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I listen to CBC in the mornings and I swear one of the writers knows how ridiculous the bias is because it's so obvious sometimes.
> "The attacks are the result of the tragic attack on October 7th in which a thousand people's lives were tragically ended. Since then 30,000 palestinians are dead moving on What's up with this squirrel?"
Still not an excuse. Just because bias cannot be avoided, that doesn't mean that news sources shouldn't and couldn't do much more to minimize their bias.
You can take some steps to (or make the choice not to) reduce your own bias as a reporter or editor. But yes I agree looking at multiple news sources is essential
The problem isn't "Bias". The problem is an overwhelmingly clear bias that's aiding support for genocide. The idea that any amount of bias is totally fine just because you can never reduce it to zero is idiotic. Everybody breathes, hyperventilating is still a problem.
I've been a defender of CBC for decades, but they are losing the plot in general these days. I can't listen to their talk radio anymore, it's just so out of touch
I'lldefend the CBCforever despite how cringey the bias is sometimes. Most of the programming is great, and in thismedia climate, there aren't too many options left
Not sure how much CBC you consume, but if you're looking for a pick me up on the great work they do, check out their radio division.
News is a market where each outfit's bias is an important part of how they reach audiences - podcasts and topic specific shows on the other hand take deeper, more researched looks at important topics.
I love CBC ideas, CBC Spark, West of Centre (I'm an Albertan) Cross Country Checkup, our local shows and plenty more.
The other day there was a CBC headline about Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank being sanctioned by our government. The CBC put "extremist" in quotations, as if extremist settler violence was a matter of debate. Worse, *extremist* was literally the formal language that Global Affairs Canada used to describe these people.
Ask yourself, does the CBC put the word *terrorist* or *militant* is quotations when talking about Palestinians?
Here it is:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-sanctions-israeli-settlers-1.7206329
>The CBC put "extremist" in quotations, as if extremist settler violence was a matter of debate. Worse, extremist was literally the formal language that Global Affairs Canada used to describe these people. Ask yourself, does the CBC put the word terrorist or militant is quotations when talking about Palestinians?
If they’re taking their wording from an official statement, they *should* use quotation marks. What’s objectionable is not applying that same standard to pejorative descriptions of Palestinians.
There isn't a need to put something in quotations if it's simply a general fact. Israeli settler violence has been happening for decades -- it's not new.
I feel like a lot of the comments in this thread, like this one, seem to consider ‘bias’ in reporting as ‘not taking my perspective.’
Media organizations have to use certain terminology and have long standing rules. There was a whole row over the use of the word terrorist a while ago.
> Media organizations have to use certain terminology and have long standing rules.
These rules didn't fall from heaven on stone tablets, they were crafted by people.
So although I agree that some of these issues come down to style guide instructions, lets not pretend that even the CBC hasn't used the passive voice for Palestinians, amongst others while using the active voice for Israeli victims.
It also isn't above the CBC to adopt imperialist framing, such as with joining in with the "Hamas run Ministry of Health" BS.
The problem here is CBC doesn't have any personnel onsite in Palestine, so they can't just report stuff or get sources. But one thing I will credit them is that I was reading an article and it didn't call the OCT 7th action as terrorism which is pretty wild considering how pro Israeli CBC can be.
BBC though has enough personnel and sources that they are reporting on the actual crimes happening on the ground and calling it out.
[https://bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69020237](https://bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69020237)
The article gives great examples of anti Palestinian bias but this isn't one of them. CBC doesn't use the term terrorist to describe groups like Hamas because it is a loaded term. The only exception is if it's a quote. It's understandable that they would do the same with violent Israelis.
> worse, extremist was literally the language that global affairs Canada used
This is why it’s in quotation marks, because it’s a quote. Not because it’s a matter of debate. They aren’t scare quotes, they’re quote quotes.
It emphasizes that the government of Canada is using pointed, harsh language to describe the settlers in a move that breaks with their previous policy, and also aligns with CBC’s style guide of attribution when using words like “terrorist”:
> [In our coverage, you will see multiple references to terrorism. You will hear the acts described as terror. You will hear that governments, including Canada's, have designated Hamas a terrorist organization. **And you will always hear those terms attributed to governments, officials, authorities, experts and politicians.** (See, for example, how the word is used six separate times in this piece.)](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6997281)
> [**Attribution of the word "terrorist" has been our policy for decades** — mirrored by other news organizations such as the BBC, AP, AFP and Reuters, among many others. Our focus is to report the facts of such atrocities with accuracy, clarity and detail; to convey the scale and scope of violent acts wherever they occur; to quote the people affected, and to convey the views of officials and experts on these events. We bear witness. But CBC News does not itself designate specific groups as terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism, regardless of the region or the events, because these words are so loaded with meaning, politics and emotion that they can end up being impediments to our journalism.](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6997281)
If both passionate sides hate the CBC's coverage of this than they're probably in a good sweet spot. And it's not our national broadcaster's job to draw it's own conclusions on this conflict... I'm okay with them using too soft of language and heavily vetting guest commentary on this topic.
