Do We Need the CBC?

The Road To Bankruptcy Is Paved With Good Intentions.

I believe that when the CBC began, it was absolutely essential at almost any cost. It was one of the only mediums of communication, and for many parts of Canada it was the only television available. It was undeniably a key means of getting information out from coast-to-coast, and held great cultural value in terms of defining Canada a country. I believe it certainly justified its fairly high cost to the public purse in times past… wait for it… *sound of other shoe dropping*…

Unfortunately for the CBC, the world we live in today is not the world of yesteryear. I believe the current financial commitment in tax dollars to the CBC should be slashed much more dramatically than the current budget suggests (roughly 10%), because its importance to Canadians is vastly diminished relative to even 15 years ago.

Imagine what hundreds of millions of dollars could do in terms of plugging the holes in education, health care, or infrastructure? These are the priorities I believe most Canadians have, and the CBC, while a nice luxury to possess, is simply one we can’t afford any more.

The CBC has consistently lost market share to their private rivals that do not benefit from a taxpayer subsidy. This fact alone dictates that people have voted with their television remotes already.

Read more here.

CBC treats anti-oil comedian's diploma-ripping stunt as "news"

Scott Vrooman, who as a "spokesman" for the anti-oil group 350.org that was picketing 24 Sussex, treated his interview with me like a bad comedy routine.



Later that day, he videotaped himself ripping up his degree from Dalhousie because they refused to divest from oil and gas stocks.

Now the CBC is promoting this as serious "news."

See more here.

Growing outrage towards CBC

There is growing outrage towards the state propaganda network CBC after they revealed that they had the Trudeau ‘grope’ story for months, but didn’t report on it.

The story – based on an editorial in the Creston Advance – had featured allegations that Justin Trudeau groped a female reporter. The editorial even featured an alleged apology from Trudeau.

It resurfaced first on social media (no wonder the Trudeau Liberals are trying to shut down free expression), and then to websites like this one and international outlets. Only then did the Canadian establishment media start reporting on it – and it took them almost a month to even ask Trudeau a question about it.

But now, it turns out that CBC had the story for months.

Read the full story here.

CBC has now become merely a state broadcaster

The CBC News Network announced last week it was cancelling its flagship business program On the Money, ending the tradition of covering business news in-depth since the all-news channel’s inception in 1989.

In Canada, the playing field remains uneven as competing private media outlets do not directly receive the public subsidies the CBC receives. The many friends of the CBC who believe it serves a national purpose should be free to send their own money to help fund it; they should not be able to compel taxpayers who are not receptive to the CBC’s business-unfriendly message to divert their tax dollars to its coffers. Once a genuinely national broadcaster, the CBC has now become merely a state broadcaster. The end of On the Money is just one of the last of many signs that it no longer represents anyone in the Canadian public willing to question the reflexive reliance on government to solve everyone’s problems.

Read the full story here.

OPP shuts down CBC's social experiment

CBC Marketplace caused a stir in Alliston when it started selling T-shirts bearing "white power" and "Make Canada Great Again" slogans in a social experiment designed to see how Canadians react to racism.

The reaction by some residents was to call the police when they saw a CBC actor selling the T-shirts on Victoria Street in downtown Alliston.

Nottawasaga OPP media relations officer Const. Harry Lawrenson confirmed the detachment put an end to the film shoot on Jan. 11 after receiving complaints from a couple of residents.

Read the full story here.

CBC has been the object of animosity

From its inception nearly a century ago, the CBC has been the object of animosity among private for-profit broadcasters, who resent competition in the market for audiences and advertisers from a publicly-subsidized service.

These days the complaints of unfair competition extend to newspaper publishers, who are desperately trying to reinvent themselves as digital services, scrambling to catch up with the migration of their advertisers to the internet. But the CBC has a powerful presence online, too, far exceeding its closest media rivals in Alexa rankings. And, as it does on television, the public broadcaster sells advertising online at CBC.ca, which puts it in direct competition with newspaper websites. The publishers protest that the publicly-funded CBC was never intended to compete with newspapers.

