University of the Fraser Valley instructor Cheryl Dahl's interest in the media - and how it delivers its message - was ignited in the late 1970s by the flames of revolution in Iran while she was attending The University of Tehran.

"It was just before the Shah fell, and conditions there were extremely dangerous.

"But, when I came back [to Canada] there was nothing at all in the press about what was going on in that country . . . and it puzzled me that there was so little coverage of what was happening there."

The soft-spoken educator delivered a speech on media ownership at a lunch meeting held by the Business and Professional Women Club of Abbotsford and Mission at the Cascade Community Church on Wednesday.

She spoke at length about the state of Canadian media's recession-hit journalists, and how she sees the concentration of ownership of the press in this country is affecting the integrity of reporting.

Dahl helped launch Vancouver's Co-op radio station, which she said was an invaluable experience at building a community-based news organization. She moved on to teach writing, and then after a stint at Simon Fraser University for the communications graduate program she fired-up the media and communications program at UFV.

"I teach a lot of media theory and current issues in the media like ownership."

Dahl sees ownership as a key issue as mainstream media move to the Internet in droves, and advertisers flock to the digital realm to help shore-up flagging print and television revenue streams.

According to Dahl one of the greatest challenges facing journalists today is employment.

"[There is] a decline in the number of journalists, they work in difficult circumstances, there is a narrowing range of political opinion available now in mainstream media and the Internet is not likely to solve these issues."

Dahl says fewer journalists equals fewer stories being brought to the attention of the public.

"The number of owners is becoming a smaller and smaller group, raising the issue of whose news gathering philosophy and whose imperatives are controlling what journalists are allowed to report and not report."

"Many stories slip by . . . the media plays such a critical role in holding our governments to account for telling us whether performance has equaled promises in elections.

"Democratic institutions really suffer when the diversity of opinion is limited."

© Abbotsford Times 2009

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