punditman says...It could be said that young Punditman began his media monitoring and citizenship development by reading his Dad's Globe and Mail. Granted, young punditman started by checking NHL scores and standings in the paper's sports section, but, hey, every media critique has to start somewhere.
Sadly, punditman's decades-old Globe and Mail buying and reading spree has come to an abrupt end. Since finding out that they "fired" left-leaning and thought-provoking columnist, Rick Salutin, punditman now officially refuses to buy their rag.
"Fired"? What for? It can't simply be that the old warhorse didn't suit the paper's redesign and new look (arrghh, it's ugly!). After all, there are plenty of other oldsters still on G&M staff who could just as easily be put out to pasture (think Wente here, who, when she steps outside her comfort zone of whiny personal tales, irritates even the most jaded corporate media monitor). Whatever you think of any particular column she writes, it will almost always escape the label of being "too intellectual."
And isn't that just what the corporatist media moguls and their elitist overseers want? Don't think. Don't question. Don't ask deep questions about Harper's ideology or the expansionist/occupier/oppressor role that Israel has towards the Palestinians or the Rob Ford mayoralty candidacy, all of which Salutin did with great insight. Though he could be considered part of what Bruce Cockburn once labeled the "non-specific left," Salutin is not the Stalinist ideologue that his dim-witted critics claim. Far from it, he is something much more threatening: an independent thinker. Part of a dying breed.
"Fired"? What for? It can't simply be that the old warhorse didn't suit the paper's redesign and new look (arrghh, it's ugly!). After all, there are plenty of other oldsters still on G&M staff who could just as easily be put out to pasture (think Wente here, who, when she steps outside her comfort zone of whiny personal tales, irritates even the most jaded corporate media monitor). Whatever you think of any particular column she writes, it will almost always escape the label of being "too intellectual."
And isn't that just what the corporatist media moguls and their elitist overseers want? Don't think. Don't question. Don't ask deep questions about Harper's ideology or the expansionist/occupier/oppressor role that Israel has towards the Palestinians or the Rob Ford mayoralty candidacy, all of which Salutin did with great insight. Though he could be considered part of what Bruce Cockburn once labeled the "non-specific left," Salutin is not the Stalinist ideologue that his dim-witted critics claim. Far from it, he is something much more threatening: an independent thinker. Part of a dying breed.
To add insult to injury, Salutin's employer of twenty years cut the last paragraph of his last column, about the Rob Ford phenomenon, apparently because the paper doesn't allow "audience farewells." How petty. How mean. How very Harperesque. Fortunately, the complete column can be read at rabble, over here.
Why was Rick Salutin fired? Punditman says boycott the Globe and Mail now. Punditman says Rick Salutin is a great Canadian.
