CBC Exposed - serious defamation

Leenen v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp., 2000 CanLII 22380 (ON SC)

In February 1996, the defendant CBC aired a one-hour documentary on the fifth estate on a controversial heart medication known as nifedipine, a calcium channel blocker ("CCB").

The plaintiff agreed to be interviewed for the program. When he asked what topics would be discussed, he was told that the interviewer would be interested in his views on the science of CCBs was well-known within the scientific community. He had written an article in which he concluded that there was clear evidence demonstrating short-term nifedipine to be detrimental to patients with coronary artery disease. The article pointed out that the evidence with respect to the longer acting formulation was limited. The plaintiff provided the CBC with a copy of this article. He gave a lengthy interview in which he discussed the science of CCBs. Most of that interview was not used in the program. The general tenor of the program was that an extremely dangerous drug was being prescribed for unsuspecting heart patients and that the plaintiff defended the drug and accepted perks from a pharmaceutical company.

In light of the systematic reporting of one side of the story, the significant omissions of important information which was contrary to the program's thesis, and the deliberate refraining from making inquiries or allowing the plaintiff a fair opportunity to defend himself, the defendants clearly acted maliciously and in bad faith towards the plaintiff.

When the program was broadcast, the plaintiff was a highly respected research scientist and also carried on an active clinical practice. As a scientist, his integrity and credibility were fundamental to his work. His reputation had been earned over many years and was precious. The program struck at the very core of his being in questioning his scientific credibility, his integrity and his commitment. He was shocked and devastated and felt that his reputation for integrity had been destroyed. It was significant that his accuser was the CBC and not a tabloid to which no one would have paid very much attention. The program reached over a million viewers and a further four hundred thousand when it was rebroadcast on Newsworld. Taking into account the seriousness of the defamation, the breadth of the publication and its source, the republication, the standing of the victim and the nature of his reputation at the time of the broadcast, this was as serious a libel as could be imagined.

Read the full judgement here.

CBC should find new funding options

A Senate committee is calling on Canada's public broadcaster to publicly disclose how much employees make and ensure non-executives aren't getting paid more than their peers in private broadcasting.

The Senate's communications committee is also calling on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to find new ways to fund its operations in order to limit the amount of funding it receives from the federal government.

The committee says it's time to update the Broadcasting Act, noting the legislation hasn't been updated since the "pre-smartphone, pre-multi-platform" era of 1991.

The Senate report also references scandals involving former radio host Jian Ghomeshi and business correspondent Amanda Lang in calling for stricter policies to prevent problems, rather than having to react after they become public.

Read the full story.

CBC Amanda Lang should resign

Here’s an idea that’s probably going nowhere but let’s try it anyway – CBC’s Amanda Lang could get down off her high horse and resign. Enough with the haughty umbrage.

CBC could help her down from the high horse and achieve some closure on the matter of Lang’s allegedly compromised reporting and interviewing. But that’s another idea that’s going nowhere. CBC’s umbrage is even haughtier than Lang’s. It changed its regulations too late. Barn door closed after the horse left.

Read the full story.

Exposed - CBC to sell everything

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s financially troubled public broadcaster, has plans to sell all of its properties and buildings across the entire country.

Every single property will be sold – no stone will be left unturned. This includes the Toronto headquarters, Montreal studio, and the recently renovated and expanded Vancouver studio.

If the fire sale plan moves forward, the CBC would have to pay rent for the remainder of its existence – it might provide a short-term reprieve, but it would drastically increase its already tight annual operating budget.

The plan to sell off all of its property across the country is a last-ditch attempt for the broadcaster to save itself.

It is clear that the CBC is putting all cards on the table to save itself: there is nothing to lose.

Read the full story.

CBC is promised millions MORE of taxpayer dollars

Disclaimer: Photo is not associated with the National Post story below.

With his ex-broadcaster wife at his side, Justin Trudeau adopted his best “looking into the future” expression and pledged a king’s ransom to Schitt’s Creek and Definitely Not the Opera.