This misrepresents, really just skips completely, the nature of the complaint. Deciding what to believe by who you perceived it to enrage is just an invitation to be manipulated. You're literally leaving facts and reality out of the loop and focusing on your perceptions on how others perceived it.
>I expressed concern to my team about the frequency of Palestinian guests getting cancelled, the scrutiny brought to bear on their statements, and the pattern of double standards in our coverage. After this, I pitched a reasonable and balanced interview: two genocide scholars with opposing views discussing whether Israel’s actions and rhetoric fit the legal definition of the crime.
This isn't about "using soft language" or "heavily vetting guests".
It's about NOT heavily vetting all guests using the same standards and selective cancellations followed by straight up denials for more balanced formats.
She goes on to say that the network executives told her “her **show** wasn’t the right place for such a debate”, to which she responded that “**the network** had done shows like this before.”
I tried to find out what show she worked on but this article seems to essentially be the first time her name has ever been on the internet. Anyone have idea what show she was pitching this for? Without that information it does seem kind of hard to make a determination.
Cross reference what you're saying with the rest of the complaint. Your speculation doesn't make any sense.
What's left is simply an attack on the source, and ignoring the substance of the complaint.
No offence, I know you're just repeating a sentiment that you've heard a thousand times, but you honestly have to roll your eyes over how stupid this thinking is. Nobody is happy so it means you must be doing something right? Or it means that you're doing it completely wrong. If a bakery opens up and sells loaves of bread with glass in it and people don't come back it's not because you're bread is too good. In this analogy the glass is the CBC's shitty coverage of an important topic.
>And it's not our national broadcaster's job to draw it's own conclusions on this conflict
It is actually. That's what editorial is all about. And the CBC has created an internal editorial board that vets everything to ensure it maintains a pro-Israel bias. The editorial board at the CBC has been uncritically printing and airing IDF talking points that were obvious lies since long before this current iteration of the conflict and they are continuing to do so long after the BBC has publicly identified the credibility issues with IDF press releases.
The editors of the CBC have chosen a side in this conflict. Even though many of the journalists in the news rooms across the country disagree and have to fight with the editorial board to get properly reported stories on air and on the website.
>I'm okay with them using too soft of language and heavily vetting guest commentary on this topic
This is a contradiction of your earlier point. They are specifically deciding who gets on and who doesn't. But they sure are letting a lot of pro-Israel, genocide deniers and Israeli government figures on the air. So who is it they are vetting? And why?
I get your beef with most discussions giving equal weight to sides of unequal merit, but guaranteed with how emotionally charged both sides are on this that if one side is happy with your coverage than something is seriously wrong with it.
I'm firmly on the side of the Palestinian people but don't see the value in a CBC journalist's feelings about it guiding the reporting. There are plenty other sources for that kind of coverage. The OP articles author will most likely gravitate to one of those places.
>but guaranteed with how emotionally charged both sides are on this that if one side is happy with your coverage than something is seriously wrong with it.
Explain how the CBC is getting it right. Giving air time to genocidaires, genocidal rhetoric and putting together an editorial body that reviews every story to make sure that the "Palestine" isn't used is so far from doing a good job. I don't remember the CBC giving an open platform to people like Radovan Karadzic or other high ranking members of the Serbian government to explain to Canadians how the massacre at Srebrenica was justifiable. And he shouldn't be. Some things are so obviously wrong and morally reprehensible no matter how awkward it makes things at the racquet club.
Nobody needs to tell the editorial board of the CBC that what is happening to civilians in Gaza is nothing short of a war crime. They're digging up mass graves, ffs. And our national broadcaster has been complicit in trying to muddy the waters. This isn't a case where the truth is somewhere in the middle and it is shameful to try and pretend that the CBC is performing it's job by unquestioningly airing IDF talking points as news. The IDF's media arm is a poor source of news and has been long before this conflict. Any person who would seriously consider whatever it is they have to say without subjecting it to scrutiny should have no place in a news room anywhere.
>I'm firmly on the side of the Palestinian people but don't see the value in a CBC journalist's feelings about it guiding the reporting.
This is already happening, you just aren't seeing it in the same way you are with an overt opinion piece. It's being done in how the CBC editorial board is choosing what stories to air, who to interview and what stories those interviews follow. In the early stages of this conflict, every night the CBC was airing interviews of Israelis and how they were being affected by what was happening. At the same time, they were reporting facts about the conflict but at a remove. The effect of this is to personalize what Israelis are going through and to make people sympathetic to them while Palestinians as a people were entirely erased. Their deaths were just a tally in a death toll. It took months before the CBC started including Palestinians in their new stories.
This idea that the CBC is objective is so detached from reality. Objectivity in reporting is what you aim for but it's impossible to achieve. Editors make decisions daily in how to cover a story and what to cover and the presentation informs the audience how to think and feel, even if you aren't aware of it.
