Читать книгу Behind the News: Voices from Goa's Press - Various - Страница 5

But the manipulation of news by newspaper proprietors was not limited to Goa. I heard a similar echo in Toronto in the nineties.

In the 1988 elections, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, led by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, had won a second majority with 169 seats out of 295 in the House of Commons. The Liberals were in opposition with 83. In the ensuing five years, the Mulroney government brought in a new bill called Goods and Services Tax, a highly controversial measure that proved unpopular with the majority of Canadians. Still, the government went ahead and passed the tax bill – a 7% tax on all goods and services effective January 1990. During this term, Mr. Mulroney was also criticized for being too friendly with the Americans.

In the 1993 election, the public was fed up with the Tories (PC) as reflected in the opinion polls. But the press and media had no clear idea as to how deeply the people loathed the policies of the Tories. The shocker came on the night of the election-October 25. The fall from grace for the Tories was as stunning as it was deserved. They won only two seats in total, each in the province of New Brunswick and Quebec. The Liberals, led by Jean Chretien, returned with a huge majority of 177 seats. The Liberals are still in power, having won the next two elections in 1997 and 2000.

However, an interesting development regarding the power of the press took place in 1998. A wealthy Canadian newspaper mogul named Conrad Black financed a new daily in Toronto called The National Post. Black told readers that his paper would advance an alternative point of view, a far right conservative position on politics in Canada. As owner of London's Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, and Chicago's Sun-Times, Mr. Black hired top talent and spared no expense, at least for the first two years, to make the Post successful in creating and wooing the conservative voice in Canada. In the 2000 election, his paper became as one-sided as Navhind Times was in 1963. The paper supported a new party called Canadian Alliance, a highly conservative group drawn mostly from western Canada, and was hell-bent to destroy Prime Minister Jean Chretien and the Liberals. Alas, the people didn't buy it! And the Liberals forged ahead with a third majority win.

During this time, Mr. Black's personal agenda of wanting to be a peer in the House of Lords in England came out front and centre. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair recommended and the Queen accepted that Conrad Black be made a Lord. But sweet revenge raised its arms and Jean Chretien said Black couldn't be a Lord while being a Canadian citizen. Black was forced to renounce his Canadian citizenship. Not only that, but Black sold the National Post in 2001 for a tidy profit. He is now Lord Black of Crossharbour in the House of Lords.

I started this article with the observation that facts are sacred and comment is free. Both elements of journalism, it seems to me, are flawed. Like beauty and sex, freedom of the press is in the eye of the beholder and in the loins of the performer. It's all relative, never absolute.