Indie Media's Moment

Written by: Steve Anderson and Marie Elliott

Find the Rabble.ca version, VUE Weekly version, and TheTyee version.

Despite the fact that Canwest filed for court protection against creditors on Oct. 6, 2009, several already well-paid directors, executives and other senior members of Canwest management will share $9.8 million in Key Employee Retention Plan (KERP) bonuses. In an article for rabble.ca, Gary Engler contrasts this extravagance with the fact that media workers are losing severance pay, pensions and jobs; shareholders are taking huge losses; and suppliers are receiving "a few cents on the dollar at best."

It is frustrating to know that those people who mismanaged the Canwest media empire are not bearing the brunt as much as media workers, shareholders and suppliers. However, there is now an opportunity for less wasteful media outlets to chip away at Canwest's market share. Rather than let other domestic or foreign media conglomerates step in, we should help independent media use this waste of resources as an opportunity to become the cornerstone of our media ecology rather than just the alternative to big media.

What is independent media?

Independent media is often referred to, but rarely defined. It is structurally independent from the two most powerful institutions in our society: government and corporations. This autonomy allows independent media more freedom than big media to be openly critical of power, and it makes outlets more reliant and accountable to everyday people.

Read more the rest here: http://rabble.ca/columnists/2009/11/indie-medias-moment

Steve Anderson is the national coordinator for the Campaign for Democratic Media. He is a contributing author of Censored 2008 and Battleground: The Media and has written for The Tyee, Toronto Star, Epoch Times, Common Ground, Rabble.ca and Adbusters.

Reach me at:
steve@democraticmedia.ca
http://www.facebooksteve.com/
http://www.steveontwitter.com/

http://medialinkscolumn.com

Media Links is a syndicated column supported by CommonGround, TheTyee, Rabble.ca, VUE Weekly

Media Links by Steve Anderson, CommonGround, TheTyee, Rabble.ca, , VUE Weekly is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License. You must attribute this work to Steve Anderson, CommonGround, TheTyee, Rabble.ca, VUE Weekly