CBC host suspended after allegedly using racial slur

CBC host Wendy Mesley has been suspended from her position after she used a “word that should never be used” during an interaction with coworkers. 

The word she used has not been specified, but it was apparently said in the context of race. 

Mesley, who hosts The Weekly with Wendy Mesley, admitted to Canadaland that she used the word when “quoting a journalist” during a discussion about racism. 

The incident is alleged to have occurred while Mesley and others prepared for last Sunday’s episode on Black Lives Matter.

“In the context of an editorial discussion about current issues regarding race, I used a word that should never be used,” she said.

Read the full story here.

CBC decision-makers shortchanging local viewers

Wednesday, In the middle of a pandemic, the CBC quietly turned out the lights on “Here and Now” and other supper-hour news shows across the country.

CBC journalists were issued directives from their bosses to not tweet or complain publicly about it.

Twenty years ago — even 10 years ago — local CBC managers would have risked their jobs to fight back against an order to stay off the air. Instead, they spent the afternoon trying to shape and control the message.

Viewers expecting local news got cookie-cutter network coverage of the COVID-19 crisis. They were not able to see stories about their community told to them by the familiar faces they’ve come to know and trust over the years.

This decision is a preview of things to come. My former colleagues tell me there are the rumblings of budget cuts in the air. I fear that by the time this pandemic is over, CBC management will be able to justify the decision to centralize or cut local supper-hour programming entirely. It will be an easy decision to justify — CBC’s once loyal local viewers will finally have migrated en masse to the competition.

Read the full opinion piece here.

Do we need the CBC?

The CBC license is up for renewal and the debate is (again) on. Is it fair to keep public funding for this broadcaster? Or, more bluntly, do we need the CBC?

Let’s pretend that the CBC has more quality programs and the best product representing Canada. The question remains: why the CBC viewership is shrinking?

True, the shrinkage is common to the entire broadcasting sector, public and private, but for the CBC this is a chronic, old and more serious disease that predates the new technology.

Some argue that the production of quality programs comes with a price, so public funding is justified. Fine, they have public funding, but the question remains: why do they have less audience then most private broadcaster?

Why should we increase public financing for a broadcaster that has serious difficulties to fulfill its mandate? Why not invest more money in the new technology to better connect Canadians, especially those in remote areas?

Moreover, does it make sense that the more Canadian turn away from the CBC the more they are forced to pay for it?

Read the full story here.

Questioning the CBC code of journalistic practices

The following letter was copied to us by a long time follower who is questioning the CBC code of journalistic practices ... we agree completely.

_______________________

Jack Nagler

CBC Ombudsman

CBC Canada

May 29, 2020

Dear Mr. Nagler,

Please treat this email as an official complaint against the following CBC web page article:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-minneapolis-tweet-1.5589777

Trump tweet about Minneapolis protests slapped with Twitter warning | CBC News Twitter has added a warning to one of U.S. President Donald Trump's tweets about protests in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd in police custody, saying it violated the platform's rules ... www.cbc.ca

My complaint is as follows: As quoted in the offending article, Trump's tweet that drew the Twitter warning is as follows:

"...these THUGS are dishonoring of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!".

From this quote, it is clear that President Trump is speaking about looters and arsonists, and others engaging in violence. Yet the headline, and the article, states that Trump is referring to "protestors" in general. The vast majority of people protesting in Minneapolis are non-violent, engaging in peaceful demonstration . Only a small minority are engaging in violence.  It is only the small latter group Trump is referring to.

Yet the Associated Press, and the CBC, say that Trump is referring to "protest". This is in the CBC headline. It is in the first sentence: "...about protests in Minneapolis".  This is factually incorrect. In fact, President Trump retweeted a tweet from Lara Trump which reads as follows:

"Looting is not protesting. Burning down local homes and businesses is not protesting. How sad the memory of #GeorgeFloyd has been lost in all of this.

The CBC code of journalistic practices says that reporting should be accurate. Yet in this article, the Associated Press article, which the CBC web page is carrying, is not accurate. It falsely claims that Trump is referring to Protestors" and "protests" when he is in fact talking about violence.  

The above constitutes my complaint.

