I got a chance to watch most of Power and Politics yesterday, and although I was reasonably impressed by its new host Vassy Kapelos, the editorial direction of the program itself was an absolute disaster. As usual.
Yet another example of either total incompetence and/or naked bias.
And one more example of why so many disappointed Canadians now call the CBC, the Conservative Broadcasting Corporation.
For why on earth would that panel debate whether Bill Morneau should apologize for calling Lisa Raitt a "neanderthal?"
When he never did.
And it was Raitt who should have apologized for going after Morneau like a moll or a maniac, as I pointed out yesterday.
Morneau seemed taken aback by Raitt's line of questioning.
"I actually find your line of questioning to be offensive," he said, adding that he and the government "absolutely believe" that promoting women into positions of leadership is a key to a successful economy.
"We will drag along the Neanderthals who don't agree with that and that will be our continuing approach," he added, in apparent reference to Conservatives.
"I'm not a Neanderthal," retorted Raitt.
And why did nobody on that panel call Andrew Scheer a liar, for spreading that fake news?
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are jousting over who most respects women.
The Conservative leader is demanding an apology to his deputy leader, Lisa Raitt, who was the target of what Scheer claims was an insulting and sexist remark from Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
When there was no sexist remark aimed at Raitt. Period.
And the notion that Scheer, the creepy religious fanatic, respects women more than Trudeau does would be laughable...
If it wasn't so horrifying.
To make matters worse, Power and Politics isn't the only hideously flawed CBC program.
For the National with its At Issue panel is even more outrageously biased...
With the host, Rosemary Barton, usually agreeing with all the panelists, especially Andrew Coyne, that Trudeau is a disaster and should resign immediately.
And on the Opinion page of the CBC News website, the former National Post scribbler Robyn Urback pumps out Con propaganda like she was personally chosen by God or Conrad Black, to bring down the Trudeau government...
And then as if all that wasn't bad enough, there's CBC Comedy, which is riddled with Con bias, and more ideological than funny.
Take this skit for example...
Is that funny? Or is it propaganda of the crudest kind, administered with all the delicacy of a sledgehammer?
Which can only make you wonder what CBC Comedy thinks its mandate is?
To make us laugh, or pay tribute to the monster who almost killed the corporation?
With the slow death of a thousand cuts.
For you might think that somebody would remind them that had Stephen Harper been re-elected, there wouldn't be much left of the CBC at this point.
Or remind them that if they help elect Andrew Scheer they will be led like lambs to the slaughter.
Conservative leadership candidate Andrew Scheer suggested that if he were to become prime minister, he would axe the news division of CBC.
“I think taxpayers are very frustrated by how much the CBC costs,” Scheer said in an interview with Hamilton Community News.
“I don’t know why this government is in the news business in this day and age with so many platforms with so many ways to disseminate information,” he told the paper, adding that, the government has a “glaring” conflict operating the CBC.
Which is of course, why the other members of the Con media support Scheer so strongly.
For the death of CBC News would greatly improve their chances of survival.
It's absolute madness, an act of self mutilation, and one has to wonder whether the CBC has been too corrupted over the years by its Con board...
And is now too sick to save.
I think the jury is out on that one, but we should still try. It is still worth pressuring to try to force it to be more balanced.
We need to write letters to the ombudsman, we need to boycott certain programs, we need to stage public protests. We need to encourage its ordinary workers to rise up against their Con managers.
The CBC should be saved before it helps kill our Canada.
And in the process kills itself...
36 comments:
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if there's a Con bias at the Corpse, blame Trudeau! I'm happy to see the Libs finally replace some directors. But president and CEO Lacroix's contract ended 3 months ago. Why is the whole place still reporting to a Con hack?
Yes, Simon. An ideological purge is exactly what the CBC needs right now. Because the best way to ensure the public broadcaster's survival would be to turn it into the very caricature portrayed by its worst enemies on the right.
