More attempts to bastardize election ad's by the Reform-a-Con

Globe editorial

The Harperites and the joy of negative advertising

 

We already knew that the Harper government loves negative advertising; we just didn’t know, until now, how far it would go to eliminate any obstacle between itself and its object of desire.

The Harper government is examining the option of changing Canada’s Copyright Act so that politicians can use news content in political advertising without asking for permission. Media don’t like to see their footage and other copyrighted content in partisan ads, especially the negative type, since viewers might be left with the impression that a media outlet is complicit with a political party. Earlier this year, a group of broadcasters told the government they would no longer air political ads that use their content without their explicit consent.

It’s easy to understand why the Conservatives don’t care for the broadcasters’ stance: In the heat of an election campaign, war-room apparatchiks don’t want to deal with the niceties of copyright when they are in a hurry to twist an opponent’s comment out of context in time for the next day’s news cycle.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-harperites-and-the-joy-of-negative-advertising/article21030488/