By James Breckenridge. I saw Global’s News Hour – or is that Shaw’s News Hour or Shaw’s Global News Hour – report about demands for an inquiry into the in custody [awaiting deportation] death of a Mexican woman.
My first thought was about how Shaw was wringing every last cent of worth out of this video, appearing as it does on all the local broadcasts Shaw labels ‘News’, plus constant repeats on Shaw’s cable channel BC1.
Helping to wring more value out of this video is the fact this video, with only slight modifications, has been used for several days now; significantly increasing Shaw’s ROI [Return on Investment] from this report.
ROI, advertising rates, profit center, contribution to the bottom line, the number of minutes of airtime the product can be used for and the cost of the product – the video – can be spread over are some of the corporate considerations that apply to decisions concerning the reports created and broad cast, to which the corporate conglomerate broadcast media applies the label ‘News’.
Under the current corporate conglomerate media structure that the Federal government and the CRTC allowed to come into existence, a Federal government and CRTC that were and are suppose to safeguard the interests of all Canadian citizens, not just corporations and the wealthy, what is labelled as ‘News’ bears only superficial resemblance to what was considered ‘News’ a few short decades ago. Just a few decades ago when the purpose of ‘News’ was providing information to keep viewers informed about significant events taking place and to provide information to make informed decisions; ‘News’ for which standards were set out and were applied to the contents of the ‘News’.
Which has me contemplating filing a formal complaint about ‘False Advertising’ and ‘Misleading Labelling’ in order to force broadcasters either apply appropriate standards or to correctly label these broadcasts as “Pseudo News Hour” to reflect accurately the lack of content in the broadcasts and/or to force the same type of warning to viewers as cigarette packaging bears for smokers.
Viewer Advisory
This content of this broadcast, and the broadcast itself, is intended to maximize the profit generated and contributed to the corporate bottom line by the News department. The content of the broadcast, the coverage and information contained in the broadcast are insufficient to enable viewers of the broadcast to make informed decisions on the issues included in, and the significant number of important issues excluded from, the broadcast.
Next: Border Services Death – Part Two.
Economic Reality + Responsibility and Liability for Costs