"So many ways to disseminate information" -- you mean like Internet propaganda videos and disinfo botnets, Andy? Rebel Media and Sun T.V.? Fox News? "Free" speech is a pricey commodity for cons like him, with the loudest megaphone going to the one with the biggest wallet. Citizens United for the Northern Tories.
Harper sure did a tune on Canada over ten years' time. Trudeau shouldn't be expected to fix it in only two, not when these fuckers are determined to oust him by any means possible (read: lying and cheating) so they can finish the job and sell off the whole place to the highest bidder. Scumbag Steve injected the national broadcaster -- and by extension, the national discourse -- with poison, and an antidote sure seems hard to come by. Especially since social media has proven to be fraught with more problems than solutions. Talk about going "viral."
I worry for your country. Trump, Kenney, Ford, and Scheer are fearsome enough. But what really keeps me awake at night are the kind of people who would vote for them out of pure spite and selfishness. The commenter "Kathleen F." who stops by here sometimes says it quite often, and I agree: greed is what will ruin us all.
Exactly how is the word Neanderthal sexist ? Doesn't it describe a whole species? Perhaps Andy"s brain needs to evolve.
And letting them become a publicly-financed version of Fox News is somehow better? The right is the enemy of everyone. Let them hem and haw. They live in a fact-devoid universe anyway. It's about time they faced repercussions for their spew of lies, bias, and hateful venom. Look up "Karl Popper paradox of tolerance" for why right-wing garbage is the worst kind of garbage that needs to be quarantined if civilized societies are to survive.
Right on Simon. Like you I have always defended the CBC, but it needs a wake up call. As you point out it seems to be determined to destroy those who saved it, which is nuts. Whoever is booking panel members needs to be fired, and their programs need to stop reflecting the Con hit of the day. Why would they keep hammering away at the India story when there are so many other stories so much more important than that one?
It’s ironic that one of JT’s greatest indictments is that he has allowed the Con saboteurs to remain on the CBC executive.
If he had done we’d have been spared the “War on Drugs” propaganda of the last year and a half. Because it was impossible to edit out, The Current inadvertently allowed one of its guest today to remind that seniors are now so terrified of taking proper amount of pain meds—because they’re scared of getting addicted like CBC has been incessantly droning on abou, despite the lack of hard eveidence—that they avoid pain by avoiding activity, losing tone, limberness and balance as a result, and becoming much more susceptible to falls, the virtual death knell for old people. It was impossible to edit this point out of context. One needn’t be told that these seniors probably got that fear from listening to CBC.
The CBC has disgraced its builders of seven decades by becoming a blatant propaganda machine. The first step in reversing this trend is to fire the executive—all of them, regardless who appointed them.
I wondered why the Con media was so pro-Scheer and now it all makes sense, they want him to kill the CBC. I wonder if the CBC managers are too dumb to understand that, or whether the Con board has installed their own people into all positions of responsibility. We need to find out the truth and make the guilty pay!!!!
In other words, the best way to engage those with whom you disagree is to assume a mantle of arrogant certainty and prove them right. You are really no different than the Pepe the frog gang. You guys truly deserve each other.
If JT doesn't make wholesale changes at the CBC and I doubt he will, the Harper infection will persist. His infection doesn't end there though. Most departments are infected with the Harper plague after he quietly instilled his trained seals during his dictatorship. Think launching Phoenix was an accident? Nope. Harper's bureaucrats swore up and down it would work and look at it now, 1 billion and counting and the Con's will blame it all on JT.
Harper's poison pills he left behind must make him especially giddy these days as JT deals with the fallout while the cost to us taxpayers reaches the billions.
Joke's on us I guess eh Steve?
JD
When the tax payer funded "comedian" goes off like that on Cons you don't care. See ya later hypocrite.
Morneau calls their party prehistoric knuckle draggers and Raitt goes on about sexism. Why? The reason is Marshall is scripting question period so they can use the videos to make attack ads and today's ads were focused on Scheer as a champion of women. Morneau changed the game by attacking their party but the attack script was predicated on bashing the liberals over women's rights so they had to make it fit.
