Yes, a fair point. This person is a former reporter for CBC. For me I think it's fair to say that this is coming from CBC as the general tone of the article appears to endorse their former employee's viewpoint. Employees who are hired on, and then later brought back to discuss their views, to me at least, do shed light into the views of the organization.
In my opinion, CBC consistently puts out some of the lowest-quality and least-objective "news coverage" that I've seen from the major and minor news providers in Canada.
I don't see the CBC saying that. I see them quoting someone they interviewed as saying that. Can you pinpoint where the CBC themselves take such a stance?
I am curious what Canadians think of this argument. Does it seem true? It's hard for me, a USA resident who doesn't follow the CBC, to really evaluate.
I always considered the idea of CBC to be... extremely weird. Having government approved journalists on government payroll sure sounds like something out of China, Russia or Cuba. Not a western democracy.
From the article:
> To work at the CBC now is to accept the idea that race is the most significant thing about a person, and that some races are more relevant to the public conversation than others. It is, in my newsroom, to fill out racial profile forms for every guest you book; to actively book more people of some races and less of others.
Here you can see someone "from the top" made that request and that the (taxpayer funded) employees are filling out their request. So much for "journalistic independence".
To me that, and that they are using taxpayer money to fund sitcoms and entertainment while it's one of the most profitable businesses on earth, is completely bizarre. I mean Disney and Marvel made billions just last year simply by… producing content people want to watch!
At the same time they can push this ultra-liberal agenda because they aren't subjected to market forces. It doesn't matter if more and more people tune out, funding is guaranteed and comes straight from the (captive) taxpayer.
Lastly, for an "anti-racist" media, they aired content that was quite racist not that long ago, and refused to edit any of it. [0]. Maybe some races are more equal than other according to these people!
I always considered the idea of CBC to be... extremely weird. Having government approved journalists on government payroll sure sounds like something out of China, Russia or Cuba. Not a western democracy.
From the article:
> To work at the CBC now is to accept the idea that race is the most significant thing about a person, and that some races are more relevant to the public conversation than others. It is, in my newsroom, to fill out racial profile forms for every guest you book; to actively book more people of some races and less of others.
Here you can see someone "from the top" made that request and that the (taxpayer funded) employees are filling out their request. So much for "journalistic independence".
To me that, and that they are using taxpayer money to fund sitcoms and entertainment while it's one of the most profitable businesses on earth, is completely bizarre. I mean Disney and Marvel made billions just last year simply by producing content people want to watch!
> Most journalists know if they get paid they are expected to promote the owner's views - the line between pr and journalism is a fine one - but that they will be promoting wholesome, useful values and information. When the owners lurch too far people leave, both writers and readers/viewers, leaving a weak core.
At the same time they can push this ultra-liberal agenda because they aren't subjected to market forces. It doesn't matter if more and more people tune out, funding is guaranteed and comes straight from the (captive) taxpayers.
Lastly, for an "anti-racist" media, they aired content that was quite racist not that long ago, and refused to edit any of it. [0]. Maybe some races are more equal than other according to these people!
>I wasn't aware of that. Do you have any example? From my understanding CBC and Radio-Canada are still by far the best and most neutral medias in Canada.
There's really too many examples. CBC publicly admitted they wont hire caucasians anymore. They have an official, ombudsman confirmed, position that racism against white people is not possible.
Microaggressions, etc etc. Hell even an article says you must get consent to hug your own 2 year old.
There was an article in Urdu, no english translation available. When you translate it, it basically said canadians are stealing pakistani babies. The government then when this comes out bans adoptions from muslim countries.
How about the endless examples of fake news. They themselves were selling 'white power' tshirts and wrote articles about how white supremacy in Canada is out of control. Then other media realized the guy who was selling the shirts works for the CBC. Then suddenly it was just a social experiment.
Then again... they were calling for the denazification of the freedom protest. CBC full frame dslr photographers just happened to know where a nazi flag was in ottawa and followed them through the day. Generally speaking they labelled a ton of punjabi truckers as white supremacists. Who thought it was hilarious.
>This started under Harper and IMO is one of the worst things he's done to the country (although he made a lot of other terrible decisions). I really hope that, if 2025 is a conservative win, CBC will be left untouched.
Scheer and Otoole ran on defunding the CBC. Pierre Poillivre looks like he has leadership in the bag and is quite public about defunding the CBC.
Let's also discuss the elephant in the room. Trudeau will have been in power for 10 years in 2025. 3 more years of corruption and scandal coming, assuming the NDP continue to support him. He already lost last election. He currently has the weakest government in history. His confidence push on emergency act forced Jagmeet's hands. Jagmeet compares himself to Jack Layton and Tommy Douglas but that is so beyond offensive. This coalition they have is also quite unpopular, but it's the only way either of them stay in power.
Though in their coalition agreement they were quite clear about significant changes to how our elections work, including making election day 3 days long.
The CBC will be getting defunded so long as the election isn't rigged.
Then again smearing the protest as a bunch of racists and then crushing the peaceful protest and further removing our rights? Never actually addressing the reason for the protest, just continued restrictions on our rights?
