Exposed - CBC 2 million dollar libel suit

On Feb. 27, 1996, Dr. Martin Myers, a respected cardiologist at Toronto's Sunnybrook hospital, sat down to watch TV. He thought he was going to see a program in which he had taken part about the pharmaceutical industry. As an expert in heart drugs, he had given an interview to explain a complicated medical debate over a drug used to treat high blood pressure.

What he saw was a sensational exposé about killer drugs, kickback schemes and secret files. The tease for the program was a voice clip that said, "People are dying, people who don't need to die are dying."

Dr. Frans Leenen, a top research scientist with Ottawa's famous Heart Institute, also had been interviewed for the program. He was out of the country on Feb. 27, and didn't see it until he returned. He sat down to watch a videotape and learned that he, too, was accused of covering up the killer drugs.

In less than an hour, Dr. Leenen saw his reputation torn to shreds.

To clear their names, the doctors each sued for libel. Dr. Myers asked for an apology plus $25,000. Dr. Leenen asked for an apology plus $10,000. The CBC decided to fight.

A very expensive decision. Last November, a judge awarded Dr. Myers a hefty $200,000, plus interest and costs. Three weeks ago, Dr. Leenen won a breathtaking $950,000, plus interest and costs. His total settlement could amount to more than $2-million, a record for Canadian libel.

The corporation carries no libel insurance, and will have to pay every penny itself.

Read the full story.

Exposed: CBC oversimplifies fracking

CBC Ombudsman Series - reviewing past complaints against the CBC

Complaint: 

CBC News, especially in New Brunswick, has devoted a lot of coverage to the proposed development of shale gas through a process called hydraulic fracturing. An opponent of the development, Jim Emberger, thought the language used to describe fracking oversimplified it to the point of bias.

CBC Ombudsman Conclusion:

I agree with you that in its brevity, it misses a great deal of the complexity and nuance. It does not achieve a “clear and accessible manner.” I also agree that it does not provide enough information for a reader to make up his or her mind.

Read the full report.

Exposed - CBC publishes incorrect fact

CBC Ombudsman Series - reviewing past complaints against the CBC

Complaint:

The complainant, Constantine Kritsonis, felt it wasn’t enough that CBC News acknowledged and corrected an error in a wire service story. He thought there was a lack of accountability and wanted to see the original story again after he was advised of the edit. He also questioned the system of accountability for publishing material.

CBC Ombudsman Conclusion:

While it is regrettable that the original piece was published with an incorrect fact, the system worked in correcting it.

Read the full story.

Exposed - CBC has no strategy

CBC recently appeared before a Senate Committee examining its future and demonstrated that it has no real strategy for the future.

Instead of a strategy, CBC has an agenda. The agenda is to shrink the CBC. Before he became president of CBC, Hubert Lacroix, told Parliament it was his job to find new sources of revenue but after taking the job he said CBC doesn't need more money.

This month CBC submitted a document to the Committee and a 90-page slide presentation that contained contradictions, errors and misleading information.

Read the full story.

Exposed - CBC News Lacks Guidelines

CBC Ombudsman Series - reviewing past complaints against the CBC

Complaint:

The CBC's Office of the Ombudsman received 66 complaints about a reporter supposedly feeding questions to a member or members of the Liberal Party during a committee hearing featuring testimony by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

CBC Ombudsman Conclusion:

Trading information in developing stories is not, per se, a violation of policy. However, when trading can be viewed as direct prompting to action by someone else, CBC's policy on Credibility comes into play since such an action could cause “a reasonable apprehension of bias.”

CBC News lacks sufficiently clear guidelines on conduct within legislative press galleries.

Read the full report here.

Exposed - CBC National Admits Error

CBC National Admits Error in Suggesting Tel Aviv is Israel’s Capital.

What follows is a formal reply CBC National sent to HRC Board Member Robert Sarner (his reply below too) which saw our public broadcaster’s flagship program acknowledge its error in suggesting that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital city in a January 23 report (watch by clicking here or see appended below) by Nahlah Ayed on the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.

