Juno News - Journalists cry over mean tweets

00:00:00.000 happy friday canada congratulations on making it to the end of the week for your reward you

00:00:14.860 get fake news friday the only show keeping canada's failing fake and biased legacy media

00:00:19.700 in check i'm harrison faulkner filling in for andrew lawton who usually fills in for the great

00:00:24.860 candace malcolm who's taking some much deserved time off with her family now sitting in the seat

00:00:28.820 i usually occupy is the very talented rupa subramania the host of the rupa subramania podcast

00:00:33.820 now before i throw it over to you rupa i just got to say besides being one of canada's top

00:00:38.100 journalists you happen you happen to have a real mack at getting a getting a rise out of the left

00:00:42.780 on twitter now i don't know if it's intentional or it's by accident but my goodness you know how to

00:00:47.040 get a rise out of them what's your what's your reaction been to the left's reaction of your

00:00:51.060 reporting what's it been over two and two weeks now two and a half weeks yeah well well first of all

00:00:56.980 harrison thanks for having me here it's a real honor to be here um and you know i i don't i don't

00:01:03.620 think i'm the top journalist in canada i i don't even think i'm in the top 10 i'm just i'm just

00:01:09.060 you know just a simple person sitting here in ottawa and uh writing on things that i care about and

00:01:15.620 that's pretty much it and i'm not afraid to call it as i see it uh and uh but going back to your

00:01:21.660 question uh and this was the big story that i broke a couple weeks ago on uh these court documents

00:01:28.780 that reveal that canada's uh travel mandate um uh vaccine mandate for travel had no scientific

00:01:35.500 rationale it was all driven by politics uh with the prime minister using the um the the vaccine mandate

00:01:42.860 as a political wedge issue uh in the hopes of getting a majority um uh for an election he called two

00:01:49.100 days after he announced uh the mandate um and the story itself got a you know an extraordinary

00:01:56.700 amount of traction online a lot of people shared it i got many many messages of support and encouragement

00:02:03.660 and people uh really glad that i uh that i got to the bottom of this uh but there were a few people

00:02:10.860 i would say who were um more than just a few people who were really riled up uh i i would say uh at this

00:02:18.540 uh at this um uh at my story they were um you know making accusations uh that this was well first of

00:02:26.460 all they said these court documents didn't even exist um that i was making it all up um and then uh and

00:02:34.540 then uh the federal court tweets um saying that hey guys uh given the extraordinary amount of interest

00:02:41.580 in this case we're actually releasing these documents right now so that shut them up right away but then

00:02:47.020 they had to move on to something else um and then they started calling me a russian agent and um you know

00:02:54.380 the usual smear uh that that uh that you know those of us in the independent space are accustomed to

00:03:01.500 uh being at the you know we're at the receiving end of such smears um and that um you know that i was

00:03:07.020 just uh again making it up i'm a liar and so on and so forth no no one actually was engaging with the

00:03:12.380 story no one was actually trying to um you know actually engage with what i was trying to say and

00:03:17.820 what the court documents themselves reveal i mean you don't even have to believe me just look take a

00:03:21.660 look at the court documents um and uh and and i and i flagged two uh two specific responses uh to my

00:03:29.820 story uh one of them was from liberal mp mark greetson um and uh the other one uh being charles angus of

00:03:38.860 the ndp mark greetson uh said that um you know he tweeted saying and he was by the way he was quote

00:03:45.180 tweeting a journalist um who who who didn't even react to what he was saying which which in itself is

00:03:51.100 pretty revealing um and mark greetson said that uh that that my story was uh was was uh blatant

00:03:59.740 propaganda it was a lot that i was lying and that uh and and this kind of we shouldn't wait till the

00:04:05.500 next election to confront uh this kind of blatant lying and propaganda it must be confronted now

00:04:13.260 um when i read that tweet i was you know i was really taken aback i was uh you know it was it was

00:04:19.180 chilling because this is coming from a politician from the governing party he's no garden variety

00:04:24.620 um anonymous troll um and uh and he he you know he was taking such a strong uh position against the

00:04:31.100 story that he didn't um he he didn't agree with and he was taking it out on not just the story but

00:04:36.700 also the journalist and um and and then there was a second reaction from charlie angus of the ndp

00:04:43.740 uh and uh and he said that uh this is written by a national post columnist the national post gets

00:04:49.740 tons of money from the government so uh and so therefore you know they're they get money from

00:04:55.100 the government and they're spreading bs and propaganda um yeah well insinuating insinuating

00:05:01.260 that anybody who takes money from the government can't be writing critical articles about the government

00:05:06.220 that's kind of the angle which is just exposing this whole thing to begin with and yeah i mean i think

00:05:10.860 you know if if they had if the liberals knew that their mandates could stand on their own and there

00:05:15.660 was justification for them to stand on their own i don't think they'd be reacting the way they did

00:05:19.740 to your reporting rupa but you mentioned this point about anonymous online trolls and how usually

