Two great links, thanks to Steve Anderson of the Campaign for Democratic Media

Net Neutrality
http://democraticmedia.ca/netneutrality

Steve Anderson. The Fight for the Open Internet. Article written for Canadian Dimension:
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/01/16/1543/

There’s a great article in the current issue of Bitch magazine. “Paper Cuts: Saying R.I.P. to some of the best D.I.Y.” (p. 52-55) looks a pile of independent magazines that have gone out of business in the last year or two including: Punk Planet, LIP: Informed Revolt, Stay Free!, No Compromise: The Militant, Direct Action Publication of Grassroots Animal Liberationists and Their Supporters, On Our Backs: Entertainment for the Adventurous Lesbian, Clamor, Kitchen Sink: For People Who Think Too Much, and Rockrgrl.

The authors Debbie Rasumussen (Bitch’s publisher) and Josh Hooten (editor of Herbivore magazine) identify “increasing media consolidation, bankruptcies of small distributors, independent  bookstore closings, and riding costs for paper, printing and postage” as well as “general lack of funding available for grassroots media and a larger cultural evolution toward digital media” as the factors for these magazines disappearing.

While many of these magazines are survived by interesting blogs, for me it’s not really the same thing as holding and reading (and passing along) a magazine.

The CRTC has ordered Vancouver Co-op Radio to attend a public hearing next month or risk losing its operating license.

The CRTC ordered Co-op radio to appear at next month’s hearing after the regulator calculated that Co-op radio broadcast 32.8 percent Canadian content in the category of “general music” during the week November 5 to 11, 2006. The station is required to broadcast 35 percent Canadian content in this category. […]

“It is unfortunate that the Commission’s resources only allowed for one spot check during our 4-year license term,” the station stated to the CRTC in one document. “As such, the week that was chosen for the spot check did not accurately reflect our regular programming.”

The station also claimed that the regulator did not consider “spoken word poetry pieces” and “sound art pieces” to be Canadian content even though they were “entirely Canadian productions”. […]

Co-op radio informed the CRTC in one document that less than 10 percent of its programming focuses on the category of “general music”. Almost half (47.5 percent) of its airtime is allocated to locally produced spoken-word programming. Another 37 percent is music that doesn’t fall into the CRTC category of “general music”.

“So there is a disproportionate amount of focus on the Canadian Content of this relatively small portion of our programming,” the station stated.