Though CBC should be commended for acknowledging its mistake, regretfully and despite a request for an on-air corrective to be issued, the CBC has opted to privately acknowledge its error and not publicly atone for its mistake.

Read the full story and reply here.

Exposed - CBC cuts, repeats and self inflicted wounds

The most recent cuts were announced in the federal budget in 2012 - $115 million over 3 years, with a loss of 657 jobs. In addition to less money from the government, advertising revenue has shrunk, and costs have increased. In June, 2014, the CBC said another 1,500 jobs will disappear over the next 5 years.

On CBC Radio, there are more repeats than ever. Some programs - like the international affairs program, "Dispatches" - have been cancelled. Radio drama and recordings of live musical performances are but a memory. In television, all production, with the exception of news, is being outsourced. The CBC is evolving into a commissioner and distributor of content, instead of a creator.

Then there are the self-inflicted wounds: the firing and subsequent criminal charges brought against former "Q" host Jian Ghomeshi, and the outcry over paid speaking engagements by CBC journalists. Outside, even those who care about the CBC are appalled. Its critics - and there are many - say it's time to turn out the lights. Inside, morale has never been lower. All of this is taking place against the backdrop of a technological revolution that is devastating traditional media around the world.

Read the full story.

CBC Hopes to become a tenant

A shrinking CBC is looking to sell its outsized downtown flagship headquarters in order to cut costs.

But it’s not totally jumping ship — the public broadcaster hopes to stay on as a tenant.

As part of the 2012 federal cuts, the government called on the CBC to reduce its real estate holdings to cut costs. In response, the CBC pledged to cut 800,000 square feet by 2017, including reducing office space at Radio-Canada headquarters in Montreal.

The CBC did not anticipate having to sell its Toronto headquarters at the time. But that has changed.

Read the full story.

Exposed - CBC loses defamation suit

Bill Whatcott, Saskatchewan’s irrepressible crusader against homosexuality, has won his second court battle within the month as Judge R.W. Elson ordered the CBC to pay him $30,000 for defamation.

Late last week he won $30,000 from the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, for a TV news show that said he wanted to kill homosexuals. “I thought they would get off, or that I would only get $1. Their lawyer was that good,” Whatcott told LifeSiteNews via cell phone, as he distributed more flyers (and what he calls “Christian condoms”) at the University of Regina on Monday.

“It’s one thing to call me an a-hole,” said Whatcott. “Media outlets say that all the time though I don’t agree with them. But that’s not libellous. And if I say homosexuals are sinners, that’s free speech. But if I say all homosexuals want to sexually assault children, that’s libel. And when the CBC says I want to kill all homosexuals, that’s libel too.”

Read the full story.

PS - we are reporting on this story not to support Whatcott views but merely to report on yet another example of journalistic abuse by the CBC.

Exposed - CBC employees hate conservative values

Stephen Harper tells Quebec radio station that plenty of Radio-Canada workers "hate" conservative values.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says "a lot" of Radio-Canada employees "hate" conservative values.

Harper says those values that are loathed by many employees of CBC's French-language network are the same ones that he says are supported by a large number of Quebecers.

Harper made the comments during a French-language interview with Quebec City radio station FM93, conducted last Friday and aired today.

Read the full story.

CBC president Hubert Lacroix avoids details

The head of Canada’s public broadcaster defended his staff, their journalism and the culture inside the CBC Thursday during what was at times a tense atmosphere inside a Senate committee hearing.

CBC president Hubert Lacroix largely avoided providing details of the CBC probe underway into harassment allegations in the Jian Ghomeshi affair. Questions about this from senators were largely ruled out of order by the committee’s chairman though there were testy exchanges between senators and Lacroix.

The committee is studying the challenges facing the CBC in a changing media landscape.

Read the full story.

CBC President Hubert Lacroix to face Senate committee

The top three executives at CBC, including president Hubert Lacroix, will likely face sharp questions Tuesday from a Senate committee about the public broadcaster's plans for dealing with troubling behaviour from some employees.