The Liberals should continue with this strategy instead of falling for the scripting by providing the Cons with response video that is immediately disseminated to the multitude of (Franchised Rebel?) Media labs and converted to propaganda. Today they suckered Trudeau into responding to questions on a calculated 11 cents per liter carbon tax on gasoline. Instead of saying any revenue on carbon pricing stays at the provincial level and can be redistributed based on provincial needs the response was more general and left the door open to several (some voice modified ) attack ads posing as news. The liberals need to take control of this question period garbage or it will destroy them. It would seem to me that question period video should be copyrighted and not allowed to be edited and modified into short propaganda clips. Failing that the door should be open to actually suing some of the distributors and Google for some of the more blatant personal attacks. The fact that the YouTube attack videos are generating Google paid advertising revenue makes them liable. Perhaps Google will smarten up when sued for paying for Levant's racist videos as an example... complaints don't seem to work.
RT
@anon 5:25 -- way to exhibit false equivalence. There are some things you can't politely disagree about. The right-wing "disagrees" on the basic humanity and equality of racial and religious minorities, LGBT people and women. The right-wing "disagrees" on the provision of basic services necessary to a just society and a truly free press. The right-wing "disagrees" on the validity of science. In other words, the right-wing "disagrees" on facts. By pretending that their "disagreement" is simply a "valid opposition viewpoint," you muddy the waters and fail to do a necessary service to the public by presenting truth as truth, hate as hate and BS as BS.
No amount of mealymouthed "understanding" of their fact-devoid worldview is going to make them hate liberals any less. Liberals, both small and big L, are the only ones fighting to preserve and progress forward into modernity in the name of human rights, compassion, and a more equitable share of resources so that 100% of the gains don't end up in hands of 1% of the people. If cons want to go create their own "alt-media" in some dark corner of no man's land, fine, but keep it away from sane and sensible members of society. Conservatism has never borne out to anything good for a country. It was really only a matter of time before the Southern Strategy made its way north. Cons are toxic, period. Hate and lies deserve no oxygen, and it serves no one to countenance their pollution. Period.
I wonder if cave woman Lisa would clear the 23 and Me DNA test. I know two people who recently were found to have trace neanderthal DNA, consistent with evidence that the two related species interbred. I don't know about you but Raitt strikes me as genetically curious.
Comedy is about punching up, not down. Cons aren't oppressed, nor are they the champions of the oppressed. Looks like we've found another con astroturfer who fails at art.
Bye Felicia.
Bravo, Simon!
It breaks my heart what has been done to the CBC. It has been a part of my life for 58 years, and I remember the "old" CBC very fondly. Not so the "new" CBC. It's as if they are purposely trying to repel and alienate viewers. I especially detest the the new look of the news website, to the extent I no longer read it. But the content has been spiralling downward for years. I agree, a major purge is needed to save our CBC. It's still worth saving, and restoring, in my view.
Simon, while on the subject of the CBC turning into a con and corporate mouthpiece, I thought you should see this too.
http://www.canadalandshow.com/cbc-repurposes-pacific-content-product-as-programming/
Capitalist-Bought Content.
these echo chamber panels are ridiculous. QP a few weeks ago was all like
Canada needs to cut corporate taxes to match USA, no questions, its the only thing that can be done.
The CBC news website redesign is such an eyesore, and so poor at delivering organized news, that I wondered aloud if it was sabotage from within.
hi anon@12:48...I don't know where things are right now. There was or is a new selection process, but apparently they need more time to find all the replacements. I'm as impatient as you are to see all of the Con board gone...
hi anon@1:14 pm... No, you just don't get it. All we are asking is for more balance, and the end of the CBC as a right-wing caricature. Please think a little deeper before you write something. Thanks...
hi anon@5:25 PM...no we don't have an arrogant anything. And Pepe the frog is your creation not ours. We have the humble certainty that if we don't destroy the alt-right Cons and treasonous Trumplings they will destroy our country, and we don't intend to let that happen...
