Roundup: A fundamental misunderstanding of the profession

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, it’s time once again to look askance at some particularly poor reporting choices by a particular CBC reporter. He has developed quite a pattern and reputation for writing stories about judicial appointments which are skewed toward a certain predilection for creating moral panics, and this really false notion that people are essentially buying judicial nominations with party donations, which is both absurd and not how the system works. And along the way, he mischaracterised comments made by the then-president of the Canadian Bar Association, which I had to go about correcting.

In this particular instance, he is remarking that a new judicial nomination Quebec is a lawyer who argued the case on behalf of opponents of Bill 21 in the province (and didn’t win because the judge noted that the provincial government pre-emptively applied the Notwithstanding Clause). But the entire framing of the story and its implicit narrative is that this is a political appointment for the intention of either tweaking at François Legault, or of signalling federal opposition to the law, which is again absurd, and a completely bizarre understanding of how things work in the legal system.

Let me offer this reminder: lawyers make arguments on behalf of their clients. They don’t need to believe those arguments or subscribe to the beliefs of their clients—they simply need to argue on their behalf. The fact that this lawyer argued on behalf of these clients in opposition to this law should be immaterial to the fact that he applied to be a judge, and it should not be a determining factor in the decision to appoint him. But it does fit the narrative that this particular reporter likes to portray about how judicial appointments work, and the fact that the gods damned CBC is letting him spin this particular narrative and not squashing it for being both wrong and unprofessional is troubling, and makes me wonder what the hell is going on with their editorial standards.

Good reads:

  • The new lockdown benefits are now in effect—but the criteria are restrictive enough that nobody can currently access them.
  • Marie-Claude Bibeau announced $28 million in supports for PEI potato farmers until they can lift US export restrictions, plus plans to salvage the current crop.
  • Mélanie Joly has tested positive for COVID and is isolating.
  • There has been a sharp increase in the number of government payments being misdirected into the wrong bank accounts.
  • The military prosecutor says that he expects 29 sexual misconduct cases to remain in the military justice system, with the consent of the victims involved.
  • The military ombudsman is warning that the military’s grievance system is broken, with one case in particular waiting nearly nine years to be heard.
  • The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association thinks the government needs to build millions of EV charging stations ,not just the 65,000 they are planning.
  • House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota reflects on the Winnipeg lab document dispute, and doing his job as Speaker around it.
  • The Star has a year-ender interview with Jagmeet Singh.
  • Althia Raj details the “bloodbath” Conservative caucus meeting on Wednesday, where tensions blew apart over weeks of lies, threats, and intimidation.
  • Robert Hiltz makes a pitch for more public telecom companies like SaskTel to bring better and cheaper internet access across the country.
  • Colby Cosh makes the case that the older and overweight populations in Western countries were more susceptible to COVID, justifying vaccination first.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at the limited number of options the prime minister really has when it comes to opposing Quebec’s Bill 21.

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4 thoughts on “Roundup: A fundamental misunderstanding of the profession”

  1. CBC and editorial standards? What a laugh. The CBC is and always has been a very clubby organization. The decision makers pander to whatever will in the end maintain their funding. Those who rise to positions in whatever place they sit….once was known and probably still is, called within as the “kremlin” call the shots.

  2. Since 2015, Canadian journalists and wanna-be-journalists have been searching desperately for a “scandal” to tar Trudeau with.
    Any reporter who adopts a narrative of how suspicious something might be, or how corrupt something could seem to be, or how-can-we-spin-this-to-make-it-look-bad is guaranteed to get air time or front page.

    • You have it right Cathie. The CBC and I suspect every “news” organization looks for the juiciest bit of scandal and reports it out according to their agenda, hidden or overt. The news readers just read what they are given. However when you watch the major newscasts which are staffed by reader commentators or just the latter, their biases can be seen which then negates factual news and enters the realm of commentary and opinion. I watch commentary incessantly and I recognize bias. I consume much network “news” and I have little difficulty parsing the person bias. Even facial expressions will inform one. The personnel at the networks are allowed to share their biases and that tells me that the editorial controls are lacking or intentionally skewed. The message is the massage truly. As for Trudeau, these news purveyors continued to perpetrate the urban myths that he is at fault for just about everything however this precludes the editorial staff from calling this out. Just as they rarely fact check as to the jurisdictional powers involved. Singh and O’toole along with Poilievre do this constantly yet on the “news” there is no callout.

  3. It’s about ratings. That’s the bottom line. The papers and networks in Canada are predominantly Tory-biased and in the case of the national broadcaster, prone to chasing the race to the bottom of their private-sector counterparts in much the same way as PBS has been corrupted by Koch Inc. and the proliferation of Fox and its sensationalist ilk.

    They have Trump/scandal envy of their American cousins, and aren’t content to just let a decent prime minister govern on a day-to-day basis. They need “drama” and “controversy” to gum up the works and make things “interesting,” because good news and successful policies don’t get rage clicks. Trudeau is not their Trump, so they are desperate to create an absurd, mirror-universe caricature. Recall what the CBS exec said of boosting the orange tyrant’s profile, democracy be damned: He may not be good for the country but he’s been great for our ratings share.

    Sometimes I honestly wonder if they wish he was both Clinton and Trump all at once, and I don’t mean Hillary but her husband. They feel the need to inflate the phony “corruption” angle, because of all the prime ministers they would expect to have a good-old fashioned sex scandal, he’s turned out to be a good-old fashioned family man, much to their disappointment. Without BS narratives of vaguely-defined “corruption,” they’d have nothing but the same old, same old… “socks” scandals. The best thing anyone can do for democracy is to turn off the news, cancel your subscriptions and tune them all out.

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