Hope you and family are safe and doing well during the quarantine.

Sincerely,

David Murrell

Fredericton, NB

CBC continues to operate as if it's still 1975

The cuts happening at CBC are simply a reflection of what has been happening at all Canadian media outlets for decades, thanks to the fragmentation of audiences brought on by technology.

Yet technology is a blessing, not a curse, particularly for media consumers. It has allowed audiences access to the world of news and entertainment in an instant, regardless of their geographical location.

That access to diverse voices and views has been delivered by the private sector, making CBC irrelevant in the 21st century. Furthermore, its very existence actually poses a threat to journalists and members of the media working in the private sector. As a government agency, CBC is competing with private sector media outlets for audience and those audiences have value or CBC would not be able to sell advertising on television or on Radio 2. Every audience member and advertising dollar CBC takes hurts the viability of local media outlets across the country (and the good-paying jobs those outlets provide), starting locally with the Prince George Citizen and the four local private radio stations and one local TV station.

Read the full story here.

CBC temporarily scraps local TV newscasts

The CBC temporarily scrapped most of its local TV newscasts to consolidate resources at CBC News Network amid the COVID-19 crisis on Wednesday - a move the premier of Prince Edward Island said should be reversed to keep remote and vulnerable communities informed during the pandemic.

Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King said he was “incredibly disappointed” in the move, and planned to speak with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and formally ask Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault to intervene and reverse the decision.

“With the health and safety of Islanders at the forefront, it is vital that we continue to share the latest information with Islanders in real time,” King said in a statement.

“It is my opinion that now is not the time for the CBC to suspend its local news programming.”

Daniel Bernhard, executive director at watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, called it “a pretty inopportune time to suspend service.”

Read the full story here.

5 times CBC spread fake news about COVID-19

From attacking dissident Chinese journalists to parroting World Health Organization talking points, here are five times that the state broadcaster CBC made fools of themselves during the coronavirus pandemic.

CBC ad sales revenue plunges 53%

A shrinking CBC television audience has left the CBC with plunging advertising revenues, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

In the first six months of 2019, the CBC generated advertising revenues of $90.9 million, according to the public broadcaster’s second-quarter financial report. That is slightly less than the $92.8 million the broadcaster collected in ad revenue during the same time frame in 2017.

However, the amount the CBC collected from ad sales plunged 53% during the last five years. The Crown corporation raked in $192.2 million in the first six months of 2014.

The corporation receives $1.2 billion annually from the Canadian government.

Read the full story here.

Canadians are ditching CBC

Did you know that across Canada, over a total of 27 stations coast to coast, the average audience for CBC’s supper hour newscast was 329,000 people? That’s not 329,000 people per market, that is across the country.

Compare that to just one of CTV’s local supper hour newscasts, CFTO in Toronto, which averaged 1.4 million viewers per night in the first week of 2020. That doesn’t include other major markets like Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary or Ottawa where CTV outstrips CBC. It doesn’t include Global News, which is dominant in Western Canada and like CTV doesn’t take a $1.5 billion per year subsidy from the taxpayers.

These CBC ratings aren’t numbers that I’ve made up, they were contained in CBC’s most recent annual report and highlighted by Ottawa-based media outlet Blacklock’s Reporter.

Read the full story here.

Official complaint to CBC

One of our readers passed this on to post:
___________________________________________

Jack Nagler

Ombudsman

CBC

May 19, 2019

Dear Mr. Nagler,

Please treat this email as an official complaint.

My complaint is as follows: the CBC  news web page did not report on the release of a study -- by the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China -- documenting on Chinese government intimidation of Chinese-Canadian dissident groups in Canada. The study can be accessed via the Amnesty International Canada web page, here:

 https://www.amnesty.ca/news/human-rights-defenders-increasingly-face-threats-intimidation-over-china-advocacy-report

Human rights defenders increasingly face threats, intimidation over China advocacy: report Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China says Canadian government’s inadequate response emboldens pro-Beijing actors OTTAWA – Advocates across Canada are increasingly facing threats, intimidation, and harassment for sounding the alarm on serious human rights concerns in China, according to a new report. The Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China, a coalition of Canada-based civil society organizations with a specific focus on the place of human rights in Canada’s foreign policy with China, released the report today. www.amnesty.ca

I did a search of the CBC web site, using the term "Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in Canada", and could not find any article. Other national media in Canada covered the story.

