The sun has set on Sun News Network after a deal to sell the troubled all-snooze station to Zoomer Media reportedly fell through late Thursday. A victory for common sense in Canada? The stridently right-wing station launched in 2011, supposedly as an antidote to left-lib media bias in Canada, ended up being (with few exceptions) a shrill, bad imitation of Fox News south of the border. The station nevertheless provided some memorable moments, including its press statement officially announcing its closure this morning which quotes Sun Media Corp CEO Julie Tremblay saying that Canadian broadcasting “is losing a distinctly Canadian voice.” That may be putting it mildly. But here are five things I’ll miss (no seriously) about Sun News.
Ezra Levant Hard to believe, I know. The guy is a hate monger. And has the lawsuits and the rap sheet of complaints to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to prove it. But the network’s resident bubblehead could always be counted on to reveal the truly ugly side of Canadian conservatism. The former Reform Party organizer – and Stephen Harper bud – was a conduit to what the frat boy brain trust in Ottawa is thinking. Now we’ll have no one to remind us what the HarperCons really think about the freeloading Roma, creeping Jihad and whether Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s mother wore panties. Levant was left uncharacteristically speechless by the station’s demise, tweeting out a link to a quote by Theodore Roosevelt to mark the occasion. “It is not the critic who counts not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming…” Yada yada. Ezra has apparently attained martyrdom.
Five Feet of Fury No, the network did not feature stupid pet tricks, although you could confuse the twisted views of some of its regular guests as some prank none of use were getting. Take, for example, self-described “pioneer blogger” and the network’s “culture expert” Kathy Shaidle who stands as an important reminder that even folks who hold virulent Islamophobic, xenophobic, anti-gay views can be given a regular platform in Canuckistan, as long as you know the right people. She’s a symbol of freedom, damn it!
David Menzies’ Man Cave Most viewers may not remember this spot because it was so bad, even by lowly Sun News standards, that the network had enough sense to pull it off the air. Next to Sun News’ one-episode Rob Ford show experiment, Man Cave rates as the worst TV possibly conceived. But as an eye into the reptilian mindset that typically infects conservative political commentary, it was must-see TV. Sun News VP Kory Teneycke, a former director of communications for the PM, confided to me once that it was his favourite show.
Breathless foolishness of station’s true-believers/viewers – all 8,000 of them As annoying as ignorance can be – ancient Chinese secret: it must always be taken with a grain of salt to keep from losing your mind – it can also be entertaining. Though the station had few viewers, those who did tune in could always be counted on to take to the worldwide web of hate to defend whatever madness happened to be the flavour of the moment on any given day. And there they were again when the bad news came down Thursday to predictably blame the CRTC for the station’s demise. That would be the same CRTC that reportedly gave in to political pressure from the PM’s office to force cable companies to carry Sun News, albeit in a more limited way than the station would have liked. That’s right, free marketeers who can’t stomach the fact no one was watching because maybe the station sucked, are blaming the government. Like Sun News, it’s so predictably outrageous.
Warren Kinsella and Lisa Kirbie I wasn’t going to mention it, but without this dynamic political duo’s almost daily appearances, you could be forgiven for thinking Sun News was nothing more than an organ for the HarperCons. Of course it was, but at least with Kinsella and Kirbie in the fold, the network could pretend to be striving for some semblance of balance (certainly not objectivity) in its coverage. Some notable lefties, too, including former city councillor (and sometimes NOW columnist) Adam Giambrone, took up the network’s cause at the CRTC when it was applying for full cable access. Turns out not even they could save the station from itself. Truth be told, however, most right-thinking Tories in this country couldn’t stomach Sun News’s low-brow brand of reactionary politics anyway. It was giving the conservative cause a bad name. So for the cause in general, the network’s loss is arguably a win. Fuck.
enzom@nowtoronto.com | @enzodimatteo
Updated Friday, February 13, 10:13 pm. An earlier version of this blog post misstated Kathy Shaidle’s Twitter handle.
