This week's Calgary Herald column from yours truly looks at the debate over Quebecor Media's proposed "Sun News TV" - also known in the media as "Fox News North" - and why the word "need" has no place in that debate:
Perhaps the most irrelevant question regarding Quebecor Media Inc.’s (QMI) proposed cable news channel is the question of whether Canada “needs” such a channel.
In fact, not only is the question irrelevant, it’s hugely presumptive and arrogant on the part of those raising it.
(...)
So all we really know at this point is that sometime in the near future, presumably, Canadians will have an additional option when it comes to cable news and current affairs programming. Whether Canadians want such an option remains to be seen. Whether Canada “needs” such an option need not be asked.
But alas, it is being asked.
Veteran CBC journalist Don Newman made quite a splash with his provocative online column which declared that this proposed new channel is “the last thing Canada needs.”
A poll at the CBC website asked its readers whether “Canada need(s) another all-news network?”
In other columns and blog posts and their respective comment threads, phrases such as “where’s the need” and “Canada does not need” are common refrains.
Of course, none of this discussion took place when Al-Jazeera English became available in Canada. No one questioned whether Canada ‘needed such a network – nor should such a question have been raised.
Al-Jazeera English will succeed or fail based on whether enough Canadians choose to watch it. So, too, will QMI‘s venture. If ``need`` is the determining factor, then I suppose we could all make do with the CBC and its cable news offspring.
It’s not unlike a businessman proposing to open a new restaurant. Even were it a brash businessman dismissing Calgary’s existing restaurants as stale and boring, it would be foolish to task city bureaucrats with deciding whether Calgary “needed” another restaurant.
Who exactly gets to determine – and then enforce – what that “need” is? Sorry, Mr. Would-be-Restaurant-Owner, but we already have “enough” Italian restaurants. The market will make that determination – not some government bureaucrats.
Ditto for “Fox News North” – Canadians will either watch it or they won’t. If the demand exists, then any question over whether the supply should be allowed to exist is outrageous. If the demand does not exist, then all of this debate is moot. It is strangely ironic that those who are most convinced that this network will fail are the ones who are shrieking the loudest about it.
It is a dangerous path to go down when we allow the state use “need” as the basis for decisions on what citizens have access to.
Why do you need to smoke? Why do you need to own a firearm? Why do you need to draw a picture of Mohammed? Why do you need to watch a right-wing cable news channel?
The implication, of course, is that unless you can demonstrate a “need”, the choice you should be entitled to make of your own accord is made on your behalf by the state.
What we should really fear is not “Fox News North”, but rather those who profess to know whether we “need” such a thing in the first place.
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