Does Victoria's SHAW-TV Play politics?

Is Shaw-TV playing politics?
by Jason Youmans
Monday Magazine
Aug. 13

One of the few groups to regularly take advantage of Shaw-TV Victoria’s mandate to open its airwaves to citizen-produced content says the station is exercising an undue amount of control over what qualifies as appropriate community programming.

In early July, Victoria Independent Community Television (ICTV) member Jack Etkin dropped a recording off at the station of American Marxist academic and activist Ralph Schoenman delivering a speech to members of the Victoria Peace Coalition and others who gathered at Camosun College in February.

But it wasn’t until August 11 that the station finally agreed to air the talk, titled “The Underlying Politics of 9/11,” in which Schoenman argues that the events that brought down New York’s World Trade Center towers was a false-flag operation used by the American government to justify extending its imperial reach over oil reserves in the Middle East.

While Schoenman’s views may be unconventional, Etkin says that does not give the station the right to determine what can and cannot be aired, especially under rules laid out by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Division that require community television stations to provide airtime to locally produced content.

A call to Shaw-TV Victoria’s Chris Kucharski to ask why the local network took so long to schedule the Schoenman program was not returned by press time, but the e-mail correspondence between Etkin and Shaw-TV is instructive of the behind-the-scenes debate over the issue.

In an e-mail to Etkin dated July 18, a Shaw representative said “We are concerned about the unbalanced content in this DVD. It contains a lot of Mr. Schoenman’s opinions without any other point of view. Traditionally, as you know, we look for balance in our programs offered.”

In a subsequent e-mail from Shaw dated July 25, Etkin was told, “[regional programming manager] Mark [McAmmond] has viewed the program and it will not air until we have further advice from others within the Shaw company. As mentioned earlier, we remain concerned about a lack of balance, however will give you another update once further advice has been received.”

According to the CRTC’s policy framework for community-based media, among Shaw-TV’s goals should be to “Engender a high level of citizen participation and community involvement in community programming” and “Actively promote citizen access to the community channel and provide and promote the availability of related training programs.”

Etkin says Shaw has generally been willing—albeit not particularly enthusiastic—to bring ICTV’s programs to air in a timely fashion, normally within two weeks. However, he likens ICTV’s relationship with the company to fighting a marshmallow, where if constant pressure is not applied, old corporate habits bounce back—a situation he blames not on the station’s staff, but on the country’s media culture that balks at opinions and ideas outside the status quo.

‘They only give us what we’re entitled to, and now they seem bound and determined to control it,” says Etkin.

“I think the real issue is that they dare to presume to be able to censor political information, whatever they decide to do now simply follows from that,” Etkin wrote in an e-mail to Monday before receiving word the Schoenman talk would air. “Even if they decide to show it, does that mean they have taken upon themselves the ‘right’ to censor whatever speakers they don’t want people here to see in the future? From where did they get this right? Isn’t the media supposed to be on the leading edge against censorship—at least until they are the ones with the power to do the censoring themselves?”

“The Underlying Politics of 9/11” is now set to air on Saturday, August 16, at 11:30 a.m. and again on Sunday, August 17, at 10 a.m., which, Etkin adds, are the worst time slots ICTV has thus far received. Check it out to see whether it lives up to the fuss.