Asper Nation

The second generation of Aspers that now runs Canada's largest news media company is much like the first. Israel "Izzy" Asper's three children often appear in today's headlines. David is bidding to buy the Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team. Gail heads fundraising efforts for the new Canadian Museum of Human Rights. Leonard sits in his father's place as head of CanWest Global Communications. Like its founder, they also use their media empire to influence public opinion. Asper Nation explains why Canadians should be concerned about where the country's first family of news media is coming from, politically. Izzy Asper was an oddity as a Liberal politician in the 1970s. Fiscally, he was to the right of most Conservatives. As a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, he called for a flat tax and "workfare." As a best-selling author, he helped thwart a plan to shift Canada's tax burden from the middle class onto corporations. But when Asper took his policies to Manitobans as Liberal leader in 1973, he was soundly defeated. Asper got into the television business instead and built Canada's third network. Asper made CanWest the country's most profitable broadcaster by feasting on regulations that encouraged the importation of cheap American programming. He took his formula to the world in the 1990s, buying television networks in New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland. Then in 2000, Asper pioneered media "convergence," buying Canada's largest newspaper chain from Conrad Black. Southam dailies were soon ordered to run "national" editorials written at CanWest Global headquarters in Winnipeg. This corporate news control brought protest from journalists and two government inquiries. Neither resulted in long-sought limits on media ownership, however. Marc Edge offers a compelling account of the political perils involved in allowing the Asper family to dominate Canadian media.

A look at the deal that made Victoria's CHEK the first employee-owned television station in North America, as well as the history of the station and its current situation.

For the Palestinians who live in the narrow coastal strip of Gaza, the Israeli invasion of December 2008 was a nightmare of unimaginable proportions: In the 22-day-long action 1,400 Gazans were killed, several hundred on the first day alone. And yet, while nothing should diminish Palestinian suffering through those frightful days, it is possible something redemptive is emerging from the tragedy of Gaza. For, as Norman Finkelstein details, in a concise work that melds cold anger with cool analysis, the profound injustice of the Israeli assault was widely recognized by bodies that it is impossible to brand as partial or extremist. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN investigation headed by Richard Goldstone, in documenting Israel’s use of indiscriminate and intentional force against the civilian population during the invasion (100 Palestinians died for every one Israeli), have had an impact on longstanding support for Israel. Jews in both the Unites States and the United Kingdom, for instance, have begun to voice dissent, and this trend is especially apparent among the young. Such a shift, Finkelstein contends, can create new pressure capable of moving the Middle East crisis towards a solution, one that embraces justice for Palestinians and Israelis alike. This new paperback edition has been revised throughout and includes an extensive afterword on the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which resulted in the deaths of nine activists and further strained the loyalty of many of Israel’s traditional allies around the world. It also contains a brand new appendix in which Finkelstein dissects the official Israeli investigation of the flotilla attack.

Pop Culture Goes to War, by Geoff Martin and Erin Steuter, explores the persistence of and opposition to militarism in American life. It provides a comprehensive overview of the role of toys, video games, music, television and movies in supporting contemporary militarism. Resistance to militarism is highlighted through the traditional mediums of music and movies, and increasingly through the arts, 'culture jamming,' and the satire of The Daily Show, The Onion, The Simpsons, The Colbert Report, and South Park.

Izzy Asper was a true visionary and a self-made billionaire. In the kind of intimate detail that made his other books mega bestsellers, Peter C. Newman profiles one of the most charismatic and powerful Canadian tycoons of the past quarter century. A serial risk-taker with a fever in his blood, the always controversial Asper grew a tiny television station, operated out of a converted supermarket, into the CanWest empire. Under Asper’s guidance, CanWest became Canada’s most profitable television network, one that comprised Global Television, and more than 60 newspapers—including the National Post—and was run mainly out of Izzy’s briefcase from his beloved hometown of Winnipeg. Izzy was the quintessential entrepreneur, constantly in flight and flux, each of his improbable ventures feeding on the next. Only his family occupied higher ground than his business interests, yet he combined the joys of home life with his killer instincts at work. Both were essential to his character. In the end, Izzy Asper was addicted as much to the game as to its rewards. What made him so special was his ability to create warm, electric moments among his friends and loyalists, yet inspire fear in his critics and enemies. Izzy is Canadian business history at its best, a masterful portrait of the man who was, for decades, the country’s leading media mogul.