By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press – Fri, 25 Feb, 2011 5:45 PM EST
OTTAWA – The CRTC has withdrawn a controversial proposal that would have given TV and radio stations more leeway to broadcast false or misleading news.
Indeed, the broadcast regulator now says it never wanted the regulatory change in the first place and was only responding to orders from a parliamentary committee.
The committee last week quietly withdrew its request for regulatory amendments in the face of a public backlash.
With that, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission was only too happy to drop the idea altogether.
The proposed change would have considerably narrowed the scope of the current ban to cover only false or misleading news that could endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.
"All I can say is, 'Thank you, committee,'" CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told the specialty publication The Wire Report last week.
"I will withdraw this proposal tomorrow. This is the end of this issue."
The proposed change sparked concerns that the CRTC was about to allow into Canada the more toxic — often grossly distorted — political discourse that pervades the American airwaves. Those suspicions were fuelled by the timing of the proposal, only weeks before next month's launch of a new, right-leaning all-news network, Sun TV. Read more…
See previous [/COLOR] Post 758 – Canadian CRTC proposes easing ban on broadcasting false or misleading news
This is why the government and its bureaucrats are paid the BIG bucks…
It takes denial and talent to be incompetent and stupid (or pretend to be) and not be held responsible or feel responsible for ones words or actions. Not to say that this reversal will change the already false and misleading Americanized point-of-view that our news and media now has.
Saysame (Says-a-me) 