 I contend that the issue of intimidation of various Chinese-Canadian dissidents in Canada is important, and should be covered by CBC News. This study, promoted by Amnesty International Canada, offers a rather exhaustive and complete discussion of recent intimidation tactics by the government of China. I specifically refer to the CBC web page -- but my complain could be broadened to include other CBC media (TV and radio), if you can find that these latter media were negligent in reporting on this study.

The above constitutes my complaint.

I might add that the CBC web page recently published two attack articles against the Epoch Times Canada, perhaps the leading house organ for Chinese-Canadian dissidents in Canada:

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/epoch-times-coronavirus-bioweapon-1.5548217

and

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-post-federal-government-epoch-times-1.5549462

I am not lodging a complaint against these latter two articles. But what I am complaining is that, on balance, looking at what was published and what was NOT published in the CBC web page, during this recent period, CBC news chose to ignore the concerns of the Chinese-Canadian dissident community.

Sincerely,

David Murrell (PhD)

Fredericton, NB

CBC seeks ratings from uninspiring game show

No doubt there’s a multitude of Canadian channel surfers who accidentally find themselves watching CBC’s old-is-new again but supposedly advertiser-friendly, Family Feud Canada, hosted by Gerard Francis Donoghue.

That’s Gerry Dee, for CBC non-watchers, the Toronto gym teacher turned stand-up comedian who has hosted a number of forgettable CBC shows — forgettable because I have never watched one of them to the end.

Read the full story here.

SUCCESS! Radio-Canada Deletes Article

On April 28, HonestReporting Canada filled a complaint directly with Radio-Canada Ombudsman Guy Gendron calling for immediate corrective action after our public broadcaster’s French-arm published a report blaming Israel exclusively for Gaza’s plight in fighting the Corona virus.

On May 12, CBC Radio-Canada responded to our concerns via email acknowledging that their reporting fundamentally violated CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices, while acknowledging that their article lacked balance and was therefore unfair.

Read the full story here.

CBC Exposed is a call to action

CBC Exposed is a book like no other. 

This book takes on the holy grail of the Canadian media landscape and lays bare the truth about CBC. 

Reckless reporting at the state broadcaster has ruined lives and cost taxpayers millions upon millions in settlement costs yet no one has ever been held to account. 

This book does what the consensus media cowards are afraid to do, tell the truth about CBC. From reporting driven by vendettas to outright biases against conservatives, gun owners, Israel and any other group that doesn't fit their vision of Canada.

CBC Exposed is a call to action to rein in this broadcasting giant. 

Click here.

CBC suspends local TV newscasts

Local news is vital. It provides an essential service, especially in times of emergency. People rely on local broadcasters to provide them up-to-the-minute information told by local journalists.

So what does the CBC do during an unprecedented public health crisis? It shuts it all down.

Read more here.

CBC staff members can be heard laughing ...

Two CBC staff members can be heard laughing and casually conversing while fallen military members are carried off in coffins. Disrespectful ...
https://twitter.com/TrueNorthCentre/status/1258240461992611842

CBC wants more money to broadcast less Canadian content

Imagine that you ran a business where you gave a key employee a raise — not a small one but a significant pay hike — and the worker turned around and said that he or she should do less work for more money.

That is what CBC is doing to the Canadian taxpayer right now.

After getting a boost from taxpayers under the Trudeau Liberals, the state broadcaster is asking to broadcast less Canadian content. Or, as I like to say, they want to do less of what we pay them for while taking more of our money.

Read the full story here.

CBC targets independent news outlet

CBC is under fire after publishing a hostile article targeting an independent media outlet founded by members of a highly-persecuted Chinese religious minority for its accurate reporting on China.

The Epoch Times was established in 2000 by Chinese immigrants attempting to shed light on the abuse and censorship of members of the Falun Dafa/Gong religion in mainland China. It has been a mainstay of anti-Chinese state censorship, often publishing whistleblower accounts of human rights abuses taking place within the nation. 