If Trudeau is predicting correctly that we are going to have food shortages. He better address this unjustified use of the emergency act and give us a roadmap of returning our rights.
Otherwise, when the weather is nice and people are getting a bit hungry... they'll be heading to Ottawa.
> That... weird. Having government approved journalists on government payroll sure sounds like something out of China, Russia or Cuba.
The government doesn't actively handle the hiring, CBC has journalistic independence from the government. They in fact handle all of their internal systems (email, data, phone) independently from the government.
> I mean let's face it, will they really critisize and investigate the hands that signs their check?
They do all the time in fact, and they report on themselves even if it shines a negative light.
> Is there a market for it? Right now this content is dumped by a single player that's subsidized. No reason to enter this space.
When the majority of the private content available is from the US, it's also hard to compete with the torrents of culture they push on us. At least CBC is actively pushing content that is culturally significant.
I wasn't using scare quotes, I was using literal quotes from your previous post. You said "This is the same state-run media company that said objectivity is 'potentially harmful'", but your link points to a University professor who doesn't represent CBC or any state-run media company as best I can see.
You've asked a Canadian to air their complaints about the CBC.
Indeed, the CBC isn't an actual elite that could be defined by achievement, performance, accountability, history, or other merit, but they do groom the lower slopes of it. It's possible they have become more balanced as I tuned them out almost 10 years ago, and perhaps in the mean time they've investigated public service corruption, major party financing and election integrity, foreign influence operations, value for money in spending, threats to Canada's sovereignty and place in the world, challenged dominant narratives, and provided valuable and neutral insight into the culture conflicts of the day, but I'm willing to bet I haven't missed that much.
If you are in the U.S., CBC news is like if a Portland NPR affiliate had the budget of CNBC. Lots of very concerned and appropriately unattractive white people with cameras, descending from billion dollar office towers to hover around mystified minorities (who, quite reasonably, just shrug and go with it) demanding to know how they've been victimized by the Four Bads. (climate change, homophobia, racism, and sexism.) The CBC became the prosecutors in litigating for social justice, which I think many of them would be sincerely flattered to read, but to many Canadians, they are just activists posing as reporters.
This is in addition to that they are the state broadcaster whose mandate was to popularize Canada's increasingly homogenized federalism and (now post-) national identity. Their mandate isn't even reporting, it's narrative, and from a federalist perspective.
That view represents the consensus of a few neighbourhoods and schools, basically Queen's, McGill, and to a lesser extent, Carlton, and the international NGOs they all did their gap years at. It is widely regarded as an arm of the LPC. Their content is a formula of patronizing concern about what should be done about people who don't work for the government, or aren't paid in public money, and it manufactures sentimental conflict over different minority interest groups toward that end. While most media panders to outrage, the CBC's editorial tone exalts victimhood as a kind of new state religion.
I could just dismiss them as just another group of radicals with government jobs, but it's more complex than that in Canada. The CBC is something much weirder altogether.
Personally I think this is great and I think CBC does a pretty good (loved DNTO) job. However, the comments section of that CBC article seem to drastically disagree unfortunately. :(
>Yes, it says "may have" and not "has" but the implication is there, which is what the CBC & others are pushing back on.
And that pushback is a lie (I think the word these days is "misinformation"), because the Canadian government absolutely does influence what the CBC publishes.
Journalists (as a class) have begged for these rules and powers, and are now whining because they're now finding themselves at the pointy end. What's wrong with having to play by their own rules (which they claimed were good for everyone else)?
But the source you cited seems to only include newspapers? Media companies tend to pander to their readers, and newspapers attracts... a certain type of readers. It's not surprising that most newspapers are conservative.
Elsewhere on this site, you proclaimed to be a libertarian opposed to almost any and all government-related functions. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but... I suspect that probably colours your opinion somewhat?
If you've got data or research that supports your argument that the CBC is, as a whole, deserving of such low quality and trust, I'm genuinely interested to hear it.
Otherwise, it just reads as ideological opposition as opposed to genuine criticism.
FYI, your source now contributes to the Daily Mail and Fox News. By her own admission she is staunchly against the "woke" agenda (whatever that is). Here's an interview with her that balances out your provided link - https://www.canadaland.com/tara-henley-cbc/
"However, Candis Callison calls objectivity "the view from nowhere" and considers it potentially harmful. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and Canada for television, the internet and radio, including at the CBC."
CBC is not really a credible source. I don't know anything about this story but would look for a slightly less partisan source (like the New York Times or slate.com or The Atlantic) before reacting.
That pretty much sums up what's happened to the CBC as of late. A far left activist organization, pretending to deliver news, funded by the state.
It's a real shame, given that the CBC used to be quite a respectable organization, and would work hard to represent perspectives from all over Canada (given the constraints of the time).
I'm ostensibly in the group they're pandering to, but I just can't tolerate the obvious agenda setting. I can't imagine what the more conservative Canadians must think about it. Rex Murphy (a former CBC reporter) doesn't have much good to say about his old organization.
Is CBC known to question the position of Canadian government, especially the majority opinion there? They are a state-owned entity, as far as I know, but I'm not Canadian so I know little about how independently they operate.
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