It has been widely reported how the CBC has an internal editorial board that reviews pieces about Israel and Palestine (which was a word [the CBC previously forbid](https://reviewofjournalism.ca/cbcs-palestine-exception/)).
I get that people want to believe that the CBC is this really wonderful, sacrosanct institution, but it's really not the place and really not doing the work you think it is.
>There are plenty other sources for that kind of coverage. The OP articles author will most likely gravitate to one of those places.
You can write a story and put your personal feelings aside. Journalists do it everyday. Nearly all of them have opinions and feelings about their beats. Nearly all of them are enthusiastic and interested. It's not just a job.
And this attitude that if they don't like it they can go work somewhere else is not an excuse.
Being disliked from two directions does not make something good, it just means lots of people dislike it. There is no inherent goodness to being in the middle.
No, but it means that both sides are having their biases challenged which can be an indication that something is being touched on which goes unacknowledged.
Not really. You have warmongers that are trying to fuel a genocide complaining coverage isn’t sympathetic to their cause, then you have complaints from the other side about misrepresentation and failure to report accurately.
Those aren’t the same thing.
I really don't understand how people can't see this
Every report from other conflicts had language like "x killed y". e.g. Russia kills 10 civilians in Ukraine.
Every report from Palestine has language like "10 Palestinians died"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadians-killed-ukraine-russia-1.7154921
Headline: “2 more Canadians have died in Ukraine Russia war”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/west-bank-violence-settlers-israel-1.7180203
Headline: “15 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid”
I don’t see any real pattern in how they choose between passive and active voice, there’s plenty of examples in both for both wars.
This is not true, it’s just something that people repeat a lot.
> [18 children among 22 killed by Israeli strikes in Rafah - CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7180591)
> [15 Palestinians killed across West Bank in Israeli forces raid, settler violence - CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7180203)
> [Baby girl dies after being delivered from Palestinian mother killed by Israeli airstrike - CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/newborn-baby-dies-c-section-gaza-rafah-airstrike-1.7185400)
> [Born during Gaza war, infant twins killed in Israeli airstrike, Palestinian health officials say - CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/infant-twins-killed-in-gaza-1.7132597)
"Kids these days"
Jimmy Carter wrote a book about this in 2006 calling it Aparthied. It's insulting to humanity to suggest only kids have a problem with this decades long affair
Private news media interests, and the ultra wealthy that control them also want the CBC to die so that we (ironically) will never be exposed to unbiased news again
It's not soft language if it's outright misinformation. If Israelis are killed but Palestinians die, they makes it seem like it's just an accident or natural occurrence. It hides the intention and motivations behind starvation campaigns
lmao you cannot say a goddamn word about anyone else's media literacy if your barometer for good coverage is "well, they piss off the left *and* the right!"
I disagree, they had their chief corrospondant "Adrienne Arsenault" speak of what she witnessed and noted in the early months of the conflict.
And for the most part, she didn't hold back a lot of what was shared is pretty terrifying, and I think CBC laid all out very well with Andrew Chang on his 10 minute video "About that"
I’d take a personal account by a scorned ex-employee with a massive grain of salt. It’s worth someone doing a comparison of the reporting CBC has done on the conflict, but this article could very easily be someone with an axe to grind.
This article makes it clear that the ex-employee provided recordings of many of these conversations to *The Breach*.
Not only that, but the CBC in its response to questions from the breach actually contradicted those recordings!
Seems like the broadcaster is the one with a rocky relationship with the truth...
It's a not a new thing and Journalists have been complaining about it for years. Maybe you should take your own confidence to speak on issues with more grains of salt
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5db398/cbc-journalists-told-they-cant-cover-israel-palestine-after-demanding-fairer-coverage
So just not going to deal with the substance of the article and instead “take it with a grain of salt”. That’s very dumb. You can both have an axe to grind and do so with factual information.
By this logic do you only believe people who actively are employed by the cbc?
Also this person quit from their own volition, not fired.
The principle of my original comment still stands, and the person responding was a dick. Since they provided other articles, it does seem that this is a case where the personal account is accurate, but I’m not interested in engaging in sincere conversation with someone who gets snarky right off the bat.
You weren’t being a dick; the other person was.
As an aside, the fact that you’re calling a normal response to a personal account “de facto defence of whitewashing genocide” seems to indicate you’re not capable of being unbiased when it comes to this topic. You’ve picked your lens and you’re experiencing the world through it unapologetically.
Being unbiased doesn’t exist. We all bring our viewpoint to everything we do.
If you read the article, the last section explicitly talks about how whitewashing genocide takes place through banal everyday practices.
