Where Are Our Journalists?

The point of having an independent, publicly funded broadcaster is to have a Canadian voice that is not beholding to corporate sponsors or PACs with an agenda. Or, indeed, media outlet owners with definite political positions.

The CBC exists to do several things: To promote Canadian voices, talent, and stories through arts programming, music programming, and the development of Canadian dramatic series.... 

To bring Canadians together through sharing our stories to the rest of the country, so someone in Victoria can understand a bit of what life is like in PEI, etc... 

To provide balanced, unbiased news reporting and investigative journalism for the PUBLIC GOOD, rather than to meet the political or economic agendas of advertisers or owners.

On the first two counts, the CBC of today is doing OK. There is lots of room for improvement, and some of that is dependent on the corporation receiving adequate funding to allow the kinds of top rate productions Canadians are capable of. 

News reporting, particularly political news, is another matter entirely. The staff at the CBC needs to understand that good journalism is not automatically being critical of the Liberal government. They were certainly rarely critical of the CPC government. 

They need to realise that those people in opposition who seek power in Canada must be held accountable for what they say and do in the same way the government must be. To do otherwise is not neutral or unbiased. 

When the CBC spends countless hours picking apart something Justin Trudeau said, but allows Andrew Scheer's statements and ads to go unchallenged when they are being refuted by regular citizens on social media is not merely laziness... 

It suggests a marked bias towards the CPC. When Power & Politics comes up with panels that are far right, right, and centre right, that is not unbiased. That suggests a marked bias for the CPC. 

When the CBC begins any commentary on an event with, "Andrew Scheer says..." and does not examine whether Andrew Scheer is talking through a hole in his hat, that suggests a marked bias for the CPC. 

Indeed, when the CBC frames all political news stories from the point of view of the opposition, allowing the CPC campaign machine to control the national narrative, it is doing a great disservice to Canadians. 

It appears to many of us that the CBC has fallen into the same trap as much of media these days, in that they take the position of the right and parrot those talking points as though they were facts, without doing any checking. 

We know that the CBC is capable of fact checking. They fact check Donald Trump:

So, why do they not fact check when Andrew Scheer or Jason Kenney make pronouncements that anyone with google can prove demonstrably false? 

What is going on at the CBC? Who is deciding that Rachel Curran and Charles Adler and Tim Powers and James Moore and Stockwell Day should be in heavy rotation on panels? 

Who is deciding on what kinds of stories are covered and which are ignored? For that matter, why are Canadians being subjected to hours of live coverage of American leaders speaking in their legislatures or rallies or press briefings?

From what can be observed on Twitter, an awful lot of Canadians could do with more education on our own system and what makes it different from the US. That would be a worthy project for the CBC. 

Who is setting the direction for the news team? We understood that while Harper was in power, pressure was brought to bear on the CBC to not ask too many questions, and certainly not critical ones. But, the "bad man" is gone, isn't he? 

Did Harper and his board change the composition to such an extent that the corporation only hires and retains ardent CPC supporters? Journalists are supposed to keep their personal biases out of their reporting. 

We know CBC employees are not "stupid" people. It's not that they don't know what good journalism is supposed to look like. So, again, I ask, what is going on at the CBC? 

When a CBC reporter reports, with a straight face, that Anderw Scheer did a town hall (in which no questions were asked except nice, "how will you beat the Liberals?" questions so we know that it was invitation-only and questions were pre-approved), that is not a "town hall", that is a "rally". There is a difference. To put that out there as an equivalent to what Trudeau has been doing around the country, does a disservice to Canadians, and puts your news bureau in serious disrepute. 

The CBC can be better. The CBC can be great. We need honest, unbiased news. So much depends on it. Your job, as a news organization, is to call out ALL PARTIES when they dissemble, or lie, to citizens. Your job is to make people aware of backroom deals and dirty deeds, regardless of which party they are coming from. We are going to wind up with an unprincipled, unscrupulous, callous, greedy, avaricious government that is bad for most Canadians, if you don't step up and do your job.

Yes, it really is down to the CBC to decide if they want to be relevant by doing good journalism, or if they are going to kowtow to monied interests who want the CPC in regardless of the cost to Canadians. Does the IDU play a role? Your call.