Canadian Media Giant Attacks Free Speech

When the bottom line is threatened, corporations typically show little concern for holding the line on political principles such as freedom of expression. In capitalism, freedom is too often just another word for maximizing profits.

But even when we have no illusions about the predatory nature of modern corporate capitalism, there's something particularly disheartening when a media corporation abandons free-speech principles. Journalists are supposed to be the good guys on freedom of expression, right? If for no other reason than self-interest, shouldn't media managers support these principles?

Yes, but apparently not when ideology gets in the way, as seems to be the case at Canada's largest media corporation.

CanWest -- owner of newspaper, television, and online properties, including one of the country's national dailies and a TV network -- is trying to use trademark law to punish political activists' free speech in a classic SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation).

This case is relatively simple: CanWest's founder, Izzy Asper, was a vocal supporter of Israel, (he's been quoted as telling the Jerusalem Post, "In all our newspapers, including the National Post, we have a very pro-Israel position. ... we are the strongest supporter of Israel in Canada.") and CanWest papers have maintained that ideological commitment since Asper's death in 2003.

To highlight this pro-Israeli slant in CanWest papers, the Palestine Media Collective produced a parody of the Vancouver Sun that included such stories as "Study Shows Truth Biased against Israel, By Cyn Sorsheep." As with most parodies, some of the attempts are clever and some fall flat. But there's no way to not recognize it as a parody. (You can see for yourself by reading it here.)

Because the folks who produced the parody were anonymous (they've since stepped up to identify themselves publicly), CanWest sued the printer and another activist who had passed out a few copies, Mordecai Briemberg, claiming a trademark violation. Such a suit is legitimate only when the plaintiff can show there's a reasonable likelihood that people will confuse the fake with the real and that some harm will result. In this case, there clearly is no confusion and no harm, and hence no serious claim. But CanWest presses on.

Calling the Collective's paper "a counterfeit version" that amounts to "identity theft," CanWest seems to want to frame this as a kind of intellectual-property terrorism: "This piece was not satirical. It was not a clever spoof. It was a deliberate act to mislead and misinform thousands of people by using the actual Vancouver Sun masthead, logo and layout," reads a company statement on the case.

According to a 2007 story in the Vancouver Sun, CanWest believes that the defendants were "motivated by hostility to the principal shareholders of the plaintiff and by a desire to undermine, or hurt, the business of the plaintiff and its principal shareholders" and "harbor antagonistic views towards the plaintiff, its principal shareholders and the reporting and editorial opinions expressed in the plaintiff's publications, including in the Vancouver Sun."

This all seems a bit thin-skinned for a media company, given how journalists take pride in their role as tough critics. It's true enough that the activists in question don't seem to like the reporting and editorial opinions of the Sun and its parent company. And it's not unusual for those who believe that an information source is unreliable to encourage people to seek information elsewhere. So, I suppose there's a fair amount of antagonism on all sides. As for motivation, I have interviewed Briemberg, and I didn't pick up on any hostility. He's a longtime activist, driven by the concerns for social and economic justice that motivate most people on the political left. If he's hostile to anything, it's to injustice.