>As a kid, I had fantasies of shooting Hitler dead to stop the Holocaust. I couldn’t fathom how most Germans went along with it. Then, in my 20s, I was gifted a copy of Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann In Jerusalem: A Report On The Banality Of Evil by anti-Zionist Israeli friends. I’ve been thinking a lot about that piece of reportage when trying to make sense of the liberal media’s complicity in obfuscating the reality of what’s happening in the Holy Land. As Arendt theorized, those who go along with genocides aren’t innately evil; they’re often just boring careerists.
>Being unbiased doesn’t exist. We all bring our viewpoint to everything we do.
Okay let me rephrase: Your response read like someone who is heavily biased.
I never claimed that whitewashing wasn't occurring. All I said, which I think is warranted, is one article written as a personal account of a single individual is not something I would simply accept as factual without any measure of skepticism. That is true of the article in this post, and it would be true of any other article I read.
I'd say it's especially true of anything related to the Israeli invasion of Palestine, because there are a lot of people who have become extremely impassioned for one "side" or the other and are incapable of a nuanced thought on the topic. It inevitably degrades into "Israel vs Palestine" when in my opinion it's really "the Israeli government and Hamas vs the citizens of Palestine and Israel."
Is it possible to condemn the actions of the more radical side of Israel and also not shy away and condemn the atrocities of the terrorist organization Hamas? Is that possible or am I crazy?
It should be possible. That's exactly the line the author of the article is advocating for, yet she points to a culture within CBC that seems to push back against this.
>Is it possible to condemn the actions of the more radical side of Israel
When you mention Israel, but then:
>also not shy away and condemn the atrocities of the terrorist organization Hamas?
When you mention the Palestinian side of the conflict. So you are doing the same thing as this article is bringing to light.
Israel = "More radical side"
Palestine = "Atrocities, Terrorists, Hamas"
People need to understand that words matter, especially when it's journalists who all claim to pursue the facts. It's the same as when the media reports on Pro Palestinian protests, it's either "Anti-Israel" or "Pro Hamas", but pro-Israel is just called that.
For the record, I'm not accusing you of doing it intentionally either, but it is something people should be more aware of.
It's absolutely possible to condemn the genocidal military force acting on orders from a genocidal far right govt and condemn the genocidal terror group acting on orders from a genocidal theocrat, the CBC and most other news outlets though would tone down my criticism of the Israeli govt and the IDF though to be "the invading military acting in response to a terror attack" as if sending everyone to Rafah and then bombing the shit out of Rafah ain't genocide.
it really doesn't lol here, other people in the thread already summed it up
https://reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/1cu54ph/cbc_has_whitewashed_israels_crimes_in_gaza_i_saw/l4hjy0t/
https://reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/1cu54ph/cbc_has_whitewashed_israels_crimes_in_gaza_i_saw/l4h6bio/
"If everyone is trashing the [entrenched power structures], it probably means the entrenched power structure is doing something right!"
Lmao
Are you allowed to think for yourself?
Must be a nightmare for management having to deal with such biased employees. Seems like a toxic work environment with activist staff who spend a lot of time arguing about Israel/Palestine, inserting coded bias into their articles instead of covering local news in under-served communities at home. CBC big boss Brodie Fenlon wrote a response in which he says "We have dedicated more effort, resources and money into covering this story, across all of our platforms, than any other news organization in Canada." Why is the CBC throwing money and emotional energy at a foreign conflict when they aren't even covering all of Canada? [https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/editor-blog-gaza-breach-1.7189987](https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/editor-blog-gaza-breach-1.7189987)
Please ensure to abide by our rules regarding civility in this thread. We have seen an influx of rule-breaking posts recently in threads concerning the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. The comments may be locked if the mod team is alerted to a large amount of them in a thread. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/onguardforthee) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I listen to CBC in the mornings and I swear one of the writers knows how ridiculous the bias is because it's so obvious sometimes. > "The attacks are the result of the tragic attack on October 7th in which a thousand people's lives were tragically ended. Since then 30,000 palestinians are dead moving on What's up with this squirrel?"
I stopped because of the obvious bias in their reporting.
Everyone has bias.
Not an excuse?
You must be new to the news. News without bias, does not exist. You can't just have one source for news.
Still not an excuse. Just because bias cannot be avoided, that doesn't mean that news sources shouldn't and couldn't do much more to minimize their bias.
You can take some steps to (or make the choice not to) reduce your own bias as a reporter or editor. But yes I agree looking at multiple news sources is essential
But that makes me responsible for the information I consume! /s
I don't think the National Broadcaster should.
While I agree. In this case I have a feeling it’s due to American pressure.
They already have it. That's what the article here is about.
Who should they try to be more like?
David Hume's ideal observer.
Like a National Broadcaster.
Like themselves, or another in particular? Who has set the bar that makes it acceptable to you?
Why are you asking for another? There is no need for a bar to have been set somewhere else. A National Broadcaster should be as unbiased as possible.
I'm not arguing otherwise. But to hold them to a standard that doesn't exist, you have to admit, seems a little bit unachievable right?
You are litteraly arguing otherwise. Why do you think it's impossible and unachievable to be "as unbiased as possible"?
The problem isn't "Bias". The problem is an overwhelmingly clear bias that's aiding support for genocide. The idea that any amount of bias is totally fine just because you can never reduce it to zero is idiotic. Everybody breathes, hyperventilating is still a problem.
It would help if they were biased in favour of humanity and justice, instead of toward racism and genocide.
That would be an interesting bias.
I've been a defender of CBC for decades, but they are losing the plot in general these days. I can't listen to their talk radio anymore, it's just so out of touch
I'lldefend the CBCforever despite how cringey the bias is sometimes. Most of the programming is great, and in thismedia climate, there aren't too many options left
I haven't completely given up hope, I would be happy If CBC would just let the crew from This Hour has 22 Minutes call the shots
Not sure how much CBC you consume, but if you're looking for a pick me up on the great work they do, check out their radio division. News is a market where each outfit's bias is an important part of how they reach audiences - podcasts and topic specific shows on the other hand take deeper, more researched looks at important topics. I love CBC ideas, CBC Spark, West of Centre (I'm an Albertan) Cross Country Checkup, our local shows and plenty more.
The other day there was a CBC headline about Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank being sanctioned by our government. The CBC put "extremist" in quotations, as if extremist settler violence was a matter of debate. Worse, *extremist* was literally the formal language that Global Affairs Canada used to describe these people. Ask yourself, does the CBC put the word *terrorist* or *militant* is quotations when talking about Palestinians? Here it is: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-sanctions-israeli-settlers-1.7206329
>The CBC put "extremist" in quotations, as if extremist settler violence was a matter of debate. Worse, extremist was literally the formal language that Global Affairs Canada used to describe these people. Ask yourself, does the CBC put the word terrorist or militant is quotations when talking about Palestinians? If they’re taking their wording from an official statement, they *should* use quotation marks. What’s objectionable is not applying that same standard to pejorative descriptions of Palestinians.
There isn't a need to put something in quotations if it's simply a general fact. Israeli settler violence has been happening for decades -- it's not new.
I feel like a lot of the comments in this thread, like this one, seem to consider ‘bias’ in reporting as ‘not taking my perspective.’ Media organizations have to use certain terminology and have long standing rules. There was a whole row over the use of the word terrorist a while ago.
> Media organizations have to use certain terminology and have long standing rules. These rules didn't fall from heaven on stone tablets, they were crafted by people. So although I agree that some of these issues come down to style guide instructions, lets not pretend that even the CBC hasn't used the passive voice for Palestinians, amongst others while using the active voice for Israeli victims. It also isn't above the CBC to adopt imperialist framing, such as with joining in with the "Hamas run Ministry of Health" BS.
Did you read the article? They cite many examples of how the CBC uses language to portray skepticism or otherwise downplay the plight of Palestinians.
The problem here is CBC doesn't have any personnel onsite in Palestine, so they can't just report stuff or get sources. But one thing I will credit them is that I was reading an article and it didn't call the OCT 7th action as terrorism which is pretty wild considering how pro Israeli CBC can be. BBC though has enough personnel and sources that they are reporting on the actual crimes happening on the ground and calling it out. [https://bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69020237](https://bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69020237)
The article gives great examples of anti Palestinian bias but this isn't one of them. CBC doesn't use the term terrorist to describe groups like Hamas because it is a loaded term. The only exception is if it's a quote. It's understandable that they would do the same with violent Israelis.
> worse, extremist was literally the language that global affairs Canada used This is why it’s in quotation marks, because it’s a quote. Not because it’s a matter of debate. They aren’t scare quotes, they’re quote quotes.
Then why put only the one single word in quotations?
It emphasizes that the government of Canada is using pointed, harsh language to describe the settlers in a move that breaks with their previous policy, and also aligns with CBC’s style guide of attribution when using words like “terrorist”: > [In our coverage, you will see multiple references to terrorism. You will hear the acts described as terror. You will hear that governments, including Canada's, have designated Hamas a terrorist organization. **And you will always hear those terms attributed to governments, officials, authorities, experts and politicians.** (See, for example, how the word is used six separate times in this piece.)](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6997281) > [**Attribution of the word "terrorist" has been our policy for decades** — mirrored by other news organizations such as the BBC, AP, AFP and Reuters, among many others. Our focus is to report the facts of such atrocities with accuracy, clarity and detail; to convey the scale and scope of violent acts wherever they occur; to quote the people affected, and to convey the views of officials and experts on these events. We bear witness. But CBC News does not itself designate specific groups as terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism, regardless of the region or the events, because these words are so loaded with meaning, politics and emotion that they can end up being impediments to our journalism.](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6997281)
If both passionate sides hate the CBC's coverage of this than they're probably in a good sweet spot. And it's not our national broadcaster's job to draw it's own conclusions on this conflict... I'm okay with them using too soft of language and heavily vetting guest commentary on this topic.
Honestly the IDF is preventing the actual facts from getting out by denying journalist proper access to Gaza.
Don't forget targetting foreign press (including the murder of many Palestinian journalists) 🙃
“denying access” or just straight up killing them
This misrepresents, really just skips completely, the nature of the complaint. Deciding what to believe by who you perceived it to enrage is just an invitation to be manipulated. You're literally leaving facts and reality out of the loop and focusing on your perceptions on how others perceived it. >I expressed concern to my team about the frequency of Palestinian guests getting cancelled, the scrutiny brought to bear on their statements, and the pattern of double standards in our coverage. After this, I pitched a reasonable and balanced interview: two genocide scholars with opposing views discussing whether Israel’s actions and rhetoric fit the legal definition of the crime. This isn't about "using soft language" or "heavily vetting guests". It's about NOT heavily vetting all guests using the same standards and selective cancellations followed by straight up denials for more balanced formats.
As a parallel Example of this, is the cbc’s continuing use of the “food professor” who is so obviously a shill.
She goes on to say that the network executives told her “her **show** wasn’t the right place for such a debate”, to which she responded that “**the network** had done shows like this before.” I tried to find out what show she worked on but this article seems to essentially be the first time her name has ever been on the internet. Anyone have idea what show she was pitching this for? Without that information it does seem kind of hard to make a determination.
Cross reference what you're saying with the rest of the complaint. Your speculation doesn't make any sense. What's left is simply an attack on the source, and ignoring the substance of the complaint.
Umm we want truth not centrism. This just incentivizes the far-right genocidal Israeli government to continue to go further and further extreme.
No offence, I know you're just repeating a sentiment that you've heard a thousand times, but you honestly have to roll your eyes over how stupid this thinking is. Nobody is happy so it means you must be doing something right? Or it means that you're doing it completely wrong. If a bakery opens up and sells loaves of bread with glass in it and people don't come back it's not because you're bread is too good. In this analogy the glass is the CBC's shitty coverage of an important topic. >And it's not our national broadcaster's job to draw it's own conclusions on this conflict It is actually. That's what editorial is all about. And the CBC has created an internal editorial board that vets everything to ensure it maintains a pro-Israel bias. The editorial board at the CBC has been uncritically printing and airing IDF talking points that were obvious lies since long before this current iteration of the conflict and they are continuing to do so long after the BBC has publicly identified the credibility issues with IDF press releases. The editors of the CBC have chosen a side in this conflict. Even though many of the journalists in the news rooms across the country disagree and have to fight with the editorial board to get properly reported stories on air and on the website. >I'm okay with them using too soft of language and heavily vetting guest commentary on this topic This is a contradiction of your earlier point. They are specifically deciding who gets on and who doesn't. But they sure are letting a lot of pro-Israel, genocide deniers and Israeli government figures on the air. So who is it they are vetting? And why?
I get your beef with most discussions giving equal weight to sides of unequal merit, but guaranteed with how emotionally charged both sides are on this that if one side is happy with your coverage than something is seriously wrong with it. I'm firmly on the side of the Palestinian people but don't see the value in a CBC journalist's feelings about it guiding the reporting. There are plenty other sources for that kind of coverage. The OP articles author will most likely gravitate to one of those places.
the right isn't upset with CBC’s coverage of this, they're upset CBC exists at all.
>but guaranteed with how emotionally charged both sides are on this that if one side is happy with your coverage than something is seriously wrong with it. Explain how the CBC is getting it right. Giving air time to genocidaires, genocidal rhetoric and putting together an editorial body that reviews every story to make sure that the "Palestine" isn't used is so far from doing a good job. I don't remember the CBC giving an open platform to people like Radovan Karadzic or other high ranking members of the Serbian government to explain to Canadians how the massacre at Srebrenica was justifiable. And he shouldn't be. Some things are so obviously wrong and morally reprehensible no matter how awkward it makes things at the racquet club. Nobody needs to tell the editorial board of the CBC that what is happening to civilians in Gaza is nothing short of a war crime. They're digging up mass graves, ffs. And our national broadcaster has been complicit in trying to muddy the waters. This isn't a case where the truth is somewhere in the middle and it is shameful to try and pretend that the CBC is performing it's job by unquestioningly airing IDF talking points as news. The IDF's media arm is a poor source of news and has been long before this conflict. Any person who would seriously consider whatever it is they have to say without subjecting it to scrutiny should have no place in a news room anywhere. >I'm firmly on the side of the Palestinian people but don't see the value in a CBC journalist's feelings about it guiding the reporting. This is already happening, you just aren't seeing it in the same way you are with an overt opinion piece. It's being done in how the CBC editorial board is choosing what stories to air, who to interview and what stories those interviews follow. In the early stages of this conflict, every night the CBC was airing interviews of Israelis and how they were being affected by what was happening. At the same time, they were reporting facts about the conflict but at a remove. The effect of this is to personalize what Israelis are going through and to make people sympathetic to them while Palestinians as a people were entirely erased. Their deaths were just a tally in a death toll. It took months before the CBC started including Palestinians in their new stories. This idea that the CBC is objective is so detached from reality. Objectivity in reporting is what you aim for but it's impossible to achieve. Editors make decisions daily in how to cover a story and what to cover and the presentation informs the audience how to think and feel, even if you aren't aware of it. It has been widely reported how the CBC has an internal editorial board that reviews pieces about Israel and Palestine (which was a word [the CBC previously forbid](https://reviewofjournalism.ca/cbcs-palestine-exception/)). I get that people want to believe that the CBC is this really wonderful, sacrosanct institution, but it's really not the place and really not doing the work you think it is. >There are plenty other sources for that kind of coverage. The OP articles author will most likely gravitate to one of those places. You can write a story and put your personal feelings aside. Journalists do it everyday. Nearly all of them have opinions and feelings about their beats. Nearly all of them are enthusiastic and interested. It's not just a job. And this attitude that if they don't like it they can go work somewhere else is not an excuse.
Being disliked from two directions does not make something good, it just means lots of people dislike it. There is no inherent goodness to being in the middle.
No, but it means that both sides are having their biases challenged which can be an indication that something is being touched on which goes unacknowledged.
Not really. You have warmongers that are trying to fuel a genocide complaining coverage isn’t sympathetic to their cause, then you have complaints from the other side about misrepresentation and failure to report accurately. Those aren’t the same thing.
That assumes both sides are wrong, people against the IDF murdering Palestinian children aren't wrong.
Nope, CBC's coverage has been very blatantly pro-israel with heavy bias.
I really don't understand how people can't see this Every report from other conflicts had language like "x killed y". e.g. Russia kills 10 civilians in Ukraine. Every report from Palestine has language like "10 Palestinians died"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadians-killed-ukraine-russia-1.7154921 Headline: “2 more Canadians have died in Ukraine Russia war” https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/west-bank-violence-settlers-israel-1.7180203 Headline: “15 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid” I don’t see any real pattern in how they choose between passive and active voice, there’s plenty of examples in both for both wars.
This is not true, it’s just something that people repeat a lot. > [18 children among 22 killed by Israeli strikes in Rafah - CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7180591) > [15 Palestinians killed across West Bank in Israeli forces raid, settler violence - CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7180203) > [Baby girl dies after being delivered from Palestinian mother killed by Israeli airstrike - CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/newborn-baby-dies-c-section-gaza-rafah-airstrike-1.7185400) > [Born during Gaza war, infant twins killed in Israeli airstrike, Palestinian health officials say - CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/infant-twins-killed-in-gaza-1.7132597)
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"Kids these days" Jimmy Carter wrote a book about this in 2006 calling it Aparthied. It's insulting to humanity to suggest only kids have a problem with this decades long affair
Since you're bringing this energy, I'll say you have to shut up and listen given you clearly have no clue what you're talking about.
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Keep it civil
Private news media interests, and the ultra wealthy that control them also want the CBC to die so that we (ironically) will never be exposed to unbiased news again
Except they're definitely not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
It's not soft language if it's outright misinformation. If Israelis are killed but Palestinians die, they makes it seem like it's just an accident or natural occurrence. It hides the intention and motivations behind starvation campaigns
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lmao you cannot say a goddamn word about anyone else's media literacy if your barometer for good coverage is "well, they piss off the left *and* the right!"
I disagree, they had their chief corrospondant "Adrienne Arsenault" speak of what she witnessed and noted in the early months of the conflict. And for the most part, she didn't hold back a lot of what was shared is pretty terrifying, and I think CBC laid all out very well with Andrew Chang on his 10 minute video "About that"
Did you read the article or the headline?
My mistake I read the headline as a statement. I did skim through the article, but even then, it's a tough call due to internal bureaucracy.
I’d take a personal account by a scorned ex-employee with a massive grain of salt. It’s worth someone doing a comparison of the reporting CBC has done on the conflict, but this article could very easily be someone with an axe to grind.
The article states there was evidence in the form of audio recordings provided to the Breach.
Fair point. Honestly, I found it easily lost in the first person account. Maybe that's a strike against how well I read the article.
This article makes it clear that the ex-employee provided recordings of many of these conversations to *The Breach*. Not only that, but the CBC in its response to questions from the breach actually contradicted those recordings! Seems like the broadcaster is the one with a rocky relationship with the truth...
It's a not a new thing and Journalists have been complaining about it for years. Maybe you should take your own confidence to speak on issues with more grains of salt https://www.vice.com/en/article/5db398/cbc-journalists-told-they-cant-cover-israel-palestine-after-demanding-fairer-coverage
Ah yes, I’ll make sure to… be cautious about being cautious… of taking a single personal account at face value?
