Because this is occasionally a media criticism blog, I will mention that piece circulating from former CBC producer Tara Henley, who made a splash by quitting her job and starting a Substack blog (with paid subscriptions!) by badmouthing the CBC on her way out the door. While I was initially planning on not mentioning this, because the complaints she makes in the piece merely reflect poorly on her rather than the CBC, but it attracted some bizarre traction yesterday, from the likes of Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Erin O’Toole, who invited her to call him about plans to reform the CBC (as he promised to slash its budget).
Even longtime CBC employees know the state broadcaster model is broken and getting worse. I’ll start by cancelling the $675 million Trudeau increase and by reviewing its mandate for the digital age.
— Erin O'Toole (@erinotoole) January 4, 2022
But the piece itself (which I’m not going to link to, but I did read when the National Post reprinted it) was not the stunning indictment she claimed it to be, or the usual cadre of CBC-haters have been touting it as. When you get through all of her prose, it seems that her biggest complaint is that the CBC asked her, as a producer, to ensure there were more diverse guests on panels or interview segments. In Henley’s recounting, this was the booming klaxon of “The Wokes are coming!” and how this is some kind of Ivy League American brain worm/neural parasite import that has destroyed the CBC’s reporting over the past 18 months. Reality is most likely that what she considered “compromising” to the reporting was being asked not to use the same six sources on all of the panels or packages she was responsible for—because that is a very real problem with a lot of Canadian news outlets, where they have a Rolodex of usual suspects who have a media profile because they answer phone calls and make themselves available. There are a number of people, whose credentials are actually terrible and who have zero actual credibility or legitimacy, but because they are easy gets for reporters or producers, and they say provocative things, they are go-to sources time and again. That the vast majority of them are heterosexual white men is problem when a news outlet has had it pointed out to them repeatedly that they need more diverse sources. Henley appears to have balked at that.
I've been a journalist for 20+ years. If you write this:
"…a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the United States…"
You were never, ever, this:
"It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom."
— Daniel Kitts (@DanielKitts) January 4, 2022
There are a lot of problems with CBC’s reporting these days—much of it is either reductive both-sidesing, or its credulous stenography that doesn’t challenge what is being said, even if what is being said is wrong or problematic but has a sympathetic person saying it. There are a lot of questionable editorial choices being made in terms of who they are granting anonymity to and who they are not, particularly if it counters the narrative they are trying to set with the particular story (and there was a lot of this in their reporting on the allegations around House of Commons Clerk Charles Robert). There are problems with its mandate creep around their web presence, and yes, they have made very questionable decisions around some of their editorial pieces—and attempts to alter them once published. None of its problems have to do with the fact that Henley was asked to get more diverse voices. But Henley also knew that there is an audience for her recitation of the “anti-woke” platitudes, and she has a book she wants to sell, and figured that a paid Substack was more lucrative than the Mother Corp. And the fact that O’Toole and others are reaching out seems to indicate that she gambled on media illiteracy for this particular grift, in the hopes it might pay off.
Good reads:
- Justin Trudeau had a call with John Horgan last night in advance of a call with all premiers next week to discuss omicron, and health transfers.
- The federal government and First Nation leaders outlined the agreement in principle on their settlement agreement, which now needs court sign-off.
- Both the Canadian and American governments are claiming victory in a trade dispute over Supply Management under the New NAFTA. No, seriously.
- Marco Mendicino and Dominic LeBlanc’s mandate letters task them with looking at how to improve security for ministers and MPs.
- All of Canada’s major broadcasters—BellMedia, Corus, and CBC—are crying poor and demanding the government make Google and Facebook pay them for news.
- The latest round of Order of Canada appointments has more women and minorities being nominated than any batch in the past three years.
- A number of MPs, plus the Royal Canadian Legion, are pressuring the government to create Platinum Jubilee medals next year.
- Irwin Cotler describes Quebec’s “secularism” law as discriminatory, which is blindingly obvious, but Cotler has some particular gravitas to the declaration.
- Susan Delacourt mourns the death of the BlackBerry, and how it changed life on Parliament Hill for all involved.
- Paul Wells points out the Canadian government’s refusal to make decisions about modernising NORAD as threats become bigger than we’ve faced in a decade.
- Senator Paula Simons wonders how the discoursed turned into Karens, demanding to speak to the manager (aka the Queen or her GG/LGs) rather than democracy.
- My column makes note of certain bad-faith actors wondering why the federal government didn’t increase ICU capacity, and why that’s a ridiculous argument.
Odds and ends:
https://twitter.com/BrandonTozzo/status/1478006343739093004
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I absolutely ADORE the national broadcaster, and have written fan letters over the years to their producers. But even I think it’s gone woke — and a couple of my CBC producer friends agree — in just the way that Tara Henley complained about:
“People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive. Or why, exactly, taxpayers should be funding articles that scold Canadians for using words such as “brainstorm” and “lame.”
The Vancouver CBC newsroom says “pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women” — so as to be ‘inclusive’ and not offend the trans community. Their news presenter is coached to correctly pronounce the symbol-and-number-laden word-salads of indigenous geographic name transliterations, but says “choppin’ ” — as in choppin’ wood — when reporting on the Chopin International Piano Competition.
I think they have dumbed down their newsroom out of fear, given the mob mentality and cancel-culture lynchings that define the current media climate.
And I don’t believe in “diversity” as a goal even worth striving for in news coverage, which should be judged on its accuracy and depth of enquiry, rather than on its contribution to social justice. When social justice concerns determine news reporting people feel they aren’t getting objective information but rather propaganda.
Bad Faith Actor Handbook:
Step One: State “I’m fully vaccinated” or “I love the CBC”
Step Two: Insert the flag word “but”
Step Three: Say something about Hitler, Stalin, or “woke”
They’re not doing social justice, well, justice as long as they keep platforming cons with no pushback in the name of being “balanced”. If anything I would hope that this wingnut screed pushes them to call out the cons for the enemies of marginalized people that they are. Stop obfuscating jurisdictional responsibilities. Get rid of the Harperites and sympathizers on the panels FFS, and adopt the Atkinson principles into the mandate. And stop pointing fingers ONLY at the USA in their coverage of Yankee news and pretending like the same problems don’t exist in Canada. Where’s the in-depth investigation into Harper (and his party) courting the GOP and Viktor Orban already? They wasted an entire year on Maggie Trudeau and Marky Mark Keeblebooger but won’t say boo about the IDU?
CBC isn’t “woke”. I wish it was. If anything it’s guilty of window-dressing and tossing table scraps rather than instituting the top-down reforms it sorely needs. It may not be, say, Rebel Media, but no “woke” broadcaster worth its salt ignores an assassination attempt against the prime minister and *white* washes the culprit as merely a “friendly sausage maker.” Basic critical analysis 101 says: if this guy was a halal sausage maker instead of a good ol’ boy from the Prairies, how much coverage would it have gotten?
Furthermore, the fact that JWR of all people lent credence to this BS exposes her once and for all as a horrible, self-serving person whose entire grift was always to prop up the colonizers and claim the crown for herself. Any “woke” broadcaster worth its salt would have lumped her in with the likes of Talcum X and other kapos a looooong time ago and publicly apologized for going whole-hog with SNC. Instead we get, “BUT TOFINO!”
Do better, CBC. Ignore this Fox wannabe and deplatform the likes of lying bad-faith “insiders.” Truly be a progressive broadcaster that can proudly call itself, “Canada’s Own.”