Jian Ghomeshi's name is expected to come up as senators question Lacroix, Heather Conway, the head of English services, and Louis Lalonde, the head of French services. 

The executives may also be asked about Amanda Lang, who was recently at the centre of a controversy about speaking fees and conflict of-interest.

Read the full story.

Exposed - CBC credibility damaged

Here in Canada, hardly a week goes by without some kind of devastating media shock. The CBC’s most popular radio personality, Jian Ghomeshi, is off the air, facing serious criminal charges for sexual assault.

Business host Amanda Lang has been accused of conflicts of interest with firms she covers. She denies all wrongdoing but the controversy has further damaged the CBC’s credibility.

CBC commentator Rex Murphy has been accused of taking money from the oil industry for speeches, while he denies the science behind climate change. The National’s anchor, Peter Mansbridge, has been criticized for accepting money for public speaking.

Making the situation worse, the CBC’s senior managers fumbled the response to the burgeoning Ghomeshi scandal. The corporation’s top radio executive and its head of human resources were both suspended indefinitely for their mishandling of the egotistical star.

Read the full story.

Exposed - not all is ok at CBC

When senior managers write memos of yet another cut (this one the outsourcing of weather to another network, no less) that say people are “pleased to announce” a “new content sharing agreement” before mentioning the people who will lose their jobs, and the president of the CBC declares it’s a “good day” to announce 1,500 job losses in the next five years, one has to seriously wonder if senior CBC managers are deliberately deluding themselves in the hope that if they use words like this, it will all be OK.

Read the full story.

Exposed - CBC News outsources weather

CBC News and The Weather Network are pleased to announce a new content sharing agreement, bringing together Canada's leading sources of weather, news and information. Beginning December 8th, national weather forecasts on select CBC News television properties will be provided by The Weather Network's team of meteorologists and on-air personalities, while The Weather Network will gain access to CBC News weather-related stories, analysis, and video content for use across its platforms.

"CBC News is a trusted source for news and information, and we're pleased to be joining forces with another trusted brand and reaching and engaging new audiences across the country," said Jennifer McGuire, General Manager and Editor in Chief, CBC News and Centres. "CBC is always finding ways to deliver content to Canadians in more innovative and efficient ways, and this new partnership with The Weather Network is a reflection of that," added Neil McEneaney, Chief Business Officer, CBC English Services.

The Weather Network will provide weather updates on CBC News Network throughout the day and at the end of The National on CBC-TV and CBC News Network, including expanded weather reports on CBC Toronto on weekends. The Weather Network, based out of its Oakville studios, will also supply weather reports to CBC News Express broadcasts in eight Canadian airports.

Read the full story.

CBC President Hubert Lacroix will do less with less

CBC topper Hubert Lacroix on doing less with less

Top CBC brass on Thursday afternoon laid out how the pubcaster will do less with less after unveiling yet another round of cost cutting to balance its books for 2014-15.

He said the CBC had to change the way it delivers content nationwide, and at what cost, “because right now the revenue line doesn’t support the infrastructure we have.”

The CBC will also no longer be doing big-budget, “shiny floor, elimination” shows.

Instead, the CBC will look to lower-budget formats that don’t require it to bet the farm.

Read the full story.

Exposed - More trouble at CBC

More trouble at CBC with job cuts and disgruntled journalists.

HR professionals at the CBC have certainly had a tough time of it lately – the company is still at the centre of the Jian Ghomeshi scandal that shocked the nation - and now disgruntled journalists have refused an internal award in protest to job cuts.

The Sherbrooke, Quebec newsroom had been selected to receive the President’s Award in the “Audience First” category, for their coverage of the Lac-Megantic disaster, but the team of approximately 60 employees chose not to accept the accolade.

Read the full story.

CBC President Hubert Lacroix refuses calls to resign

A defiant CBC/Radio-Canada president Hubert Lacroix on Thursday refused to resign in the face of heated calls to do so at an earlier employee town hall meeting.