“A new Liberal government will invest $150 million in new annual funding for the CBC,” said the Liberal leader as the Montreal crowd around him cheered.

Somewhere among the spectators, a CBC reporter or two tried to look nonchalant: It’s always hard to look objective when a politician has just promised to give you millions of dollars.

And such is the endless quandary faced by the national broadcaster when covering elections. Unlike CTV, Global or pretty much any other media outlet covering the 2015 election, it is empirically in CBC’s best interest if the Conservatives lose on Oct. 19.

Read the full story National Post story here.

PS - Did you know the CBC now gets over $1 BILLION/year in taxpayer funding already?

CBC Special Examination

Under section 138 of the Financial Administration Act, federal Crown corporations are subject to a special examination once every 10 years. A special examination could be done earlier than the 10-year timeline, as a result of a request by the Office, the Minister, the Board, or the Governor in Council.

A few interesting observations from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Special Examination Report—2013 by Canada's Auditor General:

• We looked at whether CBC/Radio-Canada has a formal security management process in place. We found that although the Corporation has key systems and practices in place, it does not show consistency in the way it handles sensitive information that is normally considered to be classified or protected under federal government policy.
• Frequent movement of senior personnel in People and Culture poses the risk of loss of corporate memory and inconsistency in approaches, including adjustments in strategic plans and attention to performance management. In our view, the lack of consistent management could adversely affect the Corporation’s ability to implement and advance its human resource initiatives.
• Since 2008, the Corporation has had four different human resources strategic plans. It is appropriate to update plans in response to changing conditions. However, the lack of stability regarding strategic direction over a relatively short period increases the risk that the organization spends more time and energy on planning instead of implementing initiatives and moving forward.

Read the full audit here.

Exposed - was NHL a CBC Cash Cow?

The following numbers were taken from the most recent quarterly financial reports as published by the CBC (for the 3 months ended June 30, 2015):

Revenue:

$118,521,000 - same period in 2014 was $192,592,000 ... a decrease of 38.5 %

Excuse:  After Rogers acquired the NHL broadcast rights in June 2014, no revenue was generated from hockey playoffs during the first three months of this year, largely contributing to the decrease in English Services’ revenue. 

Operating Expenses:

$364,808,000 - same period in 2014 was $469,521,000 ... a decrease of 22.3 %

Reason: English Services incurred rights and production costs related to the hockey playoffs during the first quarter of last year. No such costs were incurred in 2015-2016, as our contract with the NHL ended at the end of June 2014.

Bottom line:  There is a whopping 38.5 % decrease in revenue (contributed to loss of NHL) and a corresponding decrease in Operating Expenses of a much lower 22.3 % (again associated with the loss of NHL).   

Was the NHL as big a cash cow for the CBC as this indicates?  Why sell it?

Read the full report here.

Exposé of CBC Manager Politics

Fred Litwin's new book: "Conservative Confidential: Inside the Fabulous Blue Tent" contains a chapter on the CBC that is "an exposé of the politics driving senior CBC managers" ...

Following is a short exert from that chapter:

Examining the structural, cultural and institutional biases of the CBC would be a daunting challenge. The CBC is a huge organization with almost $2 billion in revenues (roughly 60 per cent coming from the federal treasury) and about 7,000 employees providing radio, television and online services in the two official languages as well as eight aboriginal languages. We could have easily made our film about a host of problems at the CBC — it’s Toronto-centricity, its anti-Americanism, its obsession with identity politics, its cultural insularity, and so on and so forth. We decided to focus on the CBC’s bias against Israel and its bias against small ‘c’ and large ‘C’ conservatives. But it was the CBC’s antipathy to Israel that was most egregious.

I contacted Mike Fegelman of HonestReporting Canada and he sent me a USB stick with 120 clips from a variety of CBC shows. We spent hours searching YouTube, and several bloggers sent us ideas and video. We spent the whole summer watching, downloading and editing videos, adding titles and subtitles and writing commentary. By the time fall had arrived, we had produced a 50-minute documentary, This Hour Could Have 10,000 Minutes: The Biases of the CBC.