Read the full story here.

547 pages that CBC had amassed on me

Richard Nixon kept an enemies list and so does CBC. No surprise that I’m on CBC’s list but I was surprised to finally get my hands on the "Quebecor Briefing Book."

I became aware of the document after requesting and receiving the 547 pages that CBC had amassed on me and the stories I had written about its problems with openness, transparency and handling of taxpayers money. Tucked away in those many pages was an email that made reference to a document all about Quebecor, parent company of Sun News Network and this newspaper.

Well CBC was asked for the document and they said it couldn’t be released.

Then CBC said it didn’t exist.

When they were shown the email with an attachment called "Quebecor Briefing Book" they told said person that wrote the email no longer worked for CBC and therefore they couldn’t release it.

Of course that was all a lie.

Read the full story here.

CNN trumps CBC in Canada for US election coverage

In the "Did you know" department:

For the final presidential debate on Oct. 19, CNN saw its share of Canadian viewers climb above the 1.5 million mark in overnight estimates. Broken down into half-hour periods, CNN pulled an estimated 1.2, 1.3, 1.5 and 1.1 million viewers between the hours of 9:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. ET. 

That dwarfs the overnight estimates registered by CBC News Network, which drew 428,000, 400,000, 300,000 and 194,000 on the same day and times.

Read the full story here.

CBC disappointed court rejected its argument

The motion, brought by the CBC, sought to have the court decide that it shouldn’t put an invasion of privacy claim to the jury that the plaintiff had added to his original defamation case.

In 2006, Ranjit Chandra, who had worked as a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland’s faculty of medicine from 1974 to 2002, launched a lawsuit against the CBC and three of its journalists. Chandra claimed a CBC news segment, “The Secret Life of Dr. Chandra,” had defamed him.

After the court had heard evidence for about 10 weeks, the CBC moved that the privacy claim shouldn’t be put before the jury. The CBC’s attempt failed, but the jury ended up finding in favour of the broadcaster this summer.

The CBC’s lawyer, Christine Lonsdale, a partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP, says the CBC is disappointed the court rejected its argument against the privacy claim.

Read the full story here.

Cut off digital revenue to CBC says public-policy group

A public-policy group has issued 12 recommendations to revive the Canadian news industry, including cutting off digital revenue to the public broadcaster.

The report by the Public Policy Forum maintains that the decline of traditional media, audience fragmentation, and fake news are undermining faith in Canadian democracy.

"Free cbc.ca of the need to 'attract eyeballs' for digital advertising, which can run contrary to its civic-function mission and draw it into a 'clickbait' mentality," the report states.

As things stand now, the CBC generates about $25 million in annual digital revenue, according to the report.

Read the full story here.

CBC Opinion Section Unbalanced

In a review published yesterday entitled “Managing opinion”, CBC Ombudsman Esther Enkin found that CBC’s newly-minted opinion section stood in violation of CBC policy for not having featured a broad range of views on highly contentious topics about Israel. Ms. Enkin “strongly urge(s) CBC management to find other columnists to write about this contentious topic.”

A summary of the review is as follows: “The complainant, Alex Kogan, objected to Neil Macdonald’s strong defense of the position taken by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. The organization was protesting the shooting of a Palestinian journalist during the confrontations at the Israel-Gaza border. He thought the opinion writer left out facts and distorted the truth. The article itself did not violate CBC journalistic policy, but there continues to be an imbalance in the range of views available in the Opinion section on this highly contentious matter – and that violates policy.”

Indeed, HonestReporting Canada took note of Mr. Macdonald’s highly critical commentaries about Israel recently. Most noteworthy, his anti-Israel polemics published on CBC Opinion on May 15 and April 15. That is why HonestReporting Canada on May 17 submitted a pro-Israel op-ed to the CBC for publication on the topic of the recent violence on the Israel-Gaza border to provide an alternative perspective for the CBC’s readership.

