Sunday, January 23, 2011

Who says Stephen Harper hates the arts?

Headline: CRTC proposes easing ban on broadcasting false or misleading news

Which is excellent news for the Canadian creative community.

This shift would open the door for fiction writers of all stripes to be employed en masse at the nation's news outlets.

Now that facts no longer matter and truth has finally been deemed irrelevant, novelists, short story writers, playwrights and poets will soon head news desks across Canada.

The move is being downplayed by conservatives, who explain that a ban will remain in place on any broadcast of "any news that the licensee knows is false or misleading and that endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public."

Yeah right! Whatever that means!

To the average consumer of Canadian news, though, this means one thing: the news will be much more entertaining!

For instance, all the dull, grim droning about "pollution" and "climate change" and "global warming"? Gone!

And the Alberta Tar Sands? Their Canada's own Disneyland.

And what about the depressing news about unemployment and poverty? Banished as surely as the CBSC banished Dire Strait's "Money for Nothing" from Canadian airwaves.

Get ready Canada, the news just got a whole lot more fun!

Former Poodle Shampoo beauty contest winners will populate the news desks around the country, reading copy prepared by the country's most entertaining writers.

No more stock market crashes or oil spills in the New Canadian Media Paradigm.

Just good news all the time.

"News to turn that frown upside down," one conservative media consultant proclaimed.

But the moaners -- there are always moaners! -- ask, "How will Canadians make informed decisions if false or misleading news is allowed to be broadcast or printed in Canada?"

Blah blah fucking blah.

The only information Canadians need to make informed decisions are the ads in the daily newspaper. Are the sale prices? Yeah? Then shut up! You're informed.

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