With revenues of $1.9 billion, of which 60 per cent comes from government, the CBC and Radio-Canada maintains more than 100 stations (88 radio and 27 TV). But specialty TV is the fastest growing broadcast category. Internet advertising now exceeds all television advertising. Residential TV subscriber numbers are in decline. A huge fragmentation of audiences is under way. Of the top 100 TV programs in Canada by 2014, only 23 were Canadian-produced and one-third of Anglophone Canadians had embraced Netflix.

The Broadcasting Act of 1991 mandates its two “primary tools,” the CBC and the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. Section 3 of the Act covers the CBC, and part of its mandate is to “reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions.”

That is where the CBC is losing sight of its mission. The ivory tower on Front Street in Toronto not only makes the CBC Toronto-centric, but it blinds them to the needs and requirements of people across the country.

To see more and get a copy of the book please click here.

CBC consistently losing market share despite taxpayer subsidy

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.

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.

I have several friends in the journalism industry, and they all report the same reality – that everyone wants a CBC job because they are better-paying and much more cushy in terms of benefits and expectations. While this might be great for the unionized workers at CBC, it is definitely not advantageous to the average Canadian. Nor is it fair to the other networks that compete with the CBC. Why should the Canadian taxpayer fit the bill for salaries that are driving up costs in the market? It is the classic private-public dilemma, and balance desperately needs to be restored.

Read the full story here.

CBC accused of attempting to reverse decades of settled law

On March 16th, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) heard oral arguments in CBC v SODRAC . The issue centers on whether broadcasters should be required to pay royalties on ephemeral or incidental copies of audiovisual works that are created during the process of making a final copy for broadcast. 

CBC submits that SODRAC is the first copyright holder to “attempt to monetize broadcast-incidental copies…[which is] a subversion of the purpose of the Copyright Act in an attempt to generate economic rents through a layer licensing scheme.

The SODRAC factum on the other hand contends that CBC is attempting “to reverse decades of settled law” and does not mince words in its opening paragraphs:

This appeal amounts to an attempt by CBC to persuade this Court, through a misuse of the principle of technological neutrality, to upset the existing statutory balance in relation to broadcast-incidental copies and to substitute its own policy preferences for those of Parliament, enabling CBC to escape liability for copies it is making and deriving benefits from, and that it has been making and paying for, for decades.

Read the complete story here.

Exposed - CBC appeared to be editorializing in a news piece

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 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.

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 complaint and review here.

Exposed - CBC and Canadian defamation law

Tort law surrounding defamation law does not directly curb your right to free expression; it is not illegal per se. Rather, defamation is generally about paying damages to people that have been harmed by your speech. You can still say whatever you want, but you may have to pay for it (and you may have to pay a lot).

Key rulings in Canadian defamation law: 

In Leenan v CBC and Myers v CBC , the CBC was ordered to pay damages to two cardiologists who were wrongly portrayed in a negative light on a CBC program, showing that both Crown corporations and broadcasters of defamatory content, including broadcasters of content created by others, can also be liable for defamation.

Read the full story and see more examples here.

CBC drops more TV stations

CBC has ended its relationship with a number of local over-the-air television stations, exposing deep rifts in Canada’s broadcast landscape.

The CRTC announced Thursday that CHEX-TV in Peterborough, Channel 12 in Oshawa and CKWS-TV in Kingston would be ending their affiliation with CBC and entering into a “program supply agreement” with CTV beginning Aug. 31.

Gregory Taylor, a University of Calgary researcher and expert on over-the-air television, said the CBC has rapidly been moving away from free over-the-air programming and towards online mobile content as part of its digital-first strategy.

As the CBC continues to drop local over-the-air affiliates, private networks are picking them up. Taylor said private broadcasters like CTV stand to gain more by airing their programming in local networks.

Read the full story.

Petition to scrap the CBC

In the current election both the NDP and Liberal's say they will increase funding to the CBC if elected.

