Barrie Wallace Zwicker (born 1934) is a Canadian alternative media journalist, documentary producer, and political activist.

[edit] Biography

Barrie Zwicker was born on November 5, 1934 in White Haven, Nova Scotia. His family soon moved to Manitoba, and Zwicker's earliest work in journalism was with the Russell Banner, a local newspaper in Manitoba, at the age of 16. He went on to study journalism at University of Michigan. In 1967, Zwicker earned a Southam Fellowship in allowing him to work with media analysis pioneer, Marshall McLuhan at St. Michael's College.

Zwicker went on to staff writing assignments at a variety of newspapers in Canada and the United States, including The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Vancouver Province, Sudbury Star, Detroit News, and Lansing State Journal. During his seven year tenure at the Globe and Mail, he won several awards with the Education Writers' Association of North America.

Zwicker also taught the Media and Society course at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto as a part-time professor for seven years. He worked as Vision TV's media critic since the multifaith network's inception in the fall of 1988, until 2003. [1]

Zwicker and Dick MacDonald edited The News: Inside the Canadian Media, in which Zwicker argued that there was a 'terrible sameness' in the media's coverage of many important issues, and a shutting out of other, potentially valuable, perspectives and sources of information. When MacDonald died in 1974, Zwicker took over as publisher of Content magazine (founded by MacDonald in 1970). He continued his media criticism in the pages of Content and subsequently in the pages of Sources, which he published from 1977 on.

In 1983 Zwicker wrote War, Peace, and the Media, a 48-pamphlet which argued that Canadian and American press coverage of the USSR was extremely unbalanced "creating a stereotype of a country that is the embodiment of everything evil, with which it is impossible to have civilized dealings or to conclude rational agreements, notably on arms control. The result of the press coverage is to push people to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the USSR is to engage in an arms race that can only result in eventual war." In 2023, Zwicker edited a subsntially enlarged edition of War, Peace and the Media which also, among other issues, addressed the challenges of global heating and the war in Ukraine. [2]

[edit] Alternative viewpoints

In Canada, Zwicker has drawn comparisons to Michael Moore with respect to his viewpoints, and his approach to documentary making. He was the first from the mainstream press to go public with his opinion that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an "inside job", when, on January 21, 2002, he stated that he wanted the media to ask the following questions:

• Why didn't the president give any orders for 140 minutes after the first plane had been hijacked?
• Why didn't he make a statement in the first 165 minutes after the first plane got hijacked?
• Why did not a single American Air Force plane make a single interception during these two hours?

[edit] The End of Suburbia

He was involved in the video The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream on Vision TV[3] [4], and earned a number of awards from local film and video festivals for his contributions.

[edit] The Great Deception

In 2002, Zwicker's first documentary on 9/11 aired on Vision TV. Titled, The Great Deception, it was the first North American documentary critical of the mainstream media's portrayal of 9/11.

[edit] The Great Conspiracy: The 9/11 News Special You Never Saw

The Great Conspiracy: The 9/11 News Special You Never Saw^[1] is a 70-minute sequel to The Great Deception. It premiered at the The Citizens' Commission on 9-11.

In this work, Zwicker contends that fear was used to control the public after 9/11, and states that the "War on Terrorism" is a public control mechanism. He also analyses the military breakdown on 9/11 and claims that the president and his aides acted entirely inappropriately that day. Throughout, mainstream media is accused of being either compliant or complicit with a cover-up.

Zwicker followed this with an additional documentary entitled, Deep Complicity, 9-11 And The Media, released in 2004.

[edit] Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-up of 9/11

Zwicker's new book published by New Society Publishers was released September 1, 2006.

"Even skeptics like myself will find much in Barrie Zwicker's book to ponder, enjoy and, yes even embrace. Interestingly researched and well written, a valuable aid to correct thinking about conspiracy theory." -Michael Parenti, author of Culture Struggle and The Assassination of Julius Caesar.

ISBN 978-0-86571-573-8

[edit] Other accomplishments

• In 1977, Zwicker created a directory of contacts for editors, reporters and researchers, called Sources; and, in 1994, a Canadian government directory called Parliamentary Names & Numbers. He subsequently sold them in 1999.
• In 1996, he founded a media relations newsletter and Web site called HotLink.
• In 1991, he was awarded an honorary membership in the Media Club of Canada.
• Zwicker is also the director of an alternative information web site, 911inquiry.org

[edit] See also

• Vision TV
• The Citizens' Commission on 9-11
• Ryerson University
• Sources

[edit] References

1. ^ Tgc: The Great Conspiracy

[edit] External links

• Biography of Barrie Zwicker from the Humanist Association of Toronto [5]
• Barrie Zwicker's media profile and areas of expertise [6]
• The Great Conspiracy website [7]
• Barrie Zwicker's assertions in TGC video (related info)