A collection of encore Lean Out conversations on the media - to coincide with the publication of the 2024 Massey Essay in the Literary Review of Canada
I listened to this for a 2nd time, and once again found it worth hearing.
Two things in response: First, we do need talk about how to fund reliable information. We need a media with the resources & the independence to do this as Jen says. We also need a media that is not ideologically captured, so that we are as readers challenged by what we have and do not stagnate. Jen does a good job of bringing this forward. Jen does suggest that an "Trust Fund" be established and the CBC be funded by the interest. My concern would be that NGO's are often captured because the people who want to be on the boards of these organizations are usually activists with agendas.
Secondly, Jen rightly brought up the "class thing". I see the class thing as a big issue in Canada today, and our professional / managerial / media class are completely blind to it. Many of them are Marxist in orientation, but seem to have forgotten that Marxism was originally about class, not about feminism, gender and all the other rabbit holes they seem to be going down. Because of my Engineering Training I tend to see the world in terms of "Feedback Loops". This feedback loop has been lost for many of the people in the media as they have little connection to the physical world. They live online and seem to be about what happens in that virtual world with no "real world" consequences for getting it wrong. For the working class, they deal in the "real world" all the time. If their work does not hold up, there are consequences for them. This needs to be addressed for the media to regain trust. Jen does address this, although she also felt their was no hope of it ever happening.
Would be just as informative without her favourite word sprinkled throughout, really. A bit of class, why not, in a world of bullies.
CBC is still a viable public community news source. However extremely top heavy with many biases. Should be overhauled clean out the skeletons.
I listened to this for a 2nd time, and once again found it worth hearing.
Two things in response: First, we do need talk about how to fund reliable information. We need a media with the resources & the independence to do this as Jen says. We also need a media that is not ideologically captured, so that we are as readers challenged by what we have and do not stagnate. Jen does a good job of bringing this forward. Jen does suggest that an "Trust Fund" be established and the CBC be funded by the interest. My concern would be that NGO's are often captured because the people who want to be on the boards of these organizations are usually activists with agendas.
Secondly, Jen rightly brought up the "class thing". I see the class thing as a big issue in Canada today, and our professional / managerial / media class are completely blind to it. Many of them are Marxist in orientation, but seem to have forgotten that Marxism was originally about class, not about feminism, gender and all the other rabbit holes they seem to be going down. Because of my Engineering Training I tend to see the world in terms of "Feedback Loops". This feedback loop has been lost for many of the people in the media as they have little connection to the physical world. They live online and seem to be about what happens in that virtual world with no "real world" consequences for getting it wrong. For the working class, they deal in the "real world" all the time. If their work does not hold up, there are consequences for them. This needs to be addressed for the media to regain trust. Jen does address this, although she also felt their was no hope of it ever happening.