The National Citizen's Coalition believes differently.
..............................................................................................................................

It is time to scrap the CBC and sell off its assets to the highest bidder.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation STILL receives more than $1billion dollars of government funding each and every year.

That's right - more than $1 billion public dollars a year goes to supporting a broadcasting corporation whose market share continues to decline. This is not value for taxpayers, and we want to put an end to it.

At the NCC we are currently producing radio commercials to spread the word about this campaign and to build support for our petition, which you can find below.

Click here to read more and sign their petition!

Exposed - Promises for CBC Funding Revisited

During the 1997 election, Liberal policy again cited the important nation-building role of CBC and called for stable funding.

THE LIBERAL RECORD ON THE CBC

Oct 31, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 31, 2000

Jean Chrétien’s Liberals may be set to offer Canadians election goodies to improve CBC, but can we count on them to deliver?  Their record gives cause for doubt. 

This will not be the first time Mr. Chrétien has made big promises about CBC.  During the 1993 election, seven years ago, almost to the day, Mr. Chrétien promised a Liberal government would provide CBC long term stable funding.  The now famous Liberal Red Book contained this empty commitment:

“A Liberal government will be committed to stable, multiyear financing for national cultural institutions such as the Canada Council and the CBC”.

After winning a majority government in 1993, the Liberals went to work on the CBC.  During the next four years CBC’s budget was cut faster and deeper than any most other departments or agencies of government.  When the dust had settled by 1997, CBC funding had been cut by more than $400 million – or about 33%.  The Liberals' post-election cuts to CBC even exceeded the Reform Party’s 1993 campaign promise to cut $365 million from CBC.

“There will not be a promise that I make in the campaign that I will not keep." - Jean Chrétien, September 10, 1993 Read the full story.

CBC sexual harassment investigation costing taxpayers

Two bungled sexual harassment investigations — the CBC versus Jian Ghomeshi and inside the federal Liberal party — are both playing out in the public eye at taxpayer expense. In both cases, we taxpayers are getting awfully paltry “bang for our buck,” since both investigations are already being handled abysmally and have a strong likelihood of coming up short.

The Ghomeshi story is morphing from concern about the host’s conduct into evolving disquiet as to whether his behaviour was covered up by CBC management, and how pervasive the culture of harassment may be at the CBC.

The CBC conducting its own investigation is like putting a fox in charge of solving an abused-chicken case.

The federal government should be the one investigating its Crown corporation, letting chips fall where they may. Unlike the CBC, the government has no ostensible interest, other than protecting taxpayers and CBC employees.

Read the full story.

CBC's Amanda Lang scandal

A new scandal blew up at the CBC this week when the website Canadaland published an exposé charging that Amanda Lang, the broadcaster's senior business reporter and host of The Exchange, tried to sabotage an investigative story the CBC produced about abuses committed by the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) over the temporary foreign worker program (TFWP).

But in the rollout of the story, Canadaland alleges that Lang tried to dismiss the story's importance by arguing that what the RBC was doing was merely outsourcing (in itself, a dreadful practise).

In fact, there were a number of things the CBC producers involved in the story didn't know about Lang's surprising intervention, namely: 1) She had been paid up to $15,000 a pop to conduct speaking engagements at RBC-sponsored events; and 2) She was involved in a romantic relationship with a member of the RBC's board of directors, W. Geoffrey Beattie.

The Lang affair comes hard on the heels of the debacle over the Jian Ghomeshi assault scandal (also broken by Canadaland's owner, journalist Jesse Brown). But while the Ghomeshi affair revealed the craven efforts of CBC's management to protect one of their stars in the face of numerous allegations of assaulting women, the Lang affair speaks to the issue of how the CBC has, in effect, increasingly become a mouthpiece for big business and neo-conservative ideologues.

Read the full story.

CBC Fifth Estate Loses Libel Lawsuit

Try swallowing a damages award of $950,000 and a costs award over $800,000 as the CBC had to in the libel lawsuit brought by Dr. Frans Leenan.

