After Sun News host calls Pierre Trudeau a 'slut', Justin Trudeau blacklists media company

[Newsjock]

Source: The Globe and Mail

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says he will “continue to not engage” with Sun Media – one of the country’s largest newspaper and media organizations – after one of its columnists and TV hosts made critical and personal remarks about Mr. Trudeau’s parents.

The five-minute segment from Ezra Levant, aired last Monday, took aim at former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau. Mr. Levant spoke at length about the “conquests” of the two and called the former Prime Minister “a slut.”

Justin Trudeau’s office released a statement Tuesday saying Mr. Levant’s segment “crossed the line by airing a personal attack on the Trudeau family that was offensive and breached any reasonable measure of editorial integrity.” The statement said he had “raised this issue with the appropriate people at Québécor Inc.,” the parent company of Sun News. Until Québécor “resolves the matter,” Mr. Trudeau said he personally will “not engage with Sun Media.”

The practical effect of the move is unclear. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trudeau said the threat to “not engage” applies to all of Sun Media – that includes the Sun News television station, which is fiercely critical of Mr. Trudeau and the Liberals, but also 36 paid-circulation daily newspapers and almost 200 community newspapers. Many of the chain’s papers aren’t part of the Sun brand, but the Liberal statement did not discern between them – raising the prospect of the entire chain being frozen out.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/after-critical-remarks-about-parents-trudeau-will-not-engage-with-sun-media/article20749757/

[hr]
The First Year Flop of "Fox News North"
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/04/25/the-first-year-flop-of-fox-news-north/184302

[pinboy3niner]

1. I was in the gallery when his father addressed a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress in 1977

I was interning with a Dem Rep, so I got to go. And I learned that when a foreign leader addresses the Congress it is technically a 'Joint Meeting,' not a 'Joint Session.'

The address was not particularly memorable, but I remember the U.S. media focusing more on Mrs. Trudeau during their visit.

[laundry_queen]

2. Good for him.

I don't think this will play particularly well here in Canada. People in the West might not like Pierre Trudeau, but in Canadian politics families and their private lives are usually off limits - it tends to make us uncomfortable. Even my conservative dad thinks Sun Media is ridiculous and biased and definitely won't like the language used at all. Good for Justin - that's something the Democrats should've done wholesale to Fox news eons ago. I hope he sticks with it. It will immediately turn Sun News completely irrelevant - except it sounds like it already is....2 paragraphs from your second link (bold is mine):

After 12 months of programming, Sun News TV has failed to impact Canadian political debate. The network's top-rated show, Ezra Levant's The Source, has around 35,000 viewers on a typical night, according to a BBM Canada, a ratings company. The number in the prized demo of viewers age 18 - 34 is sometimes so low (less than 1,000) that it appears as a dash. And this is the top-rated show.

"Sun News' reactionary message and crude style speaks to a tiny older audience, but the contrast between its swaggering self-important voice and its actual impact is comical," says John Doyle, the television columnist for the Globe and Mail. "Much of what they do, which is pundits busting blood vessels over irrelevant issues, is genuinely laughable. At times the ratings suggest the number of viewers under 50 is literally zero."