Lacroix was eager to insist the CBC’s current woes were not self-inflicted, but shared across the industry, and globally, saying that the Canadian financing model for traditional conventional TV is endangered by a fast-changing digital landscape.

That means the CBC will reduce its infrastructure footprint to free up dollars for new digital and mobile content.

And it will mean a smaller workforce by 2020.

Read the full story.

Exposed - CBC numbers don't make sense

The CBC gets a $1.1 billion annual subsidy from the taxpayers of Canada as our national broadcaster. CBC management, the union and a group called Friends of Canadian Broadcasting are lobbying the government for substantial increases in the subsidy.

The real story is CBC could do better with even less if they were more efficient.

In Charlottetown, PEI with a census agglomeration of 64,000, CBC says it takes 37 journalists to report on the Legislature alone. That does not count other journalists, technical and administrative staff and management. 90 people work at CBC Charlottetown.

At CBC Hamilton, Ontario, the large industrial city west of Toronto, 7 people do the same job of getting the news out. How big is Hamilton to have such a small newsroom? 720,000 people live in the metropolitan area and that does not include adjacent areas like Oakville and Kitchener-Waterloo.

Why does Charlottetown need 5 times as many people to do the same job as Hamilton?

Read the full story.

Exposed - Has CBC lost faith of Canadians

CBC claims to be open, transparent and accountable for the $1 billion dollars in taxpayers' money it receives. The $1 billion is spent on English and French radio and TV and miscellaneous other services.

CBC releases financial and other data to the media which often leads to inaccurate reports.

CBC has also released incorrect information to the media about the number of staff it has and the number cut in the past few years.

Misinformation and cuts to radio have alienated many CBC supporters and caused a major rift between CBC staff and management and CBC radio and TV staff.

More transparency about its finances, staff and audiences and less defensive analysis from consultants might be a start to restoring Canadians' faith in the public broadcaster.

Read the full story.

Exposed - toxic CBC environment

Busted: The toxic CBC environment that abetted Jian Ghomeshi.

In the past month, public airings of internal CBC dysfunction have become a national spectacle—allegations from current and former Q staffers of Ghomeshi’s abusive behaviour that includes a charge of sexual harassment; leaked memos that banned (and then unbanned) former CBC-TV host Linden MacIntyre from the airwaves for daring to mention that Peter Mansbridge was “no shrinking violet” when discussing Ghomeshi and the “toxic” atmosphere at CBC. The gong show continued this week, as the Canadian Media Guild (CMG), the CBC employee union, sent a memo cautioning members from participating in a third-party investigation into Ghomeshi’s behaviour at the CBC conducted by lawyer Janice Rubin—a measure ostensibly intended to bring clarity, resolution and new proactive policy recommendations. The union threw a spanner into the process, airing concern that Rubin’s recordings of conversations with CBC staff may “be provided to CBC management” who could use them “to discipline the employee being interviewed.”

Inside the CBC, the grim mood is exacerbated by a sense that public trust is eroding at a delicate and crucial time. “Why should anyone think anyone competent is working in the CBC right now?” one frustrated employee asks. “We may as well run a CBC doomsday clock.” Beyond the CBC’s walls, the scandal, and the Crown corporation’s handling of it, has laid bare a complex ecosystem: a labyrinthine bureaucracy that seemed to permit all manner of wrongdoing; a destabilized workforce shaken by some $230 million in funding cuts over the past three years that made it vulnerable to the demands of a coddled star; a management that seems determined to stand by its faulty decisions—if it says anything at all. President Hubert Lacroix has been largely absent as the biggest scandal in years has engulfed his organization.

Read the full story.

CBC conduct exposed as grotesque

“Courage is contagious.” With that saccharine bromide, Peter Mansbridge ended a pep talk he gave to a conclave of investigative reporters in Manitoba several months ago.

Mansbridge’s speech, ostensibly about the value and necessity of investigative journalism, was a daisy chain of clichés, stitched together by a “chief correspondent” who rarely, if ever, has done any investigative reporting himself.