CBC’s article claimed “Canadians were upset” by the receipt of an unsolicited copy of The Epoch Times in the mail, calling it “racist and inflammatory” and accusing the paper of peddling conspiracy theories that the coronavirus may have been created in a lab.

Read the full story here.

CBC Intentionally Excludes Crucial Facts

The Epoch Times recently published a special edition on how Beijing’s coverup of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan led to the global pandemic with the front-page headline “How the Chinese Communist Party Endangered the World.” It’s an eight-page collection of Epoch Times articles distributed to select areas in Canada, as we believe it contains important information for Canadians to have.

On April 29, CBC published an article devoted to this special edition that is deliberately misleading and intentionally excludes crucial information we provided to CBC prior to the publication of its article. The sole purpose seems to be to discredit The Epoch Times and our reporting on the coronavirus.

Read the full story here.

CBC attacked by former Liberal minister

At this point, the CBC has become rather used to criticism from the Canadian right. This time, however, even a former Liberal minister has questioned their journalistic independence.

Ujjal Dosanjh, a former Liberal minister and premier of British Columbia, was referencing a CBC interview with Dr. Theresa Tam where she failed to surprise anyone by saying her response to the pandemic was not perfect. Talk about an understatement.

This interview, however, has been broadly criticized. Norman Spector, a journalist and diplomat, said that unlike BBC presenters, "Rosemary Barton kept agreeing with Dr. Tam."

Using a course comparison, Spector went on to say that "On the BBC, Maitlis interrupts bullsh*t on average every 28 seconds and Husain every 46 seconds; on CBC, Barton spends her time polishing Trudeau's turds."

Dosanjh followed Spector's lead by saying, "such softball interviews do make people wonder about the journalistic independence of CBC." This former Liberal's criticism may come as a shock to the ever-sensitive Barton.

Rosemary Barton has long been accused of possessing a Liberal bias. Amongst other errors, Barton has argued that deficits don't matter; said that the SNC-Lavalin scandal was unimportant; defended Trudeau's poor participation in parliament; and took a infamous selfie with the prime minister.

Read the full story here.

CBC Comedy has grown stale

It wasn’t so long ago that the CBC was known as the Canadian home of strong satire and sketch.  The CBC helped launch the careers of iconic comedians like Dan Aykroyd, Andrea Martin, John Candy, and Martin Short.

But now, when Canada needs a compelling comedic voice more than ever, the CBC’s output has largely grown stale and irrelevant. 

So why has our country’s national comedy hub grown so fallow?

Read the full story here.

CBC ordered to pay up all compensation

After seven long years of waiting for the conclusion of her arbitration to protest her exclusion from the CBC, Brenda Levy, our member from Ottawa, can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Arbitrator Serge Brault released on March 31, 2020, an eighty pages award on the quantum to be paid out to Brenda as compensation for various losses and damages suffered concerning the termination of her employment on April 30^, 2013. Brenda Levy has always maintained that her job cut was the result of a move by the Corporation to punish her for standing up for her rights rather than a true redundancy job cut as was alleging the CBC. It was on November 12, 2018, that the Arbitrator declared the CBC had violated the collective agreement and that the alleged redundancy was, in fact, an illegal dismissal.

In his award on the quantum Arbitrator, Brault has ordered the CBC to pay up all compensation with interests within 30 days. This would bring final closure to this long-standing procedure. Will this new decision be the subject of yet another legal procedure preventing justice from being rendered diligently? 

Read the full story here.

CBC accused by Quebecor

One of the largest private media companies in Quebec has written a scathing letter to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission claiming the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is trying to put its competitors out of business in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The letter from Quebecor, dated April 14, alleges, among other things, predatory behaviour on the part of the CBC in the advertising market and comes as the CBC seeks the renewal of its television and radio licences from the CRTC.

Read the full story here.

CBCs Rosemary Barton Defends Trudeau Again

Despite already being seen as incredibly biased by millions of Canadians, Rosemary Barton continues to act more like the PMO communications department than like someone who is supposed to be a neutral public broadcaster.

The only ridiculous thing here is Barton once again failing to recognize the job of the media. The media is supposed to speak the truth and hold the powerful to account. Instead, Barton acts like she’s trying to defend the government, and attack the Opposition.

