Tuesday 25 September 2007

Rabble & Sun Media

Rabble News columnist Maude Barlow says you only have to look at the five-month lockout at Sun Media's le Journal de Quebec to realize big media is out of control.

"With media ownership being more highly concentrated in Canada than almost anywhere else in the industrial world, our government has a vital role to play in reversing the trend and preventing what is happening to workers at le Journal de Québec from happening elsewhere in the country," Barlow says in her online column today.

Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, says the CRTC hearings "aimed at setting new policies for media consolidation and diversity" are "an important opportunity for Canadians to reflect on the impacts media convergence has had on journalism and journalists in this country."

Referring to the April 22 le Journal de Quebec lockout of editorial and office workers and the sympathy strike by pressroom workers. she says: "A story unfolding in Quebec City shows the extent to which things have gone out of hand in Canada."

She has much more to say in her column.

It should be recommended reading for Michael Sifton, Sun Media's new CEO. You can't have a "fun" atmosphere within the chain when 280 employees are waiting for Quebecor to return to the negotiating table. Do the right thing, Michael.

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