After winning his case in Ontario’s Superior Court, Dr. Leenen said, ‘Four years ago we proposed to settle this law suit for $10,000 and an on-air apology. It was refused…The Fifth Estate persisted and took me through 10 weeks of trial.’

The trial judge awarded very high damages for libel against The Fifth Estate and the CBC as well as individual reporters and producers. The CBC appealed. Ontario’s Court of Appeal disagreed with the CBC, and ruled that Dr. Leenen had been libelled. Finally, the CBC tried to take the case to Canada’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court ruled against the CBC in February, with yet another costs award. Dr. Leenen’s long legal journey is over. The case should be a lesson for documentary producers and journalists everywhere.

Read the full story.

Exposed - CBC may be sold

WikiLeaks Reveals the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and Canada Post May Be Sold Under TPP Agreement.

The CBC Ottawa Broadcast Centre and head office of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Sparks Street in Ottawa. A confidential letter published by WikiLeaks on Wednesday reveal that the Crown Corporation could be sold under the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Photo: OBERT MADONDO/The Canadian Progressive

A secret letter leaked by WikiLeaks on Wednesday reveals that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and Canada Post could be sold under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, being negotiated by Canada and 11 other countries this week in Maui, Hawaii.

Read the full story here.

Exposed - CBC in showdown with Federal Government

The CBC is warning the federal government that its efforts to control salary negotiations at the Crown agency could be at odds with the Broadcasting Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, leading to litigation.

The government's budget bill would require the CBC, and other government agencies, to seek a mandate to negotiate and "submit to the minister responsible a draft document setting out the general components of a policy on remuneration and conditions of employment."

The government has presented the measure as part of efforts to control costs at a time of fiscal austerity, bringing Crown corporations under the same broad restraint program that has been imposed on public servants.

The proposed measure has drawn fire from other sources, most notably from the union representing CBC employees ...

Read the full story here.

Creative bookkeeping at CBC?

There's a feud brewing between Canada's public broadcaster and a group of Senators, as a Senate committee tries to find the answer to the CBC's financial troubles.

The ongoing showdown between CBC and the Senate committee tasked with digging into the way it operates reached a head this week when members of the committee sniffed at a submitted document that they claimed whitewashed the amount being paid to its employees.

The Senate committee on transport and communications voted to officially receive a document on Tuesday that detailed the salaries of employees of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which was neither organized in any manageable fashion nor, according to some senators, entirely fulsome in its details.

According to Postmedia News, the document noted that the maximum salary scale for CBC News' chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge was $80,485.22.

Perhaps little would have come from the CBC’s salary list, if not for the claim that Peter Mansbridge, the face of CBC News, makes less than $85,000 a year. It is an idea that defies common sense. Mansbridge is making less than market value, or perhaps some creative bookkeeping is in play.

Read the full story.

Lack of Vision for CBC

The future of broadcasting has emerged as a hot issue with Canada’s broadcast regulator effectively putting everything up for grabs as part of its comprehensive TalkTV review of broadcasting regulation. Acknowledging the dramatic shift in the way Canadians access and interact with broadcasting, reforms to seemingly untouchable policies such as simultaneous substitution, genre protection, and over-the-air broadcasting are all on the table.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has effectively acknowledged that the world has changed and policies based on a different landscape merit a review. In the current market, scarcity has given way to abundance and broadcasters have ceded considerable control to consumers’ demands to watch what they want, when they want.

Indeed, given the many changes in the broadcast environment, the necessity for a public broadcaster that is not dramatically different from the myriad of private choices is not entirely clear. The private sector offers equally compelling news programming and strong sports coverage. The CBC frequently emphasizes the need for a domestic voice and perspective, but today Canadians are empowered to do this on their own.

There are legal restrictions that render a fundamental rethinking of the CBC enormously difficult. While no one has all the answers, starting with the view that what ails the CBC is primarily a lack of funding demonstrates a lack of vision and misses the broadcast revolution that is well underway.

Read the full story.