Help True North stand up for press freedom in Canada!
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Words per Minute
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Summary
World Press Freedom Day is a day set aside every year to celebrate and honor the importance of press freedom not just in developed countries, but around the entire world. And as much as I take aim at justifiably so media bias, press freedom is important. This is not a political idea, this is ultimately the philosophy that needs to guide any free country: that the media and citizens should have the right to investigate, report and comment on things that are being done around them, especially by governments by those in authority. And even though some members of the media do not take this right and uphold the corresponding responsibility, it's an important freedom and one that is a cornerstone of Canada.
Transcript
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It's World Press Freedom Day the one day set aside every year to celebrate and honor the
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importance of press freedom not just in developed countries but around the entire world and as much
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as I take aim at justifiably so media bias press freedom is important this is not a political idea
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this is ultimately the philosophy that needs to guide any free country that the media and citizens
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should have the right to investigate report and comment on things that are being done around them
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especially by governments by those in authority and even though some members of the media do not
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take this right and uphold the corresponding responsibility it's an important freedom
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and one that is a cornerstone of Canada as is freedom of speech which really exists in tandem
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with a free press unfortunately it's under attack and I'm not just talking about by banana republics
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in third world countries where reporters are facing unparalleled levels of persecution and
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imprisonment and execution these are terrible and we need to as a society stand up for these people
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but even in Canada where the issues are less dramatic we cannot exactly hold our heads high
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and say that we're a country where press freedom exists to the extent that it should in a world press
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freedom ranking Canada scored about 18th and the UK scored 33rd these two countries are co-hosting a
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press freedom summit despite having a multitude of issues in how they deal with the press let's just
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look at Canada for one example we have a cabinet minister who's spearheading an effort to rein in
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what she says is fake news and misinformation and that may sound noble until you realize that it's the
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government that gets to determine what fake news is under this plan take the world press freedom
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day tweet by a liberal member of parliament from British Columbia he said that the only trustworthy
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outlets in Canada are CBC the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star and he said everything else is just
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misinformation and he even put the word free in quotation marks when regarding the free press he later
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deleted the tweet but i think he was illuminating what many liberals feel that the free press is
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only supposed to be free up until the point that they disagree with it and then well it's all fake
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news and there are other concerns as well access to information requests are oftentimes unnecessarily
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redacted delayed or even ignored with little oversight publication bans in courts prevent people
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from reporting they're supposed to be there to protect victims but all they do is silence criticism
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these are the real battles that exist in Canada that we need to combat Canada and the UK despite the
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less than stellar records on these things are co-hosting in July a press freedom summit in London
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England Chrystia Freeland is representing Canada's side of it and it's paramount that True North is there
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for two reasons number one is a startup media outlet we don't have the 1.3 billion dollars that CBC is given
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by the federal government we don't get a slice of the hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for
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government approved news organizations we're a startup media entity everything we do is supported
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by you which means that our press freedom is essential because we can't afford to fight these
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legal battles like some of the big players have if the government were to ever try to shut us down
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or hit us in some way but there's another dimension to this is that we are providing a voice
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that the mainstream media is not providing we've seen this in a number of areas of coverage from the
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UN Global Migration Compact to Canadian politics more broadly my plan is to be at that press freedom
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summit in July covering this and perhaps even taking part of it I've reached out to Minister Freeland's
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office and said I'd like to represent True North they haven't yet given me an answer but even if we are
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not part of the official proceedings it's important to cover the event and really be there to analyze what the federal
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government in Canada and the government of the UK are doing to in their view uphold and preserve press freedom
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I said a moment ago we don't have those hundreds of millions of dollars like the federal government gives
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other entities but we can do this with your help a couple of weeks ago I was in Toronto crowdfunded
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by you to cover the carbon tax court hearing and through that demonstrated the importance of having
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boots on the ground to cover things that are happening we want to do that again in the United
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Kingdom in the description box there's a link to our crowdfunding page if you can spare a few dollars
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or a few hundred dollars please do we need your support if you think this is a value free speech is
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essential in a free country free press is part of that let us fight for it for True North I'm Andrew Lawton