So, while we froth about Al Jazeera, Canadians are frothing about Fox News:
"Canadian Ambassador Fights 'Fox Factor'" - CBC News, 2 July 2005
Frank McKenna, Canada's ambassador to the United States, wants Canadians who live south of the border to help him counter the negative image of their country, perpetuated by the Fox News Channel.
Referring to the popular network's criticisms of Canadian policies, McKenna told the Toronto Star he wants expatriates and visitors to the U.S. to fight what he calls the "Fox Factor...."
McKenna is distributing 100,000 letters to some of them to help in the lobby effort, the Star reports.
The missives aim to quash rumours circulating immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks that some of the hijackers who crashed four planes were believed to have entered the U.S. from Canada.
"McKenna's Militia Takes on America's 'Fox Factor,'" by Tim Harper - The Toronto Star, 2 July 2005
WASHINGTON—Canada's ambassador to the United States marked Canada Day by embarking on an ambitious new goal — mobilizing more than a million Canadians in the U.S. to take their country's message to Americans.
Frank McKenna wants the "Canadian diaspora'' to be armed with facts, to debate Americans, to lobby when Washington makes decisions that can hurt Canadians and to try to counter the "Fox factor," referring to the U.S. television network, which often spreads disinformation and feeds a negative perception of its neighbour to the north.
McKenna is enlisting Florida snowbirds, northern exiles in Arizona, Hollywood comedians and actors, investment bankers in New York and professors and students at universities across the United States....
McKenna wants his new recruits to tell their American neighbours and co-workers that:
Canada is the largest source of imported crude oil in the U.S., bigger than Saudi Arabia or the yet untested reserves of Iraq.
The country has rotated 13,500 troops in the war on terror, has committed $300 million to rebuilding Iraq and is about to deploy a reconstruction team to Afghanistan.
None of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada.
Canada-U.S. trade supports more than five million American jobs.
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