Regretfully, CBC declined to publish it, despite our emphasizing that CBC readers need to see a different perspective on the controversial topics at hand.

Read the full story here.

Investments in the CBC seen as remedy

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is touting Ottawa's investments in the CBC as one remedy to the financial crisis that has hit Canadian news organizations, forcing newspaper closures and newsroom cutbacks.

The swift transformation of the media market, the onset of digital and the presence of Facebook and Google in dominating online advertising, has wreaked havoc with the bottom lines of many private sector news organizations.

Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly has hinted that the Feb. 27 federal budget will deliver some assistance to offset the financial challenges.

“We are looking at how to support local media in their transition towards much more viable business models, which are digital,” she said.

“We know that there have been cuts in newsrooms, specially in rural communities across this country and therefore, we want to make sure that we can provide the right approach while respecting journalistic independence,’ she said.

Read the full story here.

CBC standing behind its report

The government of Canada is calling a CBC report that it is threatening to bring hate crime charges against advocates of a boycott of Israel “inaccurate and ridiculous.”

The CBC, however, is standing behind its report, saying “our reporter and our editors thought it was a strong, original story.”

On May 11 (2015), CBC ran an article on its website by veteran TV journalist Neil Macdonald, the network’s senior Washington correspondent and its former chief Middle East correspondent based in Israel, under the headline, “Ottawa threatening hate charges against those who boycott Israel.”

Read the full story here.

CBC pushes fake news to spur a racial divide

This story, which aired on CBC’s The National – Canada’s third most watched national newscast – and was aired on the much more listened to World at Six radio program was so riddled with holes that it had to be be corrected multiple times on the web and now the state broadcaster will air brief corrections.

But the damage from CBC’s original reporting is done. It pushed a completely false narrative and helped inflame race relations in an already tense situation.

Read the full story here.

CBC’s The National is confusing, well-meaning and maddening

Readers write to me about The National. That would be the usual thing if I write something about CBC’s flagship newscast. But readers now write to me regularly about The National, not just in response to a column.

Mostly, they complain. Often, they’re writing to tell me they’ve given up. They stopped watching because the hour of news is confusing and they don’t feel they’re getting a definitive, authentic roundup of the important news of the day. A constant complaint is that, at the top of The National, two or three stories are presented as the news agenda. Then other stories appear in the lineup, getting brief or extensive coverage, unannounced.

Some long-time viewers are irritated by the use of on-screen text to promote an upcoming story in a certain number of minutes. The appearance of the text is too brief to read, let alone register. Others are irritated by what they see as overemphasis on Indigenous-related stories and content in the mini-documentaries that are featured. The latter complaint isn’t made in a rancorous, dismissive manner. It’s just that some readers who watch The National feel the coverage of wrongs done is relentless. They roll their eyes.

Read the full story here.

CBC in campaign mode

“We pay $1.5 billion a year in taxpayer money [to CBC], who so clearly are in campaign mode for Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax.

Read the full story in Frank Magazine here.

CBC’s Appalling Coverage

CBC’s Appalling Coverage of Israel’s Daring Rescue of Syria’s White Helmets.

Though Israel won widespread praise for its leading role and brave humanitarian efforts in the daring rescue of hundreds of individuals associated with Syria’s White Helmets, our public broadcaster, the CBC, produced truly appalling coverage that maligned Israel’s efforts.

Amazingly, though media outlets wide and far prominently acknowledged Israel’s integral role in the dangerous rescue mission, a CBCNews.ca report on July 22 failed to even mention Israel’s efforts at all.

Read the full story here.

CBC's efforts to delegitimize Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital

A front page “analysis” report by Mark Mackinnon saw the Globe’s senior international correspondent say the following (emphasis added): “That offensive has brought Syrian government troops close to the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, sparking fears in Tel Aviv that Iranian forces – which are also allied to Mr. al-Assad’s forces – will try to establish themselves in the region.”

