Failed Institutions
link: https://x.com/JayGenXer/status/1835642855504723994
Just this past weekend in Ottawa, a small group of people gathered to commemorate the 2022 protests against the policies of the Federal government which severely attacked personal freedoms during the Covid fiasco years. A massive police response was carried out at the time to curtail the protests and numerous ‘leaders’ were arrested for disturbing the peace. Nothing demonstrates the freedom in a society more than being arrested for supporting freedom; that irony was lost on the Feds.
Many years later, but too late to help the brave protestors, the courts have ruled in favor of the protestors: Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley said the invoking the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and violated the constitutional right of free expression. The federal government has already pledged to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court. Thus, even after losing in court, the government still won’t admit the wrongfulness of their actions.
Individuals cannot compete against the unlimited resources of any government. It’s an impossible task because only one side is under any duress. There has to be an impartial party that illuminates the cause so that people can make their own minds up as to the veracity and validity of events. In fact, such an institution exists, but increasingly, it no longer works in that intended role. That institution is media. While many may think that media’s role is to report dog bites man stories, their real role as the fourth estate, is to shed light on the activities of governments. They have the explicit role of framing dialogue on issues that affect the general population with balanced narratives.
You could say that they play the role of referees in a society and in that role, they are offered protection for talking freely about most every issue. What has transpired in all Western nations is that their funding (especially in Canada) is sourced from the very government they are supposed to monitor. The CBC is a national news organization kept alive only through government handouts, but other ‘private’ networks also similarly benefit. As an aside, I’m not sure that any nation needs a ‘national’ news source. As an observation, the most well known national agencies that exist are Pravda in Russia and Xinhua in China. Thus, instead of wearing the striped jerseys, they conspicuously wear the jerseys of one of the playing teams.
The link above is a snippet from a recent speech by Douglas Murray which articulately calls out media for their unholy alliance with the federal government on this very issue. The media have put themselves into a vicious cycle of irrelevance. The less impartial they are, the less people will subscribe to them. As their audience shrinks, their dependence of government handouts increases and thus their reportage must adhere to the official narrative….which alienates their audience more….etc etc. They have become failed institutions. Thankfully, with the popularity of social networks, people can objectively access narratives not propagated by regular media. This fifth estate has displaced much of the power of government supported media as people turn away from one sided reportage. Don’t expect the legacy media to give up their franchise without a fight however. They all know the power of unlimited funding.