When the late Israel Asper’s CanWest Global Communications acquired a significant share of the Canadian media, many of us feared the worst – particularly on the issue of Middle East coverage. In the past week, CanWest’s editorial practices have shown we were right to worry.

Recent news reports have highlighted CanWest publications use of emotive qualifiers in wire news stories pertaining to Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Editors at the National Post and The Ottawa Citizen have been instructed to change the word “militant” to “terrorist” in Reuters copy. This editing standard, however, is generally not being used when referring to other conflict areas.

Reuters is rightly upset, saying this practice undermines the news agency’s objective reporting. It also raises the question of whether the time has come for a dispassionate debate on the impact of media concentration in this country.
For many Arab Canadians, this is another example of what they have long complained about: CanWest seems to make every effort to demonize them and their culture. There have been many complaints by Arab groups against CanWest, but the organization maintains an uncompromising and unapologetic position.

CanWest says its definition of a terrorist is based on the inclusion of certain militant groups on the Canadian government’s official list of terrorist organizations. In principle, this is a legitimate claim. But CanWest’s publications generally aren’t applying the same principle to non-Arab groups. Furthermore, the Post and the Citizen refer to the Palestinian territories as “disputed territories,” contrary to international conventions and Canada’s foreign policy principles. Even Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says the territories are “occupied.”

True to form, CanWest went on the offensive this week, producing an eerie reminder of George W. Bush’s “with us or against us” war-on-terror logic. “Osama bin Laden would have us believe that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Nonsense,” said the Citizen.

According to the Post, terrorism “means deliberate, premeditated violence perpetrated against non-combatants with the aim of advancing a political goal.” Though this definition is fine, Israel equates any attack on its occupation forces as an attack on innocent civilians inside Israel. So too does the Post.

Violence is abhorrent. We will never condone it, but we can understand its motivations and attempt to remedy an injustice. Israel is an occupier, not a visitor. It is not an innocent bystander.

But the practice of vilifying Arabs and Muslims doesn’t stop there. A recent Citizen front-page headline announced: “Ottawa Muslims accused of terrorism.” The story related to an Ottawa-born man arrested by police on allegations of associating with suspected terrorists in London. He has yet to be proved a terrorist. The Post, in a recent editorial, speaks of “the barbaric standards of the Arab Middle East.”

No one has suggested that Osama bin Laden and his killers are not terrorists. They are. But to blame an entire race and culture is wrong. In an article published in June of 2002, CanWest syndicated columnist George Jonas illustrates this practice: “Islam is at fault for blowing up civilians, including women and children.” He added: “[Islam] is the new evil empire.” Imagine what would happen if this generalization were said about Christians or Hindus of any other religion.

It gets worse. In October of 2001, a Post editorial said: “As George Jonas argues convincingly on the facing page, a small but substantial number of Canadian Muslims and Arabs are willing to assist terrorist operations.” A week later, senior Post editor Jonathan Day argued in a column titled “A healthy dose of bigotry” that Arab culture is unequal to others. “Multiculturalism is a relativistic creed that assumes all immigrant cultures are equally tolerant, civilized and enlightened once you scratch the surface.”

Through CanWest’s control of a large number of outlets in Canada, its influence is frightening. And through its incitement and propagation of anti-Arab hate, it is sowing discord in Canada.

It is time for Parliament to take a hard look at the impact and effect of media concentration in this country.

- Mazen Chouaib
The Globe and Mail

Enter The Rant

Kimber’s 'spiked' column at the Halifax Daily News, where he wrote for 20 years (the paper was later sold by CanWest) criticized the Aspers for slashing editorial budgets. He quit in disgust, and so did the editor that was forced to spike the column.

Peggy Curran from the Montreal Gazette chose to quit after her column about journalists in Israel was held, then ordered to be rewritten. Like Curran, columnist Doug Cuthand, an aboriginal writer from the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, found Israel to be a sticky topic to cover in a CanWest paper. He wrote a column that compared Palestinians to Native Canadians by calling them the “Indians of the Middle East.” His piece was deemed historically “inaccurate” by his editors and spiked.

Just what does censorship at CanWest look like? When Toronto Star editorial writer Haroun Siddiqui addressed CanWest policies during a trip to Regina, CanWest’s Michelle Lang reported on it for the Regina Leader-Post. Her initial story read: “CanWest Global performed ‘chilling’ acts of censorship when it refused to publish several columns containing viewpoints other than those held by the media empire, a Toronto Star columnist said Monday.”

Here’s how the story appeared in the paper: “A Toronto Star columnist says it’s OK for CanWest Global to publish its owners’ views, as long as the company is prepared to give equal play to opposing opinions.”

Responding to these and other incidents, the International Federation of Journalists, based in Brussels, condemned CanWest in 2002 for “corporate censorship and the vicitimisation of journalists who are trying to defend professional standards.”