In so doing, Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital was delegitimized. Tel Aviv is merely Israel’s financial and diplomatic centre, not its capital.

In a similar vein, a CBC Radio report aired on July 6 at 10:00am EST by Beirut reporter Rebecca Collard stated the following (emphasis added): “Tel Aviv has been warning Syrian forces about getting too close (to the Golan Heights)”

As with the Globe and Mail, HonestReporting Canada takes strong issue with the CBC’s and Ms. Collard’s efforts to delegitimize Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital as she has implicitly claimed that Tel Aviv is the Jewish state’s capital in her reporting. This is patently false.

Read the full story here.

As the new CBC National rises, ratings fall

The show has been pulling an average of 460,000 viewers on the CBC’s main network since its overhaul, which included the introduction of four reporter-hosts replacing Peter Mansbridge, and a shift to providing deep context on a few key stories rather than a faster-paced review of the day’s events which typifies evening newscasts.

That audience number, provided by the CBC’s research department from the national TV ratings agency Numeris, has held steady over the past five months.

But it is down from the 525,000 average viewership of the 2016-17 TV season, which concluded at the end of last August. And it is off sharply from the CBC’s own projections provided to advertisers, which forecast viewership at a more robust 532,000.

Read the full story here.

CBC Funding Poll

Should the government increase funding to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)?

See the poll here.

last answered 17 minutes ago

Yes

1,600 votes

34%

No

3,138 votes

Support grows to privatize CBC new poll shows

A poll of 1,996 Canadians by Abacus Data found that 45% of those surveyed support or strongly support selling CBC compared to 34% who opposed the move, while 21% were undecided.

A previous Abacus poll on privatizing CBC found just 33% backed selling off the state broadcaster. This latest poll shows a 12% jump in support and it too crosses party lines. Fully 63% of self-identified Conservative voters back privatizing CBC. More Liberals backed privatization than opposed it, 45% versus 39%.

Read the full story.

CBC abandoning remote northern viewers

The People's Network will soon become The Certain People's Network, pledging to shut down its analog television transmitters in all rural and smaller urban centres effective July 31.

The move will impact the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who still pick up CBC with rabbit ears on the nearly obsolete analog system rather than the digital system available in cities.

Such a decision by a publicly funded broadcaster raises obvious questions of equality. That's particularly true in northern Manitoba, which, according to the Conference Board of Canada, has three of Canada's five lowest median income regions.

Since low-income earners are less likely than other Canadians to have cable or satellite, a vast swathe of northern Manitoba is about to be cut off from television meant to unite our country across geographical and cultural boundaries.

Read the full story here.

CBC Losing Viewers and Ads

CBC ad revenues remain half what they were since the TV network lost NHL licensing rights, says the Crown broadcaster’s latest Annual Report.

The CBC has asked cabinet for an additional $400 million a year in budget funding to offset the loss of advertising: “If you’re not informing and you’re not entertaining, people will go somewhere else.”

Read more here.

CBC Must Report that 2 Dead Palestinians Were Killed By Premature Palestinian Rocket Explosion

In light of new information that has surfaced, HRC (Honest Reporting Canada) has called on CBCNews.ca to publish new details about the deaths of two Palestinians recently.

On July 15, CBC featured the following Reuters report which stated the following:

"A father and son were killed in an explosion in a building in Gaza on Sunday. But no blame was cast on Israel and police said they had launched an investigation into the cause of the blast.”

As Reuters has subsequently reported, the two Palestinians were killed when under-construction rockets prematurely exploded. One of the individuals is a member of a proscribed terror group and identifies as a commander of a missile unit for the outlawed terror entity the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Read the full story here.

CBC Fails to Mention Dead Palestinian Threw a Grenade Wounding an IDF Officer

Today, HonestReporting Canada filed a complaint with senior CBC editors in regards to a CBC Radio report by Rebecca Collard that was broadcast on CBC World This Weekend on July 14 at 6:07pm EST.

