A simple request
First and foremost, we would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to swing by the blog, read some of the posts and comment. It is extremely heartwarming to know that members of our community care so much about this issue. We would encourage everyone to continue checking out this site as we will be posting information about our unified plan of resistance to the CanWest Agreement in the next few days.
Having said that, we have a very simple (but important) request of all viewers to this blog. Please refrain from senseless name calling and other personal attacks. This blog was not created so that people from both sides of the argument can come together and call each other mean names. Rather, this blog was created to be a location for individuals interested in rallying against the CanWest Agreement. It is for this reason that we request that everyone stop the personal attacks and act civil.
This is not to say you cannot have a differing opinion. We would once again like to thank Don Peat (and the anonymous individual who posted his letter) for contributing to this dialogue. It is important to hear all sides of the debate. As we've said before, this blog is attempting to rally students who oppose the CanWest deal to go out to the Forum on Monday to voice their own opinion and hear the opinions of the other side. However, there is no need to begin a flamewar. As a result, we respectfully request that all viewers of this site "be bigger people" and disregard all personal attacks and childish name calling.
On a personal note, the team running this blog will continue to reply to comments, concerns and arguments against or for the CanWest deal; however, we will ignore ALL posts that include personal attacks or name calling.
posted by Jeff at 9:27 a.m.
9 Comments:
Dear Jeff,
A couple points from the real world.
My name is Don Peat, not Dan, Don. Please correct.
Good for you for speaking your mind, whatever your views are.
But I have to ask: Are you aware that there are already two endowed chairs in FIMS bought and paid for by Rogers and BCE? Perhaps your ivory tower isn't as pure as you think it is.
12:01 p.m.
I'm so sorry about that. I got confused from earlier typos and thought the correction was 'Dan' instead of 'Don'. I'll go back and change it.
As for the other endowed chairs, I did know about the Rogers and BCE agreements and by no means is MIT 'holier than though' but past agreements should not be used as a basis for future encroachment. This is a chance for us to protect our faculty from further encroachment. As it has been said many times before, if we allow in Rogers, BCE and now CanWest, what is to stop us from allowing in McDonalds? Nike? FOX? Lockheed-Martin? We need to draw a line in the sand and say "Enough is enough".
2:13 p.m.
By using the logic "since we have one, we might as well have them all", it is feasible to bring in someone like McDonalds or Fox. McDonalds is a multinational corporation that has a LOT of dealings with the media. I'm sure they'd love to come in and teach some classes and would love to have some sharp thinking media people come work for them. Furthermore, they could come to MIT and teach us all about being an effective advertiser.
As for FOX, I doubt they would think twice about throwing money at schools anywhere, Canada or America. FOX and FOX News is avalible in Canada, and while some of their "journalists" have made comments about Canada being meaningless, I'm sure they'd love the opportunity to come teach us yokals what real media is about.
Just because CanWest is Canadian doesn't make it any more logical than any of the examples I listed. This is a corporation that has been chastized by quite a few journalist unions along with Reuters, one of the most respected news agencies in the world. How does this make them a logical choice for a faculty that prides itself on critical media analysis?
3:31 p.m.
Hello All,
I have to try and play devil's advocate here because of the obvious argument against letting CanWest into the Western world is already well taken by Jeff, and other of my peers.
My only response to the obvious negative in this proposition is the good sense and general intuition that MIT students have regardless of the course content to which we learn.
My question to Jeff and other negatives are, if CanWest were to say teach a class on the concentration of media ownership would their teachings somehow sway you away from the mindset you have come to have for the past four years? Are the teacher's of this program really the basis for your every move and thought?
My personal belief is that if Rogers, BCE and CanWest were to have seats in FIMS and in turn used these seats to headhunt the best talent coming out of our program is this somehow going to take away from the knowledge base that we have. In my opinion, this can be a good thing. How else do we as politically and media active students plan on breaking the mold and mentality of how media works on a global scape?
Jeff, again just playing devil's advocate, if our goal in life is to make a difference into how media is consumed on this planet, what other means do you have to break into a power structure like that of CanWest or Rogers without actually being hired by CanWest or Rogers, or eventually starting your own Independant media conglomerate. While the dreams of that sort of success are amazing and helpful, they are in reality unprobable. What is probable however, is that the minds that we all know are being harnessed at this school one day making it to the top of said corporate media entities and making changes from the system that is already in place.
I am all for revolution, but in my eyes breaking the whole framework down will never be the answer, what will be the answer is planting the seeds of intelligent minds who CANT be swayed by one sided information that they may receive even in the academic classroom and in turn use the knowledge and opinion they have of companies like CanWest to get in there and make the significant changes all up and coming academics of our age know need to be changed!
I will be at the debate on monday, and I hope all of you will too. This is my position but I do have to hear both sides from the horses' mouth before we move on.
thankyou.
6:57 p.m.
as i sit in ryerson university's toronto star newsroom, in the rogers communication centre, i wonder what would my program be without corporate money? what would media be without corporate money? aside from blogspot.com, there is no independent media anymore. if you are trying to avoid ownership of media or the like, you can't really read anything in canada. can you?
7:02 p.m.
To start; I just want to make a little disclaimer that I am EXTREMELY sorry if I don't answer someones question completely or it seems like I'm looking over their point. It's a pretty chaotic time for all of us right now (with exams and essays being due), so, if I've missed something I apologize...just a lil scatterbrained right now!
I definitely hear what Eano is saying about the potential for jobs. My question is, will this endowment truly help our graduates get jobs? This is something I haven't really seen in the agreement. Like, I understand the notion that if we 'scratch' their back then they might scratch ours down the road, but, when all is said and done, a media conglomerate whose intention is to make money will hire whatever journalist is the most profitable to them, correct? And to go further, lets say someone applies to one of CanWest's smaller papers. What are the odds the editor (or whoever is doing the hiring at that paper) even knows about this agreement? Is it really going to help us that much down the road?
If anyone knows more about this I'm interested to know if there is something about job security written into the agreement.
***
I think the other post was about basically all media being corporate. Well, unfortunately, I think tackling the entire private-media sector is a bit too big for me, however, this is an instance where we are able to salvage what remains our faculty. I think that's truly what is important
7:38 p.m.
Sorry, I was meaning will it guarrentee Journalist students jobs. I know that an MIT undergrad alone will basically just get us an entry-level position at McDonalds. *le sigh*
But yea, was/is there something written into the agreement about giving priority to UWO Journalist grads come job time?
10:27 a.m.
Corporate sponsorship could certainly lend credence toward potential funding and mentorships, not necc. a fight against the "man"...
10:37 p.m.
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4:50 p.m.
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