CBC reporters need to start paying attention to their own ombudsman’s advice or get fed to the online wolves
Plus! Black reporters fight about “platforming” Trump and sudden soccer experts drone on and on, inspiring animus and mockery as they replace damnation with deification of Canada's women
CBC Ombudsman Jack Nagler must wonder whether staff at the Mother Corp even bother to read his reports, let alone take his advice.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Blacklock’s Reporter posted a story highlighting Nagler’s wise words about social media use in his review of a CBCer’s tweet sympathizing with a Palestinian activist’s desire to kill Jews and drink their blood.
“This is a healthy reminder for those journalists who feel compelled to weigh in on controversial news stories,” Nagler wrote in his July 19 review. “While you don’t carry the burden of balance on your social feeds the way CBC does as a whole you are still expected to provide context where necessary.
“It might be helpful to think about social media the way you would about cutting a piece of wood. Measure twice and post once.”
Eleven days later, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre was using CBC’s London-based foreign correspondent, Chris Brown, as an example of why he intends to “defund the CBC.”
Brown, to borrow Nagler’s words, apparently felt “compelled to weigh in” on a controversial news story following the Israeli assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders and posted:
“If you are serious about negotiating a ceasefire, killing the guy on the other side who is negotiating it seems … like a deliberate effort to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Poilievre’s team jumped on that, and retweeted Brown’s comments with the fiery imperative: “CBC is mourning the loss of the leader of Hamas, who carried out the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Destroy Hamas. Defund the CBC.”
Thus was Brown, predictably, fed to the wolves. Carson Jerema, National Post Managing Editor of Comment, wasted little time carving off his pound of flesh, retweeting Brown’s comment with a shot of wry “Hamas started a war. Are CBC reporters upset that the terrorists are losing?”
Western Standard, The Daily Wire and True North all did news stories on the clash, online responses can be read here and it’s fair to say the mob didn’t go easy on CBC. It was, in other words, a completely unnecessary PR disaster. The wise move might have been to simply delete his initial, unnecessary tweet followed by a “whoops” explanation. Brown chose instead to follow up with “My previous tweet about the assassination of Haniyeh didn’t include enough context. Likely better to save the analysis of its implications for longer formats.” No kidding.
Many will see Poilievre’s reaction as over the top. I’ll leave that up to readers to debate. But it was certainly predictable and this affair is yet another reminder to CBC and all other reporters to take seriously Nagler’s advice to measure twice and post once. Every thought that pops into your head doesn’t need to pop onto your social media feeds.
There was quite the dustup this week at the US-based National Association of Black Journalists when Donald Trump became the first Republican candidate for president to accept the group’s invitation and speak to its annual convention since George W. Bush did so 20 years ago.
This so offended Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah that, according to Reuters, she “stepped down as a co-chair from the convention, saying on social media that she had not been “involved or consulted with in any way with the decision to platform Trump in such a format.”
This is probably not surprising from someone who’s Twitter/X page states “The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”
This sort of behaviour is not going to rebuild trust in journalism as a credible vessel for objectively-produced information let alone inspire people to start reading the Washington Post again.
So I’m with Leroy Chapman Jr., editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who, according to Reuters, said: “Here is what we need to ’normalize’ – candidates for office standing before journalists, answering questions.”
The big news coming out of that appearance, seeing as you asked, was Trump’s questioning of whether his opponent, Democrat Kamala Harris, who is of mixed race heritage, identifies as black or Indian.
Given The Rewrite’s mandate to focus on journalism, we’ll refrain from commenting on the drama surrounding the Canadian Olympic women/x soccer team’s use of drones to scout/spy on their opponents..
What is within our mandate, though, is the wild swing of emotional responses from a number of sports journos, self-styled and otherwise, jumping from one bandwagon to another as the story shifted.
When the news first broke and the team’s demise seemed certain, there were some fierce condemnations. Father Raymond de Souza, a commentator and Catholic priest who blogs and writes for National Post, called for the entire team to depart the Paris games and return the gold medals they famously won in 2021 at Tokyo. I have known the good Father for many years and will defer to his theological expertise but that seemed a rather severe demand for penitence. Muslim activist and CBC Sports presenter Shireen Ahmed went way over the top by calling the issue a bigger scandal than the Ben Johnson/Charlie Francis doping disgrace at the 1988 Seoul games. Then Sid Seixeiro, a breakfast show host for Citytv, went nuclear.
“If any young player decided to pass on playing international soccer for Canada going forward I would completely understand. If any Canadian company passed on sponsoring Canada soccer I would understand,” he posted on X.
The head coach was suspended and the team docked six points - the equivalent of two wins. And then, remarkably, it won three straight games and made it to Saturday’s quarterfinal against Germany.
Seixeiro posted, after the team’s second win, an emotional “we’re not cheaters” clip from one of the players then, perhaps sensing a shift in public opinion, stated “There aren’t enough words to express how much I respect this group of athletes. Truly remarkable.”
He then wisely went mute. Ahmed shifted horses just as quickly. Having equated the team to the greatest scandal in Olympics history, mere days later she was praising it: “Vanessa Gilles talks about PRIDE. Pride of being Canadian, pride of being part of the Canadian team.”
Everyone loves a good redemption story as this clip from Sportsnet’s The Fan 590 illustrates. CBC also lapped it up with a segment resurrecting Phil Esposito’s famous rallying cry for Team Canada after being humiliated by the Soviets in the early games of the 1972 hockey Summit Series.
Meanwhile, the antipathy felt by many within the soccer community towards TSN’s Rick Westhead boiled over.
There is a long story behind this that we will examine another day. I don’t condone the name-calling - critiques should stick to words and actions - but here are a couple examples of the online animosity.
Finally, a tip of the hat to Terry Glavin for this gem of a line: “It has transpired that Hamas godfather Ismail Haniyeh has changed his pronouns to was/were.”
Normally, this weekly overview of media comes out on Mondays. As August 5 is a holiday, I’m pushing this one out before the weekend and anticipate returning Aug. 12 after a little golf and hiking. Take it easy and feel free to help build The Rewrite’s audience.
Peter Menzies is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a former publisher of the Calgary Herald and a previous vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Thank you Peter Menzies. It’s great to have some honest stock taking about journalism in Canada. Enjoy your weeks of recreation.
The CBC comment struck me as mild and even reasonable. The responses did not address the concern expressed, that peace will come later rather than sooner.
If Poilievre's comment was "over the top" then that still means "acceptable", only up for a mild chiding.
If that's acceptable, then that's the level of argument you will get. very pungent and "engaging". I suppose it sells newspapers, but it can't govern countries. The goals of journalists are not the goals of citizens when journalists let discourse fall to those standards.