é A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, August 2, 2006 TERRACE STANDARD | ESTABLISHED APRIL 27. 1988 _ PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2 ' TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 * FAX: (250) 638-8432 - WEB: www.terracestandard.com ’ EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard.com ~ Job well done HERE’ S HOPING the provincial government and the Nisga’a Lisims Government give due and proper ‘fanfare to a nearly: finished major north- western project. -Not all of what follows would fit. into one of "those official press releases but the end of the * “eight- year effort costing just over $51.5 -million ‘to improve the Nisga’a Highway into and in the. Nass Valley itself cannot pass unnoticed. In a province.which defines itself by its ability to build roads. whether they be major urban routes or ones into rural’and remote areas. the Nass Val- ley project stands out. _ Gone-are relatively dangerous gravel ‘stretches subject in’ some places to fidoding. Instead there’s a two-lane paved modern. road network offering safe and reliable transportation. R It.was a’ project that got its start under the. Glen Clark NDP government in. 1998. While not. part of the Nisga’a treaty signed i in 2000, the road” project recognized that without a reliable trans- portation connection. the overall aims of the trea- -ty could not be met. & This was a bi- -partisan effort o on the part of the provincial crown in that it survived the defeat of | the NDP in 2001 by the Liberals. B An original plan for sealcoating was changed to pavement after some clever negotiating by the Nisga’a within months of the new Liberal gov- emment being sworn into office in 2001. - WiIna time when the northwestern forest indus- | ~ try was collapsing , the project provided some eco-- "nomic stability to the area. Jobs and skills training came about. for the people in the Nass Valley and elsewhere &. There is now ready access to the Nisga’ a Memorial Lava Bed Park, jointly managed by the provincial government and the Nisga’a. The park and other areas of the Nass Valley now form the basis upon which to build.a tourism industry ben- efitting the valley and the region. As examples. there’s now a new coffee shop in Gitwinksiklkw and a growing core of lodges and bed‘and break- fasts throughout the valley. . X The new road will build more economic de- - velopment connections as well as social ones be- ‘tween the Nass Valley and elsewhere. That means oO and the like. better. access. to health care, education.. services. he _ & The separate $33 million project to build a _road from Greenville to Kincolith at the mouth of the Nass Valley connects that village with the rest in the valley and consequently, to the outside via the new-look Nisga’a Highway. ° ~ Governments can do good work and this road project is one of those examples of something that “will pay dividends. o.- The south can have its 2010 Winter Games. We have this. COMMUNITY: PUBLISHER/EDITOR: © RodLink . ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur - “NEWS: Sarah A. Zimmerman Dustin Quezada NEWS/SPORTS: Margaret Speirs FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping. Carolyn Anderson CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Alanna Bentham ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: 7 Bert Husband. Ellie Higginson | 2005 WINNER AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik NEWSPAPERS PRODUCTION: Susan Credgeur COMPETITION SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $57.94 (+$4.06 GST)=62.00 per year: _ Seniors $50.98 (+83.57 GST)=54.55; Out of Province $65.17 (+$4.56 GST)=69.73 Outside of Canada (6 months) $156.91(+10.98 GST)=167. 89 _ MEMBER OF B.C. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, fd CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION #&CN CNA... . : AND Commune B. C. PRESS COUNCIL (www.bcpresscouncil.org) ; wr Newsrartes Cetgmeny snd Vehee” * right nalders. Reproduction Special thanks to. all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents -a more or AND HERE WE HAVE REPLICATED - Tue CURRENT TIDAL POOL HABITAT oF our INNER HARBOUR ~) Of , Po ~ 7 val ; Wit \ a} ‘Keeping an eye on the. media MEDIA “OWNERSHIP in. British Columbia is’ generally known for the harmonization - of its conservative bias.’ B.C. is dominated in its print media by the Asper. family’s Canwest Global Corporation, “which owns the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun; and in its electronic me- dia by Canwest’s Global. TV. to namé a few of their influen-— . tial holdings. Thus one corporation with less united bias controls nearly 70 per cent of B.C.'s news media: « _ Because of their conserva-. ‘tive bias, business issues are - prominently « featured. News sources that used to have col- umns devoted to organized labour no longer do so. If re- ported on at all, labour issues are usually presented with the slant suggesting that unions are greedy or corrupt, a per- haps necessary evil that we would probably be better off without. (One contrast is the yearly sentimental yarn on the week- end of Labour Day about he- roic union actions from the recesses of history. However. now that it’s commonly pre- sented that workers are gener- ally overpaid arid coddled by “such luxuries as health insur- ance. these stories are of his- torical interest only.) _ The Vancouver Sun, which once featured gritty stories on significant and important sto- ries regarding the environment and which employed reporters to cover those issues. specifi- cally. no longer has an 1 envi- AL LEHMANN’ ronment desk. . _ -Instead. we’ get dozens of . ' pages flogging real estate and © celebrating the latest corporate take-overs. Recently a committee from the federal Senate heard sub- missions in Vancouver from members of the public con- cerned about such media own- ership concentration in BC. Although numerous com- plaints were put to the com- mittee regarding the deplor- able. concentration of media power in the Vancouver mar- ket. the committee chose not to make suggestions to address these complaints in its June 21 report. Rather. the committee that was charged with investigat- ing the dangers of concentra- | tion in the news mediavignored | the concentration and_ instead criticized one of the only na- tional voices that is recogniz- ably different fromthe others: the CBC. . Although. the. CBC i is nearly “scrupulously careful to: pro- ; vide balanced reporting, their government support allows them to be less frightened of : ‘the withdrawal of corporate. advertising should they have the temerity to criticize or pub- licize corporate actions which - are detrimental to the public interest. Thus having the CBC as a defender of the. public interest as a whole is of inesti- ’ mable value to Canadians. Mr. Asper’s (the dominant owner of Canwest) own com- | ment’on this issue was that: Canada should allow -further combination and consolida- . tion within the industry. ~ Naturally his corporation - might also look with a:covet- ous eye on the millions of dol- lars in ad revenue that CBC TV currently attracts. There’s a peculiar paradox at work here. The theory of free | markets is that a wide variety of producers should encourage creativity and diversity. Presumably this should in- clude a variety of opinions on political economy including in-depth reporting on labour and environmental issues. However, what we get from the free markets dominating BC's news delivery is a few. different “brands” of the same product. . Such concentration in the media is not limited to ur-— ban daily newspapers. Da-- vid Black owns over a hun- dred community newspapers throughout B.C. and Alberta (including The Terrace Stan- dard). One is reminded of Henty Ford's dictum. that’ people could: have any colour car they wanted, as long. as it was — black. One hopes that his - theory doesn’t apply to the editorial and news policies in rural. Brit-. ish Columbia’s newspapers, : although a hundred or more newspapers owned by -the © same company begins to look © alot like market domination. |. Citizens who wish to stay — informed on. public issues * within their communities and - ; province rely on the avail-._ able media to provide a broad vs range of views and issues in a. fair. ‘manner. 2 oN As media owiiership - con: | tinues to become more con- | centrated. simple omission of coverage of stories has led to a more and more “blinkered” population, fed a steady diet of bland and fairly uniformly bi- ased content and opinion. We can be grateful that The Standard seems ‘to try to pro- vide a balanced sample of edi- torial opinion from across the political spectrum, often in the face of vocal criticism from advocates of one or another political viewpoint. Terrace citizens who val- ue the pursuit of objectivity through exposure to ‘diverse points of view should continue to hold their local media ac- - countable and should be de- — fending the CBC as.a healthy - counterbalance to the domi-. nance of more narrow views controlled’ by smaller self-in- terested groups within society. Al Lehmann is a teacher and livesin Terrace. | If you snooze, you really do lose Ww EVE ALL experienced the frustration of waiting forever _in line because our “phone call is important” to the company we're trying to reach and our call “will be answered quicker if we. hold for the next avail- able agent” Having been there. we de- light.in watching a poor-per- - - formance corporation get its. comeuppance. . By now - after his record- ing was gleefully aired on na- tional newscasts. -- everyone. has heard the dissatisfied AOL ~ customer phoning to cancel his service. Instead of accept- ing his cancellation. the agent quizzed him on his reasons and tried to change his mind. The customer's voice rose | each time he doggedly repeat- ed “Cancel my account”. The agent ended by threatening: “When you calm down you'll realize you've just made: the biggest mistake of your life.” Since then, another custom-. er relations fiasco has made the rounds. of evening news broadcasts. this one involv- ing a Comcast cable company ‘repairman who fell asleep in: the customers Washington D.C. living room, the laptop THROUGH BIFOCALS | CLAUDETTE SANDECKI computer on his knee. waited to get through on the telephone to his cable com- pany for advice. More than a little annoyed at having a cable repairman napping ‘for an hour on his reclining sofa. the customer, Brian Finkelstein. a student _ at Georgetown Law School. “took the incident to the in- ternet,” The New York Times. He videotaped the snooz- ing repairman. added = as soundtrack the drowsy rock ballad. “I Need Some Sleep” performed by the Eels, and for as he- reports Ken Belson in. one minute ridiculed Comcast for two broken routers. high . prices. and three missed ap- poinunents. Finkelstein then posted his Video on the SnakesonaBlog | website. In quick time it ap- peared on-youtube.cam where it. was soon viewed by more than 200.000 people (and re- - portedly e earned him $3569.79 in two months). The youtube.com website. shows videos produced. by anyone. so long as they meet _the ‘site’s decency standards. ‘Would-be musicians and per-. formers of all inclinations take advantage of the Site's wide audience. Stung by Finkelstein’s vid- eotaped criticism backed by ir- refutable proof, Comcast's re- gional vice-president promptly phoned, no doubt to apologize for their poor service. Next day “a team of Comcast guys” -worked for five hours to fix his Internet connection. John, the snoozing repairman. got fired. Many viewers sympathized with the repairman, suspecting he was probably overworked. putting in long hours-to meet some arbitrary quota of so many hookups per day. Oth- ers criticized John tor not re- porting his own difficulties in reaching the company for as- sistance to do his work. | Equally — as as the novel way Finkelstein chose to fight back were the comments by those who down- loaded his video: “At least you knew where the repairman was.” “You should have charged the repairman $50 rent.” “Take it as a ‘compliment; « § your couch must be comfy.” “From now on, we have to tidy house before we callinan. " internet repairman.” “The repairman was a gon- er the minute he dialed his re- pair helpline. You try sitting . through more than 30 minutes of slow music and you'll be counting sheep, too.” “Typical corporation _ re- sponse. Fire the technician in- stead of fixing the holdup.” ~. “At least he didn't steal anything but a few zzz’s.” John, the fired repairman. posted this: “You got me fired, and I know where you live.” One viewer summed up the sentiment of many. “Some-. times public shaming is the only remedy.” entertaining .