Mansbridge delivered essentially the same speech in Ottawa recently and, once again, everyone applauded. Everyone but Jeanylyn Lopez, a second-year Sheridan College journalism student who, with one question, revealed that Mansbridge and his 25-minute long ode to “holding power to account” were full of hooey.

Lopez asked Mansbridge whether he, his CBC colleague Amanda Lang and disgraced ex-Global newsreader Leslie Roberts had undermined their journalistic integrity and betrayed viewers’ trust by engaging in ethically questionable practices.

The coup de gras was delivered by The Guardian’s George Monbiot, who described CBC’s conduct as “grotesque” and “symptomatic of a much wider problem in journalism: those who are supposed to scrutinise the financial and political elite are embedded within it.”

(When CBC News honchos lost The Guardian — the news industry’s true paper of record — they surely knew the game was up.)

Read the full story.

CBC Exposed as talking a good game

Broadcaster's stars don't live up to ethics demanded of others.

If there was a single cow flop in the vast field of Canadian broadcasting, CBC managers would find a way to step in it.

Those making the decisions have shown over the past six months they have an exceptional ability to take a bad situation and make it immediately worse.

Their blunders have no doubt brought much joy to the hearts of those who have weathered being the subject of unflattering news stories.

They've also managed to bring much embarrassment to their own employees.

While the mismanagement and conflicts of interest were obvious, the CBC's response to all of them was the same tired, corporate dodge for which it routinely criticizes others.

The CBC talks a good game. It argues for transparency from governments and others it covers. Yet the corporation itself is about as transparent as a block of wood.

Read the full story.

Reader letter to cbc Exposed

Great website.

I have listened to CBC radio for around 40 years now and they certainly have lost their way. They are no longer a positive upbeat network meant to unite Canadians. Now they are a partisan political left wing group of propagandists that are a force that divides Canadians. Many of the radio personalities also try to dump all of the worlds troubles on our doorstep, trying to make us feel guilty. I don`t understand how the private broadcasters can sit by and watch how the CBC gets advertising revenue and taxpayers support without complaining. It is such an unfair advantage.

The CBC either needs to be privatized or completely reworked to ensure it is politically neutral and that it has a very limited budget to only provide basic things. It was a great network before the advent of satellite and the internet uniting a huge landmass but its time has come and gone. I also do not like how the CBC has created left wing stars like Gomeshi using my tax dollars.

The CBC has strayed from its mandate of being available to all Canadians. I cancelled my satellite TV service because it is too expensive. So now I only get one channel over the air here in Kelowna, Global TV, a private company. The CBC should be available over the air here too.

Before I saw your website and even before The Sun News network expose on the CBC, I had come to the conclusion that the CBC had been corrupted and ruined. The entire staff there should be fired.

Please keep up the good work.

Mark

Recent scandals plaguing CBC

Amanda Lang scandal legacy of CBC's long corporate metamorphosis.

The Lang affair comes hard on the heels of the debacle over the Jian Ghomeshi assault scandal.

Meanwhile, too many CBC hosts -- who are extremely well compensated to begin with -- were using their fame to make more money by giving speeches on the side. Both Rex Murphy and Peter Mansbridge were caught doing speeches for the oil industry.

The recent scandals that have plagued the broadcaster, brought on by its incompetent managers and toxic internal environment, further erode public trust in its existence.

Read the full story.

CBC President Hubert Lacroix "loved" Ghomeshi

CBC President Hubert Lacroix Comes To Concordia.

Lacroix spent most of his presentation polling the audience on whether they watch programs and newscasts from the CBC, and whether the students take advantage of their mobile platforms and services.

Following his presentation, Lacroix addressed the recent controversies surrounding the CBC, including the Jian Ghomeshi and Amanda Lang scandals.

On his relationship with Ghomeshi, the President said he “loved him” and connected him with as many people as he could within the CBC and Radio-Canada. Due to “legal issues,” his comments about the allegations were limited.

As for Amanda Lang, the CBC journalist who provided favourable coverage to two companies who offered her paid speaking engagements, Lacroix said that the CBC is considering the allowance of employees to possibly engage in paid appearances.

