Media meltdown leaves industry red-faced and very unlikely to be forgiven for its sins and its subsidies
A week before we know the winner of the election, a debate debacle ensures the nation's news organizations will be big losers when it comes to retaining what remained of the public's faith in them
Two days after this election was called, I wrote this for The Hub:
“When the votes are all counted, a great many if not most of those on the losing sides will blame it on the reporters, editors, headline writers, and producers who will be managing the coverage in the weeks ahead. It’s an open question whether they will be forgiven. Some may be. Most probably won’t.”
Whatever hope most of the nation’s media had of surviving April with their reputations intact slipped beneath the waves Thursday night when, in the hours surrounding the party leaders’ debate, a battle erupted within the press corps and the post-debate news conference was cancelled. The fog of war is thick on this one, but here is my understanding.
In 2018, the Justin Trudeau government established a commission to oversee and manage the debates. It was overruled by the courts in 2019 and 2021 when it tried to keep Rebel News and other previously unsanctioned media from being accredited. This year, not only did Rebel News, which is litigious, get a spot in the media room, it inexplicably got five, reportedly because the commission feared being sued. When it, True North and Juno News managed to get in questions following the French language debate on Tuesday, matters became tense. As outlined in my post on April 17, CBC’s Rosemary Barton fumbled - badly - in her attempt to out Rebel News’s Drea Humphrey as a purveyor of misinformation when she asked a question about why the NDP wouldn’t express more concern about church burnings. Paraphrasing Don Cherry’s famous last words, Barton referred to these apparent scallywags not as reporters but “these people.”
Fellow news presenter Adrienne Arsenault also appeared to be suffering a case of the vapours over the nature of the questions, looking over her shoulder to check to see if she was still in Canada “because the identity politics questions have not emerged much here.” These apparently unique inquiries included asking Liberal leader Mark Carney how many genders there are - a question Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was asked months ago by CTV to see if he agreed with Donald Trump - and the hot topic of whether women are deserving of female-only spaces.
The good news is that no one got physically injured. But there are tales of Rebel staff hounding CBC staff, police being called, an assault alleged, dummy cabs being employed by panicked CBC staff to escape confrontation and videos - one showing The Hill Times’ Stuart Benson losing his composure - made the rounds. Benson was roundly taunted by Rebel owner Ezra Levant, a master at getting under people’s skin.
I’ve known Ezra for around 30 years going back almost to when he was on the University of Calgary debate team with (now Alberta Premier) Danielle Smith and (former Calgary Mayor and now Alberta NDP leader) Naheed Nenshi. I’m pretty sure Levant thinks I am, if not a closet pinko, at least what the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used to call a “wet.”
Either would explain why I am not a fan of Rebel News, although its 1.7 million YouTube subscribers clearly are. It’s primary business model appears to be the generation and monetizing of outrage among those alienated from and by mainstream media. I do, however, respect its right to exist as whatever it is, its battles for freedom of speech and its occasionally corrective role, even if I deeply regret all are required. In terms of journalism, I consider it to be - along with several other platforms on the left and right - an activist organization that uses the craft to advance its cause. These stand in contrast with organizations (if you can find one anymore) whose primary purpose is to inform the public through fair, balanced, accurate and objective reporting accompanied by a range of opinion. I am aware the same criticisms could be made - and I make them - of a number of legacy news outlets which are far less honest about their bias than is True North, for instance.
Rebel News is the most notorious within the uber activist genre and it is commonly understood that when the Journalism Labour Tax Credit and Local Journalism Initiative - and perhaps even the debates commission - were created, they were constructed to ensure Rebel News would never, ever benefit.
But while most of its skeletons are out of the closet, the same can’t be said about the broader media status quo. Pretty much every news outlet in the country knows that if the Conservatives win this election, they may lose access to subsidies and funds created by the Liberals. But all have ignored pleas they be up front about it. (Look for my commentary in The Hub tomorrow/April 21 for more).
Benson’s The Hill Times, for instance, was described by Blacklock’s Reporter last year as “one of Canada’s most heavily-subsidized weeklies” in a report noting it “did not comment after publishing an article critical of Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre’s proposal to abolish subsidies. The Hill Times did not disclose its own six-figure funding or the fact the reporter who wrote the story had worked as a $750-a day federal consultant.”
The meltdown leading to the cancelled news conference, which you can watch here, is humiliating, which is why many reporters in the sequence are working to maintain some sense of professional poise by staring either at their feet or their laptops.
The government never had any business being involved in the creation of a debates commission which, as testament to Trudeau’s wisdom, clearly couldn’t organize a booze up in a brewery. You can stick former Reform MP Deborah Grey on it (as has been done) and call it “independent” all you want: the public will always view it with suspicion, just as it does media subsidized by the government. Which is almost all of them.
And so here we are, down the stretch of an election campaign as we began it, wondering which of the media covering it will be forgiven for their biases, conduct and conflicts. Some may be. Most probably won’t. But if the Liberals win, they can always just ask for more subsidies.
(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)
When we can't trust that our media isn't solely reporting on the basis of government funding, how can we possibly be living in a democracy? We might as well be living in China.
I'm no fan of Rebel Media either, but this is why they exist.
Presumably, with a centrist government, you might have both far left and far right independent media. The fact that the "objectionable" media outlets are entirely right of centre is notable. It suggests that leftist views are more than adequately covered by mainstream media.