00:05:25.900 journalists will face uh will face pushback and even hate from anonymous online trolls that's the game

00:05:30.940 we all end up having to to play with but it's different when it's politicians it's different when it's

00:05:36.140 actual journalists that are on the other side of uh on the other side of the house i mean that's

00:05:42.460 just sort of that's just an unheard of thing but i want to i want to talk about this canadian

00:05:47.660 association of journalists tweet because what we've been hearing it's it's really been i think it's been

00:05:53.100 so overused and we've been hearing it for what four weeks now it's it's this whole new push from

00:05:58.620 what we're seeing i think from a lot of legacy media journalists to make it seem as though they are

00:06:03.180 victims that the rest of canada are attacking these journalists particularly these young female

00:06:08.140 journalists and sending them death threats and sending them horrible messages now we're not going 1.00

00:06:12.540 to condone any of that anyone who sends any messages like that are stupid they're dumb but the point that 1.00

00:06:18.300 is the point that i think should be raised about this is the canadian association of journalists wrote 1.00

00:06:22.460 on twitter they they tagged toronto star the hill times global news and they all kind of joint signed this

00:06:29.100 list of demands which they sent to the police to what is it the toronto police ottawa police and the

00:06:34.460 rcmp and i just want to read it because it's just ridiculous so they start off by saying enough is

00:06:39.420 enough online hate against journalists must be addressed and then today the canadian association

00:06:44.220 of journalists send a list of demands to the police including four federal ministers and the

00:06:48.460 ontario attorney general so i'm going to quickly summarize this list of demands because the last

00:06:52.460 one i think is just such a such a kicker so the first one is we need a comprehensive and

00:06:57.740 cooperative approach to online hate across police forces recent threatening emails to journalists use

00:07:03.180 similar language used by domestic extremist groups journalists who showed support for colleagues were

00:07:08.380 also targeted and the next one is police forces must review and improve their processes for making

00:07:13.820 complaints of hate speech and harassment victims should not be waiting hours on the phone to file

00:07:18.540 complaints or be treated rudely and dismissed by officers see victims should not be threatened by police

00:07:24.060 even i mean it's it's just it's just ridiculous number three we ask for greater transparency and

00:07:30.300 dialogue from police forces to help keep journalists and all targets of hate safe and then and then here

00:07:35.340 at the bottom i just want to list this off they write for the most part the targets of these hateful

00:07:39.740 and threatening messages are women and women of color in canadian media we will not tolerate 1.00

00:07:43.820 anymore enough is enough well there happens to be a woman of color a female journalist of color 1.00

00:07:48.460 who receive not just hate from anonymous online trolls but hate from actual politicians in this

00:07:53.340 country rupa i want to ask you did the canadian association of journalists ever bother to ask you

00:07:58.140 how you were handling all the hate you were receiving for real journalism uh no i i what a shot

00:08:06.220 i i i didn't even rate a mention in in their uh tweet or uh no i i you know i think i think as far as uh

00:08:14.780 journalists in the independent space are concerned we just don't even exist as far as the legacy media

00:08:19.100 is concerned right it's all about them look um of course you know if there are credible threats to

00:08:25.340 one's personal safety i've been at the receiving end of that not not here in canada but overseas you

00:08:31.660 know over the course of my career uh and when it comes to credible threats like that you go to the

00:08:37.660 cops you go to the police and you you you and you allow uh law and order to take its course that's what

00:08:43.660 most normal people do you don't take these threats to twitter and complain about it there you you you

00:08:49.900 you know that that just makes no sense to me or you could do both why don't you do both uh the point

00:08:55.180 is that you know unfortunately what what ends up happening what's ended up happening is the journalists

00:09:00.860 instead of reporting on the story have become the story themselves and i didn't go to journalism school

00:09:06.940 um i think you did but but i think this is this is one of the things that they teach you in journalism

00:09:12.380 school you should never become the story yourself you should you should you should you should uh report

00:09:17.100 on the story and that's a very important distinction and i think a lot of um many journalists um um

00:09:24.220 you know especially those who identify themselves as being on the left um uh ideologically tend to

00:09:30.300 forget this lesson and they make it about themselves for whatever reason i don't know maybe it's it's to

00:09:35.580 gain more traction on social media it's to get more attention um i i i don't under i i really don't

00:09:41.820 understand if you were to ask a journalist covering a war-like situation in you know whether it's

00:09:47.020 afghanistan or um or you know in a conflict zone for example um do you see them taking to twitter and

00:09:54.300 uh and and you know and and in you know and you know and saying that you know this has been happening

00:09:59.660 to them i i don't think so i think i think part of the journalists are not meant to be liked people i

00:10:05.820 mean this is you've got to understand that um you know i like to be liked but i also understand that

00:10:10.780 that's not going to happen with everybody that i that i interact with uh not all of my uh readers

00:10:15.900 like me all the time and that's fine um i also get a lot of hate mail i also get a lot of people saying

