CNN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-08 published
Observers hail
ASPER contribution
But views on Israel and direction of news coverage also provoked
controversy
By Richard
BLOOM and Paul
WALDIE
Wednesday,
October 8, 2003 -
Page B7
In its early days, CanWest Global Communications Corp. may have
had the dubious moniker of The Love Boat network, but there is
no doubt Izzy
ASPER made "very significant" contributions to
Canadian media, industry observers said yesterday.
At the same time, his actions as head of the media empire weren't
without controversy.
Mr. ASPER died yesterday at 71. A tax lawyer by training, he
is more commonly known as the founder of Winnipeg-based CanWest
the parent of the Global network of television stations, and
which, in 2000, engineered a multibillion-dollar purchase of
Southam Newspaper Group, National Post and other assets from
Conrad BLACK's
Hollinger
Inc.
Glenn O'FARRELL, president and chief executive officer of the
Canadian
Association of Broadcasters, said Mr.
ASPER left a huge
broadcasting legacy.
"The Canadian broadcasting system has been built over the last
number of decades through the efforts of some fairly significant
entrepreneurs, and Izzy
ASPER was clearly one of those," Mr.
O'FARRELL said. "He brought an incredibly astute vision of what
could be done and what should be done in the name of strengthening
Canada's place both domestically and internationally."
Mr. O'FARRELL worked at CanWest for 12 years and said working
for Mr. ASPER was stimulating. "It was absolutely a privilege
to work with somebody who possessed the depth and the breadth
of his intellectual curiosity and interests."
Mr. ASPER also provoked controversy over the years with his views
on Israel and his drive to converge news coverage at CanWest's
newspapers.
In 2002, he fired Russell
MILLS, publisher of the Ottawa Citizen,
after an apparent conflict over editorial independence. At the
time, CanWest forced papers across the chain to carry editorials
written by officials in the company's head office. The policy
sparked a barrage of complaints about a lack of editorial freedom
at the papers. The removal of Mr.
MILLS prompted a wave of protests
against CanWest from Parliament to media organizations around
the world. Mr.
MILLS sued and reached a settlement with the company
a few months later.
Mr. ASPER's staunch defence of Israel also left him open to charges
that CanWest's papers do not fairly cover events in the Middle
East. In a speech last year, he attacked media coverage of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and accused several media outlets
of having an anti-Israel bias. He singled out coverage by
CNN,
The New York Times, British Broadcasting Corp. and Canadian Broadcasting
Corp. and said anti-Israel bias was a "cancer" destroying media
credibility.
He has often criticized the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in particular
for what he has called the broadcaster's anti-Israel coverage.
Yesterday, a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. official declined to
comment on Mr.
ASPER's views.
Still, amid the controversy, Christopher
DORNAN, director of
Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication,
praised Mr.
ASPER's role in Canadian journalism.
"We're still, in the entertainment area, overshadowed by the
exports of the juggernaut to the south. What's really ours is
non-fiction, it's journalism... in as much as Israel
ASPER built
CanWest into a major, major player in that sector, his contribution
is clearly significant."
Added Mr. DORNAN: "
There are uncharitable souls that would argue
that CanWest's contribution to the Canadian cultural landscape
was negligible.
"Because when CanWest built itself as a network, in the early
days, it was known as The Love Boat Network -- all they did was
buy cheap, populist American programming, got ratings and contributed
very little to Canadian cultural production. They made very little
programming of their own and what they did make was in grudging
compliance with Canadian content regulations," he said.
Mr. DORNAN argued that the Canadian media industry is not about
keeping the Americans at bay, but instead about funnelling in
highly desired American content in the most advantageous way
possible.
Mr. ASPER built a television network that now employs "people
from network executives to janitors. Those jobs would not have
existed had he not done that. And now, of course, they do actually
make some programming," Mr.
DORNAN said.
Vince CARLIN, chairman of the School of Journalism at Ryerson
University in Toronto, agreed, noting that history books won't
likely describe him as a great endorser of Canadian culture.
"That's not what he was about. He was a businessman," said Mr.
CARLIN, the former head of Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Newsworld,
who had met with Mr.
ASPER on numerous occasions.
"He learned how to use those [business] skills to create very
dynamic business enterprises, but [CanWest] would never put cultural
considerations ahead of business considerations," Mr.
CARLIN
said.
He explained how in his company's early days, Mr.
ASPER insisted
to government officials that his chain of television stations
was not a "network" but instead a "system," because being dubbed
a network was less advantageous from a business perspective.
When regulations shifted, Mr.
ASPER changed gears, calling the
stations a network, Mr.
CARLIN said.
Mr. ASPER was also involved in a bitter legal battle with Robert
LANTOS, a prominent Toronto-based filmmaker. Mr.
ASPER sued Mr.
LANTOS for libel over comments he made during a speech in 1998.
In the speech, Mr.
LANTOS described Mr.
ASPER as "the forces
of darkness, whose greed is surpassed only by their hypocrisy."
Mr. ASPER said the comments left the impression he was dishonest
and disloyal.
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