Days after his presentation at Concordia, the CBC announced that they would no longer allow their journalists to do any paid speaking appearances.

Read the full story.

Ethics complaint against CBC's Peter Mansbridge

Peter Mansbridge has found himself at the centre of an unlikely controversy, this time in his role as chancellor of Mount Allison University.

A man running for president of Mount A’s student union filed a complaint questioning Mr. Mansbridge’s ethics this month, after an opposing candidate claimed the CBC anchor’s endorsement in the race.

The CBC ombudsman investigated earlier complaints against Mr. Mansbridge for taking speaking fees, a practice the public broadcaster moved to curtail last week.

Read the full story.

Some CBC journalists earning prohibited speaking fees

As the latest chapter involving the extra-curricular activities of a very few of the CBC's most prominent journalists continues to unfold, let's be clear about the key element surrounding the cornerstone issue at play.

This is about "the money." And from that directly flows the story of the past several days.

So keep this in mind: a few of CBC's journalists are personally earning tens of thousands -- and in some cases perhaps more than a hundred thousand dollars -- in speaking fees annually in situations that are specifically identified as inappropriate and thus prohibited by the CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices and an updated policy statement of last spring.

However it is also critical to remember that the vast proportion of CBC's journalists and production and technical employees (who were my colleagues for 27 years) are repulsed by all this. It would never occur to them to take money from people they might cover as part of their job. They are embarrassed by what is taking place because it impugns their integrity and their sense of responsibility to the people of Canada.

Read the original Huffington Post article here.

Amanda Lang a liability at CBC

Put a fork in Amanda Lang. She’s cooked. The poster girl for privileged on-air talent at the CBC might not yet realize it, but her career inside the public broadcaster is doomed. Lang should forget about taking over Peter Mansbridge’s spot on The National when the CBC’s “chief correspondent” finally calls it quits.

Lang has become a liability at the CBC, an employer with very little patience for liabilities. Lang surely understood this when she penned that embarrassing 1,600-word paean to herself in The Globe and Mail last week in a bid to salvage her career. Perhaps she sought public redemption, some kind of outpouring of support. It didn’t work, at least not for nearly all of the 294 Globe readers who have commented so far. Almost universally, they dismissed Lang with acidic-laced derision and called for her to leave journalism.

Whispers abound inside the CBC that Lang may soon be disciplined for galloping off the range to the Globe again. Of course, the corridors of the CBC offices are pretty much always filled with whispers and intrigue.

Read the full article at iPolitics here.

CBC Exposed at odds with journalistic ethics

When shots rang on Parliament Hill, a nation sat rapt to its screens.

The CBC shined that fateful October day, burying a growing list of questions about sustainability, editorial independence and conflict-of-interest standards.

Or, so it seemed.

Mansbridge himself was at the centre of those queries, his appearances before oilsands associated groups raised concerns about his ability to cover one of the country’s most heated debates. Long-time CBC contributor Rex Murphy (also a National Post columnist, full disclosure) also faced questions about speaking to oilsands groups.

And now, months later, the Mother Corp. is again at odds with journalistic ethics as it fends off allegations chief business correspondent Amanda Lang tried to interfere with a story by fellow broadcaster Kathy Tomlinson about RBC using temporary foreign workers. The CBC staunchly denies Lang committed any wrong doing.

The Ghomeshi case uncovered cracks that were already spreading. In the ensuing weeks and months, stories have poured out of a culture that shielded Ghomeshi from serious claims of workplace harassment, and questions still linger about what the CBC’s top executives knew when about his alleged, repeated violence.

The lingering questions in Canadian minds about how and why Ghomeshi was hiding in plain sight for so long make other issues raised seem that much worse.

Of course, the ethical quandaries leveled at Mansbridge, Murphy and Lang are nowhere near as odious as the charges Ghomeshi faces.

Yet, there are parallels in the way in which CBC’s top brass has circled the wagons. Again, we see CBC head of public affairs Chuck Thompson correcting and re-correcting the facts.

Read the full story.