Sun TV: A Modest Proposal

How Fox News North can earn the support of the Canadian left.

Canadian progressives should rethink their opposition to Sun TV News, a hard-right television network that Quebec billionaire Pierre Péladeau has proposed for this country as a kind of "Fox News North." Not that people of good will shouldn't oppose such a network; it's just that the nature and extent of this opposition needs to be carefully worked through. For example, Margaret Atwood's rather furious take on the subject has, arguably, imperiled her pro-free-speech credentials, and more than a few other columnists and bloggers seem unwilling to have the free market render its judgment of "Fox News North" before calling for a government clampdown.

Here I would like to suggest a political stance that would both present Sun TV with a standard to live up to and accept its existence on the cable dial, should it live up to that standard.

But first, a few preliminaries. Much of this debate has been and will likely remain within the realm of the hypothetical; Sun TV's plea for special status on the cable dial is an admission that it cannot live on its own in the marketplace. And even if the CRTC grants this special status, there are a number of indications that the network's road forward will be difficult, if not impossible.

For example, there is clear evidence that Sun TV is going to be run "on the cheap," ending its live coverage and going to repeats after 9 p.m. Furthermore, the network has been slow to take care of such basic tasks as getting a BlackBerry into the hands of its star reporter.

This evidence has not gone unnoticed by other Canadian media folk. As a result, attempts at recruiting talent from the major networks have fallen flat over the past several months, with arguably the greatest failure (the details here are somewhat obscure) being an unsuccessful effort to attract Krista Erickson to the cause. In her absence, the most camera-ready visage at Sun TV winds up being David Akin, which is to say that the new TV network, having been unable to purchase beauty, will have a collective face better suited for radio.

However, assuming that these challenges can be surmounted, progressives' main worry with respect to Sun TV has always been that it will become a conduit for dangerous hate speech. And there are indeed some grounds for this concern. As Sun TV's new management team has moved into place, the newspapers associated with it – in particular the Toronto Sun – have lunged for their editorial pages, urging, for example, the mass murder of Tamil refugees.

More ominously, writers at the Toronto Sun have recently been instructed to "tab (as in tabloid) it up." Presumably, the paper's displays of faux patriotism, minority bashing, and constant denigration of women will all be amped up a notch.

What can be done to prevent such a result?

Curiously enough, I think our stance towards Sun TV should be guided by the example of Al Jazeera English, which launched in Canada last May. Al Jazeera's road to a spot on the Canadian cable dial was also filled with controversy. The first attempt, made by Al Jazeera Arabic in 2003, foundered over often justified accusations of anti-Semitism. During the second, successful attempt, by Al Jazeera English, managing editor Tony Burman made a concerted outreach attempt to both B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress, in the end going so far as to propose a liaison committee that would respond quickly to any concerns raised about content on the network. As a result, the CJC finally got behind the approval of Al Jazeera’s licence, and a more skeptical B’nai Brith at least refrained from negative comment.

What I propose is this: the CRTC should demand a similar outreach attempt on the part of Sun TV as a condition of approving it for any spot on cable.

Now, I understand there are practical problems associated with the idea. For example – and considering the new network's ideological wellsprings – targets for abuse will likely not be limited to just one minority group. As a result, any liaison committee is going to be large and unwieldy.

Nevertheless, if Sun TV will agree to conduct itself in an honourable fashion, as in the manner of Al Jazeera English – to pull itself out of the hate speech sewer – then the response to it from Canadian progressives ought to be at least a grudging yes.