Fraser Intitute Media "Penetration" (fwd)

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From: Sid Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>
Subject: Fraser Intitute Media "Penetration" (fwd)
To: ccpa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:27:17 -0700 (PDT)
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> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 23:48:04 -0700
> From: "Dr. James Winter" <winter@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: This week's News
>
> 				F L I P S I D E
>
> The Muckraking,
> Alternative
> Web Weekly 	APRIL 22-29
>
> 		http://www.mnsi.net/~flipside/high.htm
> 		http://www.uwindsor.ca/newsstnd/flipside/high.htm
>
> FRASER INSTITUTE TO REDOUBLE MEDIA "PENETRATION" EFFORTS
>
> The Fraser Institute plans to redouble its already successful efforts at
> getting play in what it calls "second hand dealers in ideas" such as the
> news media.
>
> Such efforts should add to its stable of media columnists such as Gordon
> Gibson of the Globe and Mail.
>
> The fact that huge media conglomerates such as Thomson Corp. and Conrad
> Black's Southam Inc. help to fund the Fraser Institute, will not harm its
> case.
>
> A five-year plan by the Fraser Institute, a right-wing, corporate-sponsored
> Vancouver think tank, will target particular journalists for what it calls,
> "special treatment."
>
> The plan calls for an increase in annual spending of $2.7 million, and the
> hiring of six senior staff members and about a dozen junior staff.
>
> An internal document which was recently leaked, "Toward the New Millennium:
> A Five Year Plan for the Fraser Institute," contains a section on "Media
> Penetration."
>
> The plan calls for "a database of journalists who respond to our material,"
> to catalogue "the extent to which particular journalists cover our [press]
> releases."
>
> The report says "special treatment will be given to those journalists who
> are interested in our material," although it doesn't stipulate what the
> special treatment is.
>
> The Fraser Institute brags that "As everybody now knows, we have outpaced
> not only each and every one of our competitors but the sum total of their
> efforts in [media presence]."
>
> In part, the Fraser attributes this success to "the new Fax Broadcasting
> System" which it says has increased its presence on talk radio across the
> country, reaching "some 450 radio stations," which is more than 90 percent.
>
> The report notes with approval that the Fraser has obtained 105 hours'
> worth of coverage on CPAC, the parliamentary access channel, in the past year.
>
> The five-year plan is for the Fraser "To become the central point of
> reference for economic information about social policy issues."
>
> One 1996 study of economic stories over the CP wire service found that
> during a one-year period the Fraser was quoted in 140 stories, while the
> (leftist) Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives was quoted in 16.
>
> In the spring of 1996, columnist Gordon Gibson began appearing each Tuesday
> in The Globe and Mail, writing on "Western issues." Gibson was initially
> identified as "a senior fellow in Canadian studies at the Fraser
> Institute," making him sound like an academic teaching at a university,
> rather than a representative of a corporate lobby group dedicated to free
> enterprise capitalism.
>
> The Thomson Corp., owner of The Globe and Mail, is among the corporate
> backers of the Fraser Institute, as is Conrad Black's Southam Inc.
>
> Fraser director Michael Walker was to be found ferociously defending Conrad
> Black and his new national daily on CBC TV's Benmergui Live, soon after the
> daily was announced.
>
> On book production, the report notes "we do not have to publish a book to
> acquire full impact for an idea," proposing "more emphasis on shorter
> studies like the critical issues bulletins."
>
> The report recommends creating a regular column for Canadian newspapers on
> health care issues. It proposes a data base which would catalogue the
> privatization of Canadian health care.
>
> The Fraser Forum magazine will be expanded to include "a privatization
> column," and "comments on popular culture,"as part of an attempt "to ensure
> that at least 80 percent of the economists in Canada are subscribers."
>
> Under "Environmental Economics" The Fraser says its goal is "To publish one
> book per year demonstrating a private property, market based solution to an
> environmental problem."
>
> Once a right wing laughingstock, in recent years the Fraser has been
> welcomed and celebrated by the corporate media. Ironically, one of the
> goals of the Fraser is to push the media further to the right, by
> criticizing them for being "leftist."
>
> For an academic analysis which thoroughly discredits the Fraser's
> corporate-sponsored media "research," see Robert Hackett, William Gilsdorf
> and Philip Savage, "News Balance Rhetoric: The Fraser Institute's Political
> Appropriation of Content Analysis," The Canadian Journal of Communication,
> 17:1, Winter, 1992, pp. 15-36.


--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx