Canadian Fake News Hits Awards Circuit

Canadian media organizations and the journalists they employ say they have a responsibility to the public to hold politicians accountable, but many also proudly claim that responsibility doesn’t apply to their most basic obligation: to truthfully inform the public about our politics.

Canadian election studies have proven news and public affairs coverage, polls and debates as being the most important factors in campaigns, with a commercial value of many times the combined legal campaign spending limits of all parties and candidates.

Corporate and union contributions of any good or service that promote a candidate or party are illegal except “bona fide” news that provides “equitable” coverage to all. The major parties work with the old and new media, third parties and special interests to break these laws.

Most media regularly mislead the public in daily reports that indicate there are only three or four officially registered parties, when there are actually 21 registered parties in Ontario, and a similar federal number.

Local candidates and debates reports also exclude legitimate smaller party or independent candidates, except when partisan crowds applaud media coined “fringe” party candidates’ removal or threatened arrest for asking to speak at public debates.

CBC polling analyst and senior writer Éric Grenier’s website Threehunderedandeight.com offers extensive polling analysis. It concludes that parties and candidates excluded from polls have their votes reduced by 400 per cent, which alone is enough to prevent most from reaching the two per cent minimum vote needed to qualify for public subsidies.

Research from Columbia Journalism Review indicates the mainstream media spreads as much, if not more, partisan and false political news as any social or new media organization (or alleged Russian interference).

The Canadian Fake News and True News Awards were announced recently in 10 categories: private and public radio and TV and educational broadcasters; print and online media; polling; and new media platforms, including news aggregators.

All awards were based on fake and true news media ‘political’ reports and polls, and social media nominations using the #FakeNewsAwards and #TrueNewAwards hashtags.

CBC and Torstar won three Fake News Awards and Torstar won one True News Award; Sun Media won two True News Awards; Bell Media/CTV and Global TV/Radio won one of each; and Éric Grenier won the Polling True News Award.

QP Briefing, Torstar’s provincial political affairs online media company, gloated about winning its Fake News Award, tweeting: “We, as a team, feel honored and humbled by this endowment. We'd like to thank our publisher and the press gallery for their support. We did it!”

The US military’s congressional report “Background to Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” concluded in annex A, page 6, “In an effort to highlight the alleged ‘lack of democracy’ in the United States, RT broadcast, hosted, and advertised third-party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates. The RT hosts asserted that the U.S. two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a ‘sham.'”

Only the True News Awards winners gave coverage to smaller parties and independent candidates more than once or twice. That out of hundreds - if not thousands - of political news reports and polls.

CANADIAN FAKE NEWS AWARDS coming April Fools’ Day.

The Canadian Fake News Awards have multiple categories: for private and public broadcasters; print and online media; polling; cable, satellite and other distributors; and new media platforms including news aggregators.

Research in Canada has proven news and public affairs coverage as well as campaign debates as being the most important events in election campaigns with a commercial value of many times the legal campaign spending limits of all parties and candidates combined.

CBC polling analyst and senior writer Éric Grenier researched the archives of his Threehunderedandeight.com poll aggregating and analysis website and concluded that parties and candidates excluded from polls have their votes reduced by four hundred percent.

Complaints about biased, inaccurate, partisan and unfair political reporting have been summarily dismissed by the Canadian media ombudsman, public editors, and the industry’s National NewsMedia Council and its previous incarnations for decades, many without reply or even seeking replies or comments from the media complained about.

Similar complaints to other private and university journalism organizations have gone unanswered or unsatisfactorily resolved, as have dozens of official complaints to the CRTC, Elections Canada and Elections Ontario as well.

Canada’s Democracy Watch has run campaigns to get Chief Electoral Officers to use their powers to remedy many problems in our election laws elected officials will not, or to have a court remove CEOs who won’t act.

The three major federal parties have passed election law changes many times to suppress smaller parties and independent candidates, that the Supreme Court of Canada subsequently overruled as unconstitutional attacks on democracy, smaller parties’ and independents’ rights to run for election, and voters’ rights to cast an informed vote.

Similar laws passed in Ontario had to be successfully litigated over again after that government refused smaller party requests to comply with the federal decisions making them go back to court.

Ontario’s None of the Above Direct Democracy Party (NOTA) and several smaller and new parties December 15, 2017, announcement of a Charter Challenge against more than a dozen of Ontario’s election laws went unreported here, but was covered US and international media.

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that United Nations Human and Political Rights Conventions Canada has ratified are minimum Charter rights, however, small party and independent candidates are regularly excluded from, threatened with or even arrested for daring to be included in local all candidates debates, even those carried by publicly owned and local cable channels and/or held on public property, clearly violating the most basic of UN rights.

Recently the US Federal Court ordered the Federal Election Commission to write rules that ensure any presidential candidate running in enough States needed to theoretically win the Electoral College must get EQUAL time in debates, as they must in the primary elections now, because their media abused the rules to allow illegal multi-million dollar campaign contributions to the major parties.

With the exception of the CBC’s Éric Grenier, Ottawa Life Magazine and Sun Media, who regularly give editorial and news coverage to smaller parties and independent candidates, no other media organizations will be asked to provide judges for the Canadian Fake News Awards.

Being the only media organizations in the world that provide equal or even equitable coverage in news and leaders’ debates, with US third party debates moderated by the former host of CNN’s Larry King Live, and Iran's six party leaders’ debates, International broadcasters RT Russia Today and Al Jazeera English will be asked to provide judges.

The Columbia Journalism Review and the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C. based think tank will also be invited to provide judges.

Canadians can begin voting on and submit examples of Canadian Fake News at fakenewsawards.ca on March 1, 2018.

The Democracy Channel® will announce the Canadian Fake News Awards results on April 1, 2018.

Greg Vezina is President of the Democracy Channel® Inc. and Leader of Ontario’s None Of The Above Party