The great Canadian mystery by Antonia Zerbisias

by Antonia Zerbisias

Did you know that yesterday was "a great day for Canadian journalists, who will have more opportunities than ever before to tell Canadian stories to Canadians across the country?"

Supposedly, anyway.

Consider the source: CanWest Global chair Israel Asper, owner/controller of Global TV and Prime, who yesterday announced his $3.5 billion takeover of Hollinger's Canadian newspapers, including the Ottawa Citizen and the Montreal Gazette, its Canadian Internet properties, its magazine group, most of its community publishing operations plus 50 per cent of the National Post.

How Asper figures that there will be "more opportunities than ever before to tell Canadian stories to Canadians" is a mystery to me.

For one thing, Asper's Global TV is the single largest buyer of U.S. programming in Canada.

So much for Canadian stories.

What's more, despite CanWest's profits of $143 million on $881 million of revenue last year, Global, through its deals with independent producers, still dips into the public pocket to subsidize its Canadian TV.

(For the record: According to Canadian Business magazine, Asper is worth $1.45 billion.)

In fact, last year, its dreadful TV movie Justice, which I savaged in a review, never got series approval because the tax-supported Canadian Television Fund didn't fork over the six mill it would take to top up the funding.

For that review, by the way, I was subjected to a public drubbing by then Global president Jim Sward at a news conference ostensibly held to promote his lineup.

That attack, in which Sward impugned my journalism, credibility and integrity, made news across the country, from the Vancouver Sun to the Montreal Gazette. The stories, by the way, were not flattering to Global.

Hmm. The Sun and the Gazette. Both Hollinger papers. Now CanWest papers.

Not that I'm Global's only critic.

Two years ago, film producer Robert Lantos spoke out against Asper - and found himself hit with a multi-million dollar lawsuit, which is expected to hit the courts later this year.

The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, who have made enemies at CBC, Rogers and other TV companies, are now the target of an investigation by CanWest, which hired former financial reporter Brenda Dalglish to check out the lobby group.

Both the Citizen's TV scribe Tony Atherton and the Gazette's Mike Boone have also criticized Global when it seems to shirk its CanCon responsibilities. (Two years ago, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the private networks' lobby group, released figures indicating that Global spends only 18 per cent of its on-air revenues on Canadian TV, compared to CTV's 33 per cent and French-language TVA's 40 per cent.)

Now both Boone and Atherton will report to people who report to people who report to Asper.

Another critic is Ryerson Polytechnic University's Matthew Fraser, who writes a column for The Post.

Last year, in his book Free-For-All, Fraser wrote that Asper "had built an impressive broadcasting asset in Canada while giving precious little back to the country."

And that was the flowery stuff.

Now Fraser writes for a paper that will be half-owned by Asper.

Yesterday, I screamed at my TV while watching ROBTv's Ali Velshi lob softballs at CanWest president Leonard Asper who was going on about what a "terrific deal" he'd made.

And how terrific is it that the Aspers, thanks to their takeover of WIC's TV assets last year, now own 26 per cent of ROBTv, in partnership with the Globe and Mail?

Even CHUM/City's Moses Znaimer now is in bed with the Aspers, a thought probably even more horrifying to him than to me.

That's because of CHUM's CP24, in which the National Post has an interest thanks to Hollinger's takeover of the Financial Post which used to be owned by the Toronto Sun which originally applied for the Toronto all-news station licence with CHUM.

Cozy, cozy, cozy.

Yesterday, the Aspers talked plenty about efficiencies, synergies, advertiser-friendliness, maximum linkages, e-commerce and other mergerspeak.

Asper Sr. even said that he is "well aware of, and sensitive to, the public policy concerns about cross-media ownership.

"We intend to meet with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) immediately to discuss how best to ensure that the public interest is protected, while not foregoing achievement of the corporate efficiencies of this media convergence transaction."

But the CRTC doesn't regulate newspapers.

And the Aspers don't want to forgo those "efficiencies."

So yeah, it was "a great day" for journalists, if they don't lose their jobs.

But, in Asper-talk, it was a much, much, much better day for democracy and freedom of the press.

© The Toronto Star