Are you as sick as I am of all the so-called “Save local TV / Stop the TV tax” noise that’s being drilled at us repeatedly in television and newspaper ads?
Obviously, somebody’s got a lot of money at stake, because the rhetoric that’s flying from both sides of this debate is enough to make the head spin.
Both factions have reduced their arguments to pithy little catch-phrases, but you can be sure that there’s a whole lot more going on here than what these simple slogans would suggest.
The cable companies’ campaign is called “Stop the TV Tax”, while the broadcasters’ mantra is “Local TV Matters.”
The point of contention is that cable and satellite providers like BellAliant and Eastlink don’t have to pay Canadian broadcasters to distribute the TV programming that would otherwise go out via over-the-air signals (in other words, the TV stations that you could receive with just an antenna).
The broadcasters – which include CTV, Global, and CBC – are rather broadly referring to this as “local TV,” but I would suggest that there’s very little “local” content in those signals, since virtually all local TV stations are part of a network, and the networks’ schedules are heavily weighted with American or nationally-broadcast programming. Anyway, the networks’ argument is that it’s not fair for cable companies to profit from selling their programming without returning some revenue back to them.
But the cable companies say that if they have to pay for the signals, they will be “forced” to pass that cost on to the consumers.
It seems to me there’s a lot of misdirection going on from both sides here. First, the cable companies are throwing around the word “tax” pretty loosely - arguing that if they have to pay for signals that have previously been free to them, then any cost they choose to pass on to the consumer (as opposed to taking it out of their huge profits) amounts to a “tax.” What this really means is: “If we get dinged, you will pay.”
And the broadcasters are throwing around the word “local” as if their schedules are jam-packed with locally-produced content. Come on. We’re talking about news here (and perhaps the odd special), of which local news makes up, at most, a few hours a day on all of these stations’ schedules. Local news is extremely important, I totally grant that. But given the continual glutting of resources for local news production at CTV, CBC and Global, it’s clear that local content is not high on the networks’ priority lists. You and I are being used as pawns in an argument of semantics about who should foot the bill to keep these TV stations alive. Perhaps their slogan should be: “Desperately seeking a way to keep ourselves afloat.”
Both sides are seeking the public’s input at upcoming hearings before the CRTC, which they will then use as fodder to make their cases before the regulator. Surely the problems here are much more complicated than a simple “I support local TV” or “No TV Tax” vote can address.
This is a problem of an outdated business model, and a battle over who’s going to get their hands on the big bucks generated by the TV industry in Canada, and it should be up to the broadcasters, cable providers and regulators to sort it out. Manipulating the public into being patsies on both sides of this propaganda war simply isn’t appropriate.
Monday, November 9, 2009
No Pizza Night for the UnVaccinated
There appears to be no shortage of people (many of my friends and acquaintances included) who say they have no intention of getting the H1N1 flu vaccination this season.
This just makes me sigh and roll my eyes. You know, I can appreciate healthy skepticism. It’s kind of what I do for a living. But this whole business of refusing to get inoculated is just ill-informed, and based on some vague notion that “The Government” isn’t telling people everything they need to know.
That is, without question, “The Government” ’s fault, because, as a general rule, they don’t tell us everything we need to know.
Unfortunately, that long history of less-than-honesty means that a lot of people who could easily avoid getting sick are going to get sick. And if that just involved those other people, I’d be fine with it.
But I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about the people who can’t afford to be infected by the people who don’t think they need to protect themselves from the virus. People like – I’ll say it – me. Not everyone has cushy jobs with sick pay, you know.
So listen: I am putting this out there. There will be no dinner invitations to my house for friends who refuse to get immunized. It’s as simple as that. I’ll see you next spring, and you can let me know how your whole “influenza libertarian” strategy worked out for you.
