Stay tuned for the full interview with renowned environmental activist David Suzuki, coming Monday
Story Transcript
DAVID SUZUKI: Hi, I’m David Suzuki. You know, there’s an old expression, whoever pays the piper calls the tunes. And never was there a time when this was more relevant in thinking about the major issues that confront us. Today media outlets are dependent on money, and where that money comes from is absolutely indicative of what kind of news or information you’re going to get. I began my career with the CBC and I was proud that I was working for an organization that was funded by the taxpayer, and that was my responsibility to communicate to the taxpayer. When the CBC began to put commercials into programs, we begged them not to put anything into The Nature of Things. Now, The Nature of Things is in our program and in that hour we get more than 16 minutes of commercials, and don’t think for a minute that doesn’t affect what we can or cannot say, the influence of us, because the need for that corporate money is great. And then you look at all of the outlets, the various outlets we’re getting, whether they’re newspapers, magazines or even television corporations like Fox News, you know that there is an agenda that is being set by the source of the money. That’s why we need genuine public programming, public information sources, to give a more truthful, a chance that we’re going to hear things that are much wider in their coverage, and there was never a time when we needed more an institution like The Real News Network. We need this at this time.
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