased when he joined Global. Nobody ever expected Tom to show his true political colours but we always believed he was fair.
A good example of this fairness was when he used to have Assistant Professor Ian Lee of Carleton University and Senator George Baker on his West Block show. Those two had some excellent discussions. There was never any question where each stood. Ian Lee gave the Conservative view and George Baker spoke for the Liberals. Two weeks ago Ian Lee was back on the show alone telling us how wonderful it was to have income sharing for wealthy parents. There was nobody there to point out the foolishness of Lee’s argument.
What really told us that Tom’s show was a sell out was when he had Alberta Premier Jim Prentice last Sunday to explain what a great job Alberta was doing in slowing global warming. That was not the Tom Clark we used to respect hosting that farce.
-30-
Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]