hi Jackie...thanks for trying to educate that Con, but it really is a waste of time. They don't have the brain cells to absorb what you're telling them, and their fear glands are too large....
hi rumleyfips...good point, I hadn't thought of that. But then of course the Cons are sexists, and they are neanderthals, and Raitt is losing her mind...
hi anon@3:17 PM...I agree with everything you say. The CBC which I have defended and will continue to defend needs a wake up call before it destroys itself. Their obsession with the Fake India story has damaged the government for no good reason, and made them look like a propaganda branch of the Harper party, and they need to be taught a good lesson...
hi Geoffrey...I'm with you. It has been horrifying to watch the way the CBC's management has tarnished the reputation of what was a national treasure. Some of the many editorial mistakes they make are so elementary it boggles the mind. And their bias is so obvious one wonders how it could happen. And I also agree with you, the correction has to start at the top...
hi anon@4:29 PM...I can't understand why the CBC seems so determined to commit hara kiri. I suspect many of its managers are so concerned with studying their own navels that they can't understand what's happening in the real world. Or maybe they are Cons who are trying to correct what they see as "liberal bias." But the CBC is now so right-wing it's ridiculous. And it does not reflect the views of most people in this country...
hi JD...The Liberals have made an effort to recruit better board members, and they were tied down by contracts that couldn't be easily broken. But I hope they understand that firm action is needed, that the bullies need to be beaten, and that if the Cons scream so much the better ...
hi anon@5:45...As long as there is some balance I don't care what comedians say about anybody. But there is no balance and that is a problem, so see you later alligator...
Hi anon...she's probably not hairy enough to be a true neanderthal, but she does have the jaw, and her behaviour has resembled that of a cave dweller. She needs to restrain herself or start wearing animal skins and carrying a club... ;)
hi anon@6:48 PM...Thank you, like you the CBC has meant a lot to me since I was a young boy. I couldn't conceive of Canada without it. But as you say, the new CBC is not one I enjoy. Thee is far too much flash and trash, and even the news looks like it's coming from some alien planet. And that's without the naked bias that I'm sure is driving many of its most faithful viewers away. The CBC needs to get serious, and reflect this country better...
hi Jackie.... I understand and sympathize when the CBC complains about not being given enough money to service a country as large and as remote as this one. But I would like to see a CBC with as few ads as possible, or none. And this kind of sponsorship is the road to ruin...
hi anon@9:21 PM...I suspect it's more a case of incompetence than anything else. They laid off a lot of younger employees because they had no seniority, and as a result they seem curiously old fashioned and not very user friendly. Which is however another way of killing the corporation...
Slight correction Simon. Pepe the Frog is not their creation. It was stolen. The Alt-right is not that creative, if it is creative at all. Even the Nazi's swastika was a minor adaptation of the Sanskrit swastika.
The original cartoonist seemed puzzled, dazed might be a better word, that his little frog became a symbol for the scum of the earth.
Think launching Phoenix was an accident?
Yes, it probably was. Remember the Cons were incredible incompetent as well as evil.
They saw a chance to save money and, at a guess, totally ignored their civil servants who knew what they were doing. The Cons were and are fact-adverse.
A main reason for thinking that Phoenix was an accident was that if the Cons had won the last election---a fairly good possiblity at the time---they would be the ones taking the blame and a lot more dirt would be sticking to them than is to Liberals since the Liberals can truthfully say that they are trying to clean up the mess the Cons left.
Simon, I am the anonymous commenter to whom you are responding. Pepe the frog has nothing to do with me. My disgust with Trump and the alt-right is visceral and real. They are a danger to the principles of law and constitutionality which underpin the peace, prosperity and progress the Western world has enjoyed for these past seven decades. Process, institutions and rules are nuisances to be swept aside in favour of their vision of an ideal society. Sound familiar? And some of the staunchest, most principled opponents to the alt-right happen to be conservatives. So, yes, the accusation of arrogance stands.
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