Today's media language a little too much like 1984's Newspeak

Newspeak is the fictional language in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, written by George Orwell. It is a controlled language created by the totalitarian state as a tool to limit freedom of thought and concepts that pose a threat to the regime.

Canada is not Orwell’s imaginary society where peoples’ every thoughts and ideas are controlled by The Party, but our own powerful elite has pushed our media closer to censorship and a propaganda-feeding machine than I ever imagined possible.

Our elite include the wealthy, corporate executives, private media, and the Harper government. As Orwell wrote in his novel, the elite understand that if they have strong influence over media they can limit serious criticism of the tremendous changes they impose on ordinary people.

CBC's At Issue: Anderson, Hébert, Mansbridge, Coyne

All but one of Canada’s 118 daily newspapers and all four of its private television networks support the business-dominated ideology of the elite and the Harper government. The CBC has some excellent, independent minded programming, but CBC management is so terrified of Stephen Harper that it doesn’t allow the boat to be rocked.

Of course journalists are allowed to write stories that are politely critical of the Harper government, one of the links in the chain of power, but far too often stories focus on the government’s strategy to overcome an image problem.