Read the full story here.

Kids Instructed By CBC On How to Shut Down Their Parents

A CBC News report gives kids advice on how to shut down “conspiracy theories” voiced by their parents about coronavirus being created by China in a lab.

Because apparently that’s the media’s job now.

The presenter laments how somebody’s Dad may drop a message into chat blaming China for “manufacturing the coronavirus” with a “link to a site you’ve never heard of” (translation – a link that’s not, God forbid, mainstream media).

The piece then features a woman from a group that combats “misinformation online” who urges the son or daughter not to get confrontational with their Dad but to accuse him of being accurate and stirring fear.

At one point in the piece, the reporter even suggests that conspiracy theories can be “just as dangerous as a virus.”

The suggested article unsurprisingly comes from the CBC and is entitled ‘No, the new coronavirus wasn’t created in a lab, scientists say.’

Read the full story here.

The clip CBC didn't want you to see

Here is the clip the CBC didn't want you to see.

pic.twitter.com/MyubxOuByV

Canada faces an existential crisis with CBC

The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act of 1932 is the constitution of this country’s cultural sovereignty, a declaration that the population north of the 49th parallel would have its own culture and cover its own news. 

We are in different times and different technologies, but we would do well to remind ourselves of our founding principles.

Lost on the seas of new technologies, we need our compass – because we are facing the digital deluge.

The public broadcaster is weak and endangered. The business model for private broadcasters in Canada is perilous.

We are in an existential crisis.

Read the full story here.

CBC jobs depend on getting Liberals elected,

In the Twitter world stalked relentlessly by journalists, there was a significant flap over the weekend when the esteemed CBC foreign correspondent, Neil Macdonald, now retired, posted that CBC jobs were wholly dependent upon keeping the Liberals happy.

It began when Conservative Sen. Linda Frum posted a video on Twitter of the Commons’ emergency debate that showed CBC anchor, Rosie Barton, suddenly cutting away just as Conservative mucker-upper Pierre Poilievre was delivering a tough question to the PM about when he knew about COVID-19.

Barton, he explained, had a content boss ordering her via her earpiece to cut away from Poilievre to save the Liberals from getting hammered on live TV.

“I remember the commissars telling us that our jobs depended on getting Liberals elected,” he  tweeted. “When some of us protested that the Liberals under Paul Martin made the deepest cuts to CBC budgets ever, I had to take a series of classes and sign a revised NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement).”

Read the full story here.

Erin O’Toole promising to effectively end CBC’s English-language public broadcasting operation

Conservative leadership candidate Erin O’Toole is promising to effectively end CBC’s English-language public broadcasting operation, except for radio. But he says he won’t cut Radio-Canada, CBC’s French-language division.

O’Toole went on to attack the Liberals for increasing CBC’s operating funding after they were elected in 2015. The 2016 federal budget promised an extra $150 million annually for the CBC through 2021. That more than reversed the cuts imposed by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, which in 2012 had slashed CBC funding by $115 million over three years.
Read the full story here.

CBC’s viewership is plunging

CBC has one of the biggest advantages ever enjoyed by a ‘media organization.’

Not only are they state-controlled and state-funded, but they also get revenue from private sector ads.

Yet, despite all of their advantages, they’re still failing.

Apparently, if you don’t have content people want to watch, it won’t work out well.

As reported by Blacklocks CBC’s ad revenue is down 53% in the last five years.

A key reason for the loss of ad revenue is because CBC’s viewership is plunging.

Read the full story here.

CBC’s propaganda line is a disgrace

CBC has generated massive outrage with their horrendous ‘coverage’ of Iran shooting down a flight carrying 63 Canadian Citizens.

Despite the obvious fact that Iran is responsible since they are the country that shot down the plane, CBC disgustingly tried to blame the United States:

“In a disgraceful propaganda attempt, CBC is attempting to blame US President Donald Trump for Iran’s shooting down of Flight 752 carrying 63 Canadians.

CBC Reporter Katie Simpson said “63 Canadians dead because of the unintended consequences of a decision made by the US President.”’

Read the full story here.