In reporting on recent hostilities between Palestinians (mainly Hamas) and Israel, Ms. Collard stated the following: “Israeli officials say Palestinians fired dozens of rockets into Israel wounding three people in the town of Sderot. The escalation came after an Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian teenager dead during a protest near the Gaza border yesterday. For months Palestinians have held weekly protests on the frontier.”

Ms. Collard failed to mention that the Palestinian teenager who was killed by Israeli soldiers had allegedly thrown a grenade at IDF forces, wounding an IDF officer.

Read the full story here.

The CBC is taking the food off my table

As a subsidized CBC opinion-maker, you ask, what do I think of the CBC’s recent foray into subsidized opinion-making? Well, naturally, I’m torn.

On the one hand, the case for forcing the taxpayer to foot the bill for my double lattes seems to me airtight. On the other hand, in my day job as a paid propagandist for the corporate media I am bound to object to the state broadcaster using the taxes we pay to steal the audiences and the advertising dollars that are rightfully ours. You see my dilemma. The CBC is taking the food off my table that the CBC put on it.

I don’t doubt the CBC’s presence in the marketplace, propped up by $1 billion-plus in public funds, eats into our digital ad sales.

The main reason to cut off the CBC’s parliamentary grant is that the circumstances that once justified it have vanished. In the early days of television (and radio) it was technically impossible to charge viewers directly for the programs they watched, or to exclude those who did not.

Read the full story here.

CBC ombudsman - lack of clarity undermines the accuracy and fairness of the story

Getting it right trumps the deadline
Friday, May 29, 2015

The complainant, Sherry Currie, owns a travel agency in New Brunswick. Her service was the subject of a story because it took over six months to provide a refund to a client for a cancelled trip. The facts of the story were correct but CBC News in Halifax did not wait long enough to get Ms. Currie’s side of the story. The more it is a matter of reputation, the more the effort needed to get the other side.

The lack of clarity undermines the accuracy and fairness of the story. This may not have been an issue had the reporter waited a little longer and made a second attempt to reach you. It is a reminder that in this world of instant communication, there is a need to take the time to do due diligence. Getting it right and providing fair coverage trumps deadlines.

Read the full review here.

CBC ombudsman - the error was a violation of policy

Dalhousie "Gentlemen": An error is unacceptable but it's not a deliberate attack Wednesday, June 17, 2015

The complainant, Robert Harrison, thought CBC was remiss in its coverage of the one dental student who came forward in the Dalhousie scandal. He said the student was not shown proper respect because CBC published erroneous information about him. The error was corrected within a half hour of publication.

The error was a violation of policy but there were no issues of bias.

Read the full review here.

CBC ombudsman - CBC news managers can learn from the mistake

Justin Trudeau's platform: the danger of a paraphrase
Monday, July 6, 2015

The complainant, Marc Poitras, objected to the characterization of a platform speech by the Liberal Party leader as “striking hopeful notes.” He’s right – there was no justification and it appeared to be editorializing in a news piece.

The difficulty here was that since the whole sentence was unclear, it might not have been obvious to you that this was in fact a quotation. It compressed so many thoughts into one short sentence that it lost clarity. It left the impression of bias. I think more likely it is a case of bad writing and editing. CBC News policy also calls for clear and precise use of language:

On this score, the article fails. I recommend CBC news managers review how this happened so that those involved can learn from the mistake.

Read the full review here.

CBC Ombudsman - Context Lacking in CBC News Feature Story

Making the links. Thursday, March 15, 2018

In the wake of accusations of sexual impropriety involving teenage girls against Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore, CBC News provided a feature story about the phenomenon in some Christian fundamentalist communities that encourages marriage between older men and teenage girls.

One of the interviewees was Canadian and described as a member of the Mennonite Brethren Church. The complainant, Mary Bender, pointed out there was no Brethren church in the town where she lived. She objected to her inclusion in the article, her identification as Mennonite Brethren and the link to Roy Moore. She had a point. There was context lacking.

Read the full review here.