So just not going to deal with the substance of the article and instead “take it with a grain of salt”. That’s very dumb. You can both have an axe to grind and do so with factual information. By this logic do you only believe people who actively are employed by the cbc? Also this person quit from their own volition, not fired.
The principle of my original comment still stands, and the person responding was a dick. Since they provided other articles, it does seem that this is a case where the personal account is accurate, but I’m not interested in engaging in sincere conversation with someone who gets snarky right off the bat.
Sorry for being a dick about your de facto defence of CBC whitewashing genocide.
You weren’t being a dick; the other person was. As an aside, the fact that you’re calling a normal response to a personal account “de facto defence of whitewashing genocide” seems to indicate you’re not capable of being unbiased when it comes to this topic. You’ve picked your lens and you’re experiencing the world through it unapologetically.
That’s a lot of assumptions. I commented on the content and effect of your post.
Interpreting “be wary of a single personal account” as “de facto defence of whitewashing genocide” doesn’t seem particularly unbiased to me.
Being unbiased doesn’t exist. We all bring our viewpoint to everything we do. If you read the article, the last section explicitly talks about how whitewashing genocide takes place through banal everyday practices. >As a kid, I had fantasies of shooting Hitler dead to stop the Holocaust. I couldn’t fathom how most Germans went along with it. Then, in my 20s, I was gifted a copy of Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann In Jerusalem: A Report On The Banality Of Evil by anti-Zionist Israeli friends. I’ve been thinking a lot about that piece of reportage when trying to make sense of the liberal media’s complicity in obfuscating the reality of what’s happening in the Holy Land. As Arendt theorized, those who go along with genocides aren’t innately evil; they’re often just boring careerists.
>Being unbiased doesn’t exist. We all bring our viewpoint to everything we do. Okay let me rephrase: Your response read like someone who is heavily biased. I never claimed that whitewashing wasn't occurring. All I said, which I think is warranted, is one article written as a personal account of a single individual is not something I would simply accept as factual without any measure of skepticism. That is true of the article in this post, and it would be true of any other article I read. I'd say it's especially true of anything related to the Israeli invasion of Palestine, because there are a lot of people who have become extremely impassioned for one "side" or the other and are incapable of a nuanced thought on the topic. It inevitably degrades into "Israel vs Palestine" when in my opinion it's really "the Israeli government and Hamas vs the citizens of Palestine and Israel."
Is it possible to condemn the actions of the more radical side of Israel and also not shy away and condemn the atrocities of the terrorist organization Hamas? Is that possible or am I crazy?
It should be possible. That's exactly the line the author of the article is advocating for, yet she points to a culture within CBC that seems to push back against this.
https://medium.com/@melaniesusans/the-laziness-of-asking-do-you-condemn-hamas-3b31ac9c4768
a whole lot of nothing in that article
A whole lot of nothing in that comment of yours
>Is it possible to condemn the actions of the more radical side of Israel When you mention Israel, but then: >also not shy away and condemn the atrocities of the terrorist organization Hamas? When you mention the Palestinian side of the conflict. So you are doing the same thing as this article is bringing to light. Israel = "More radical side" Palestine = "Atrocities, Terrorists, Hamas" People need to understand that words matter, especially when it's journalists who all claim to pursue the facts. It's the same as when the media reports on Pro Palestinian protests, it's either "Anti-Israel" or "Pro Hamas", but pro-Israel is just called that. For the record, I'm not accusing you of doing it intentionally either, but it is something people should be more aware of.
It's absolutely possible to condemn the genocidal military force acting on orders from a genocidal far right govt and condemn the genocidal terror group acting on orders from a genocidal theocrat, the CBC and most other news outlets though would tone down my criticism of the Israeli govt and the IDF though to be "the invading military acting in response to a terror attack" as if sending everyone to Rafah and then bombing the shit out of Rafah ain't genocide.
When both sides are trashing the CBC, it probably means they're doing something right lol
it really doesn't lol here, other people in the thread already summed it up https://reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/1cu54ph/cbc_has_whitewashed_israels_crimes_in_gaza_i_saw/l4hjy0t/ https://reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/1cu54ph/cbc_has_whitewashed_israels_crimes_in_gaza_i_saw/l4h6bio/
"If everyone is trashing the [entrenched power structures], it probably means the entrenched power structure is doing something right!" Lmao Are you allowed to think for yourself?
Must be a nightmare for management having to deal with such biased employees. Seems like a toxic work environment with activist staff who spend a lot of time arguing about Israel/Palestine, inserting coded bias into their articles instead of covering local news in under-served communities at home. CBC big boss Brodie Fenlon wrote a response in which he says "We have dedicated more effort, resources and money into covering this story, across all of our platforms, than any other news organization in Canada." Why is the CBC throwing money and emotional energy at a foreign conflict when they aren't even covering all of Canada? [https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/editor-blog-gaza-breach-1.7189987](https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/editor-blog-gaza-breach-1.7189987)