Mixed Media, Mixed Messages

Vincent di Norcia is an associate professor of philosophy and business
ethics at Laurentian University.

This book is a collection of Persky’s columns for the Vancouver Sun,
on the media, politics, homosexuality, and advertising. Persky’s
discussion of the Benetton AIDS ad, for example, is balanced and
sensitive. His knowledge of philosophy shows in his reflective treatment
of Vaclav Havel, modern democracy, and ethical issues. Most columns
involve media criticism (viz., of Ted Byfield, the fundamentalist editor
of Alberta Reports, and of media propaganda about the Gulf War). Persky
shows the danger to democracy in the media’s sensationalist and
trivializing notion of “infotainment.” He captures it in a phrase:
“Honey, I shrunk the Forum.” And he shows street smarts in
supporting a journalist for not being fully candid with a sociopathic
murderer he is interviewing.

But Persky’s abstract treatment of the Oka rebellion falls victim to
a naive liberal faith in the purity of the oppressed. He focuses on the
famous TV shot of a young Canadian soldier at Oka unflinchingly facing a
masked, heavily armed, wildly screaming New York City “native” named
Lasagne. Persky is wrong; these gun-toting Mohawks did not merely
represent “another point of view.” Masking your face and waving a
machine gun are not the acts of people interested in debating an issue.
People who take up heavy arms and shoot (and kill) other persons, who
polarize their own community, loot others’ homes, blockade public
roads, and proclaim that they are above the law are not to be trusted,
whether they are Mohawks or Serbians. Such actions are not those of an
Elijah Harper or a Gandhi.

Persky’s liberal critique of Canada’s “hate law” naively
accepts the self-serving media myth of total freedom. It ignores the
central issue—namely, that racist and sexist hate literature can
result and have resulted in serious harm to whole classes of people.
Persky’s critique of the infotainment industry should have warned him
against naive faith in the “free” media as purveyors of truth and
democracy and supporters of intelligent debate of social issues. Rather,
their sensationalism plays right into the hands of the hate-mongers. Nor
does racist propaganda rest on information or reason. Rather, its thrust
is to reinforce fear and avoid debate. Moreover, elementary ethics
dictates the moral primacy of averting harm to others over unfettered
freedom of speech. And that moral override lies at the critical core of
modern liberalism.

Despite these reservations, I strongly recommend this book to anyone
interested in insightful discussions of the media, ethics, and politics
in Canada today.