I disagree. Three or four corporations own almost the entire Canadian media, from traditional print publications to television and Internet. The range of viewpoints on offer is extremely limited. For example, the two daily newspapers in Vancouver are owned by the same company. The two (or is it three?) private "over the air" TV networks are run by the same companies that own the two national daily newspapers. This type of media concentration would be illegal in the US. The Canadian media is incestuous and prone to nepotism and corruption. The CBC network took government money to produce a series run on their flagship nightly newscast that sent their chief correspondent (who was also a Bilderberg guest) on a tour of the Northwest Passage aboard a Coast Guard ice breaker. This coincided with the government's ramping up PR about a "strong northern presence to assert Canadian sovereignty". A CBC business corespondent was on the payroll of a national financial institution, and married to a high-level employee of said bank)when she did an "independent analysis" of this institution which just happened to show them in a very positive light.
And Canada is the only Anglophone nation without a tradition of media criticism. So, no, Canadian journalism is not in any way superior to US reporting. Quite the opposite in fact. Canadaland, a weekly podcast started by a dude who has worked for a variety of Canadian media outlets directly confronts the sick and feeble nature of Canada's media landscape.
Pretty damning anecdote about reporting on the arctic. Press coverage that happily glosses over international uncertainty and debate in favor of a national narrative and interests conclusively outs coverage for what it is.
Media concentration is extremely high inside the United States as well, and of course reporting is similarly colored.
My post was a response to a claim that the Canadian media offers a higher quality product than its US counterpart. I disagree and gave my reasons and provided a couple of examples. I did not, however, claim that US media concentration isn't high. It is, but it's not as extreme as the Canadian example.
Independent media is almost non-existent in Canada, online or otherwise. Viewpoints that deviate from the mainstream are far and in between. The only online independent journalism site I can think of that has gained a wider audience is The Tyee based in Vancouver. The Canadaland podcast, created and hosted by journalist Jesse Brown, also seeks to provide a wider variety of viewpoints and it directly addresses the sad state of Canadian media culture (something Brown is intimately familiar with).
And Canada is the only Anglophone nation without a tradition of media criticism. So, no, Canadian journalism is not in any way superior to US reporting. Quite the opposite in fact. Canadaland, a weekly podcast started by a dude who has worked for a variety of Canadian media outlets directly confronts the sick and feeble nature of Canada's media landscape.