Journalism in the Tailings Pond

Feb 3, 2010

Journalism in the Tailings Pond

This post has not been approved by Media Co-op editors!

Reaffirming their place as Canada’s largest, and least useful corporate media conglomerate, Canwest has jumped the shark when it comes to new ways to squeeze pennies out of column inches. 

Halfway through a new weekly series they call “a six-week Canwest special information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell Canada,” they have set a new standard for thinning the near-translucent veneer between news and advertising.  Readers are presented with a pseudo newspaper column, complete with headlines, sidebars and faux interviews.  Content stretches from  a litany of well rehearsed and perfectly versed company propaganda lines, to outright misinformation, disguised as “Myth Busters”:

MYTH BUSTER

MYTH: Oil sands production is too energy-intensive.

REALITY: The amount of natural gas (the primary energy source) used to produce a barrel of oil sands synthetic crude equates to 10 per cent of the energy contained in that barrel. Even so, energy-reduction measures are a key focus for technological investment at Shell.”

The Shell and Canwest version of reality fails to let readers know that in a barrel of conventional oil the typical energy return is a 100:1 of output to input.  In other words, Tar Sands production is admittedly 10 times less efficient than conventional oil production – and this is taking the Shell data as fact – other sources peg Tar Sands production at ratios of 3:1 and as low as 1.5:1.  Tar Sands developments burn up over 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, cannibalizing enough gas to heat every home in Alberta.  Of course this also limits the scope of inputs simply to gas, each barrel of tar sands oil also requires four tonnes of earth and upwards of five barrels of fresh water to be irreversibly sacrificed. 

Facing what the media has called a “shareholder revolt” over tar sands investments, it is no big surprise that Shell is such blatant steps to try and greenwash themselves and their tar sands projects – which hold 20 billion barrels of oil, one third of Shell’s global resource holdings.  More insidious is how open Canwest seems to be to casting off any remaining vestiges of journalistic integrity and scrape bottom for whatever scraps of investment they can get their hands on. 

While watching the public death throes of Canada’s largest media conglomerate does appeal to the pleasure center of the independent media, it also speaks to what could become the further decline and fall of Canadian journalism in its traditional vestiges.  In early January, a group of Canadian banks took control of Canwest L.P., the company’s print division, effectively placing creditors and loan sharks in charge of thirteen major daily newspapers and twenty six community publications.  Opting to keep the company together, turning down outside bids to purchase certain papers but not others, Canwest is taking on a “too big to fail” mantra that aims to maximize profits, most likely at the cost of integrity and content. 

The corporate media conglomerates, and the bets hedged by the media moguls that own them – such as Canwest’s Asper family – are losing.  Traditional newspapers are losing readership, as most people turn to the internet for their news and opinions in an ever deepening sea of professional, amateur, independent and speciality sources. 

Canwest was presented with a choice, and has firmly decided to trudge the low road, picking easy money over developing venues that embrace a sustainable future for journalism in Canada.  Partnering with corporate interests not simply to skew the facts and spin the stories, but present their advertising and agenda as news is the most recent lowlight in what has been a spectacular decline for mainstream journalism around the globe, but we are still far from the bottom. 

This latest move simply reinforces the need to develop and promote a strong, critical independent and grassroots alternative to the mass media in Canada.  Government programs should be targeted at strengthening the roots of the growing indy media community in Canada, and not attempting to resuscitate an aging dinosaur on its death bed. 

Better yet; pull the plug and let these papers die a (somewhat) noble death. If things continue down their current path, before long we’ll start seeing the RBC Montreal Gazette and Edmonton Oil Journal (a wholly owned subsidiary of Suncor) on news stands.