In the meantime, I’ll try to explode a few myths for you:
1. “I think the “pandemic” is overblown and it’s not going to affect me.” The reality is that, unlike all the other flu viruses you’ve been in constant contact with over the years, this is a flu strain that most people under 65 have never been exposed to, so people in this age group have no innate immunity. The Public Health Agency of Canada predicts that without interventions like vaccines and antivirals, close to 25 to 35 per cent of the population could become ill.
2. “Even if I do get sick, I’m young and healthy, so no big deal.” A study released a few weeks ago by the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that, among those Canadian patients who ended up hospitalized with H1N1 (and these were predominantly young patients with few major health issues), critical illness occurred rapidly, with 81 percent of those studied going into shock and multi-organ failure. Those patients received mechanical ventilation for a median duration of 12 days.
3. “Because the vaccine is new, I don’t believe it’s safe.” The requirements for vaccines approved for sale in Canada are strict and every vaccine lot is safety-tested by Health Canada. We’re not living in Bora Bora, here. If it’s the adjuvant you’re worried about, the PHAC website points out that the use of an adjuvanted vaccine is not new. The adjuvant used in the H1N1 flu vaccine has been widely used in Europe in other vaccines for over 12 years. The dangers posed by this preventable influenza are much greater than the risk of a serious reaction to the vaccine – which is about one for every million shots administered.
So if you’re not worried about yourself, try to think about all the other people you might infect when you do get sick, and imagine the social impact that illness in one third of the population would have.
If you’re not part of the solution here, you’re part of the problem.
And there will be no pizza night at my house for you.
This just makes me sigh and roll my eyes. You know, I can appreciate healthy skepticism. It’s kind of what I do for a living. But this whole business of refusing to get inoculated is just ill-informed, and based on some vague notion that “The Government” isn’t telling people everything they need to know.
That is, without question, “The Government” ’s fault, because, as a general rule, they don’t tell us everything we need to know.
Unfortunately, that long history of less-than-honesty means that a lot of people who could easily avoid getting sick are going to get sick. And if that just involved those other people, I’d be fine with it.
But I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about the people who can’t afford to be infected by the people who don’t think they need to protect themselves from the virus. People like – I’ll say it – me. Not everyone has cushy jobs with sick pay, you know.
So listen: I am putting this out there. There will be no dinner invitations to my house for friends who refuse to get immunized. It’s as simple as that. I’ll see you next spring, and you can let me know how your whole “influenza libertarian” strategy worked out for you.
In the meantime, I’ll try to explode a few myths for you:
1. “I think the “pandemic” is overblown and it’s not going to affect me.” The reality is that, unlike all the other flu viruses you’ve been in constant contact with over the years, this is a flu strain that most people under 65 have never been exposed to, so people in this age group have no innate immunity. The Public Health Agency of Canada predicts that without interventions like vaccines and antivirals, close to 25 to 35 per cent of the population could become ill.
2. “Even if I do get sick, I’m young and healthy, so no big deal.” A study released a few weeks ago by the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that, among those Canadian patients who ended up hospitalized with H1N1 (and these were predominantly young patients with few major health issues), critical illness occurred rapidly, with 81 percent of those studied going into shock and multi-organ failure. Those patients received mechanical ventilation for a median duration of 12 days.
3. “Because the vaccine is new, I don’t believe it’s safe.” The requirements for vaccines approved for sale in Canada are strict and every vaccine lot is safety-tested by Health Canada. We’re not living in Bora Bora, here. If it’s the adjuvant you’re worried about, the PHAC website points out that the use of an adjuvanted vaccine is not new. The adjuvant used in the H1N1 flu vaccine has been widely used in Europe in other vaccines for over 12 years. The dangers posed by this preventable influenza are much greater than the risk of a serious reaction to the vaccine – which is about one for every million shots administered.
So if you’re not worried about yourself, try to think about all the other people you might infect when you do get sick, and imagine the social impact that illness in one third of the population would have.
If you’re not part of the solution here, you’re part of the problem.
And there will be no pizza night at my house for you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
