Who Speaks for a New Canadian Community? – New Canadian Media – NCM

Good reflections on media and public spokesman for different communities (also applies to groups within the “mainstream”):

When I produce religious and spiritual TV, I can usually locate pious types with an agenda of growth or political advancement, eager to proclaim their messages.  In fact, they find me before I find them. It’s not so easy to find ground-level community types who include women and youths in their productions.  It is harder animating liberal voices.

It’s too easy to mischaracterize a community by who comes forward to speak for it.   Media coverage and official political acknowledgement imparts a sort of legitimacy.  You have to wonder, without media coverage would there have been prominence for such figures and organizations as the Rev. Al Sharpton in the U.S., or the late Dudley Laws in Canada, Canadian Punjabi separatist groups, and the official-sounding, yet marginal, Canadian Islamic Congress?

In all cases, part of their credibility derived from savvy use of the media.  The media are willing participants.  Some lazy reporters and producers choose guests and sources on the basis of who is readily available on a moment’s notice, who’s articulate, or worse yet, who has the most anti-social, outrageous or activist point of view.

It is in our nature to be drawn to radical voices. Many of us love a fight.

Thus the militant voices start to punch far above their weight.  The mainstream starts to accord them special status that they haven’t really earned.

Who Speaks for a New Canadian Community? – New Canadian Media – NCM.