The Big Issue

The question of the week seems to be: Did Leo Strauss get Rick Salutin fired? Perhaps a better question: Who is Leo Strauss? "Odd as this may sound, we live in a world increasingly shaped by Leo Strauss, a controversial philosopher who died in 1973,” media watcher Jeet Heer wrote back in 2003. He noted editors at the New York Times and Le Monde asked their journalists to study Strauss for clues to Bush’s inner circle. Strauss’s work is interpreted by many as an endorsement of deception as a valid political approach, along with calculated manipulation of nationalism and religion.

In Canada, Strauss has been linked to the Calgary School, a group of academics who have helped reshape Conservative policy, although its members deny the connection. The most widely published Strauss critic is Shadia Drury, currently at the University of Regina.

Now Salutin’s explusion from the pages of the Globe and Mail has left media watchers combing through Salutin’s last words for clues to the decision, with suspicion zeroing in on the column Stephen Harper: The Last Straussian. Outraged Salutin fans have launched a Reinstate Rick Salutin campaign, and a Supporters of Rick Salutin Facebook Page. In many memories, it hasn't been long since the departure of columnist Heather Mallick raised the question: Who's next, Rick Salutin?” For some it's the last straw: I will never buy another copy of the Globe and Mail again, wrote one Facebook contributor. Surprisingly, the most nonplussed response came from Salutin himself, who seemed neither shocked nor awed by his own sacking.

Despite arrests, threats, beatings and death, Iranian journalists continue to push the envelope. The threat of a “creeping media coup” has spurred further crackdowns in recent months. In August, the Iranian judiciary sentenced Badrolsadat Mofidi, head of the Iranian Journalists Association, to six years in prison. Now there are confirmed reports that Canadian Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan may face the death sentence.

This won’t be the first arrested journalist with Canadian connections. Others include Iranian-Canadian Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, documentary filmmaker Mehrnoushe Solouki, a University of Quebec student and landed immigrant, and Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kasemi, who tragically died at the hands of her captors.

What’s amazing is that Iran’s citizen and professional journalists, including cartoonists, keep going. Globally journalists have shown solidarity with petitions and awards, including a George Polk award for the anonymous ‘Neda video’ shooters, and an International Press Freedom Award for Iranian journalist Jila Baniyaghoub. On a practical level, the daily struggles of such journalists inspired Canadian students to create Tehran-To.ca, a multimedia news portal covering post-election Iran. Such expressions of support are important to the survival of independent journalism in Iran, which is bloodied but not bowed.

BCE Inc. is the latest telecom to join in North America's broadcaster acquisition spree, as phone and cable companies attempt to catch up with the myriad ways people consume media.  

In a friendly $3.2-billion takeover, BCE upped its 25% stake in CTV to 100%, buying out the Thomson family's Woodbridge.Co., Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Torstar Corp. (Torstar's stock went up 25% on the announcement.) BCE will control CTV's 27 television stations, 34 radio stations, 30 specialty channels and several websites. The Globe and Mail will be controlled by the Thomson family once again. An analyst writing for the Toronto Star writes that Canada is "in the midst of an industrywide convergence trend that is changing the way subscribers receive (and pay for) new content."

This isn't the first time BCE has tried its hand at content generation. In 2006 the company sold most of its majority stake in CTV after its convergence strategy fell apart. It remains to be seen how the BCE deal will shape the media landscape in Canada, but there's little doubt it will. For one, it renders the fee-for-carriage debate somewhat moot. A Globe writer notes that "With CTV (to be) owned by Bell, and CanWest (to be) owned by Shaw, expect a lot more [free online] content to be locked up and available only to their own customers."

There are already signs that the news may be beneficial to mobile start-ups too. Industry Canada is considering removing foreign ownership caps on telecommunications companies, while keeping them in place for broadcasters. BCE's acquisition means that now most of Canada's largest telecommunications companies own broadcasters, so would still be governed by the same ownership restrictions. 

This past week the CRTC has been under fire for a "paternalistic" new policy on community television. OpenMedia declared the CRTC failed to make history at an opportune moment. Groups like CACTUS the Community Media Education Society called for greater accountability for community programming fund and for a public body to manage community TV, rather than private cable companies. The Media Awareness Network offers this quick backgrounder on community television in Canada.  Advocates hoped a renewed policy would support feisty, independent grassroots TV, along the lines of Vancouver’s ICTV. Instead, they received a pat on the head, according to this delightfully cheeky video report from Valemont TV.