00:10:21.260 uh why don't you go back to where you came from um you know i could i could i could spend my time on

00:10:25.980 twitter and uh and say and and say that this is you know i'm deeply offended i'm racialized so i'm a victim 0.69

00:10:33.100 of uh of uh this sort of behavior and i could spend a lot of time dwelling on this but you know i

00:10:40.300 rather move on because i think they're they're bigger bigger things to uh to care about uh you

00:10:45.660 know and i i certainly don't want to be the story um so you know again uh you know not to belittle the

00:10:51.500 experiences of people who um um get uh death threats their way or threats of rape i'm sure that's

00:10:59.660 happening uh these are genuine threats these are credible threats take them to the cops let them

00:11:04.620 decide you know let them investigate and get to the bottom of it um yeah i just don't see the purpose

00:11:10.140 in you know in in just taking to twitter and then uh you know and coming up with a conspiracy

00:11:16.860 theory that this is all coming from the right right of course yeah yeah but that's the easy

00:11:21.660 that's that's sort of the easy way out and an easy way for them to continue to villainize a

00:11:25.740 particular group of canadians that i think for the most part have a lot of have a lot of valid

00:11:30.380 reasons to be upset at canada's legacy media now i want to i want to go back to a point you made

00:11:34.780 you know when was the last time you saw a real wartime journalist a journalist who actually reports

00:11:39.980 in the field in combat zone go on twitter and say you know these enemy combatants are firing bullets

00:11:45.660 at me can can someone please step in and stop i mean it's so rude they're treating journalists so

00:11:50.140 poorly i mean it's just ridiculous right i mean i i i i can't imagine any one of these crying

00:11:56.540 journalists reporting in an actual war zone if they can't even handle twitter bots and twitter

00:12:01.660 anonymous trolls writing messages about them then they can't do any real reporting and you make the

00:12:06.300 point about journalists not wanting to be the story and they don't teach that in journalism school well

00:12:11.660 i think they didn't used to teach that in journalism school that's why we have such a divide we have

00:12:15.660 a group of journalists who are cut from the old cloth the real journalists in this country that know

00:12:20.620 what it's like to uphold journalistic principles they know what it's like to really do the job of

00:12:24.460 holding power to account then you have this new this new kind of fresh blood this new class of

00:12:29.500 journalists that are occupying these legacy media newsrooms who have been told by their journalism

00:12:35.500 schools because i've been in these inside of these classrooms that as a matter of fact it is okay for

00:12:40.140 journalists to be activists in fact i remember in my second year in my second year at school we were

00:12:45.660 given an assignment to write write a story about if journalists could be activists if journalists could

00:12:50.620 make themselves part of the story and the professors were pushing that line to us so they they've told

00:12:56.540 a whole new class of journalists that you need to find a way to make yourself part of the story you

00:13:01.340 need to get yourself into it be an activist get in there for political causes and you know that's why

00:13:05.420 i i consider i don't consider myself to be a journalist i consider myself to be in the media space there's

00:13:10.460 a big distinction i know what i do is not right down the line but i don't pretend that i'm i'm one of those

00:13:16.300 people and that's i think the big difference and i think canadians just want some honesty from these

00:13:20.620 reporters and again it just shows you the canadian association of journalists they they are totally

00:13:25.660 lacking in actually standing up for journalists in the field who receive real credible hate of course

00:13:30.540 they weren't there to help you out rupa but no they weren't and and let me just tell you tell

00:13:36.780 you something real quick here uh you know i i come from a family of academics and uh and you know people

00:13:43.020 who uh you know have a view on everything and you should see the kind of hate mail that they get

00:13:48.700 uh and they're not they're not uh you know they take it in their stride uh you know and again as i

00:13:54.940 say it's not our job here is not to be liked by people i think that's a very that's the wrong approach

00:14:01.500 i think your your your job is to report the facts as they are and let people come to their uh you know

00:14:07.180 decide for themselves whether whether they believe you or not and if you get um hate mail that's par for the

00:14:12.860 course that i get hate mail all the time i get all kinds of you know people are you know i get uh

00:14:19.580 people you know from the progressive left i've i've been at the receiving end of racist attacks

00:14:24.300 from the progressive left i've pointed several of these out on twitter just just out of interest

00:14:29.980 uh uh and uh you know but i'm not i'm not dwelling on this and you know i certainly don't want to be a

00:14:35.260 victim um and i take these things in my stride and if i genuinely feel threatened but here's the thing

00:14:41.180 there's a difference between um you know getting a threat from an anonymous troll and getting an

00:14:47.180 implied threat from a member of the governing party oh yeah um right um and the the latter is

00:14:55.100 pretty insidious it is sinister i've experienced this kind of thing overseas and uh you know i i i

00:15:01.820 worry about it you know i i'm telling you i i i you know it had a chilling effect on me and our

00:15:07.260 anonymous troll tells me something i just blocked them and i move on uh but a politician a sitting

00:15:13.580 a politician is an mp from the governing party says that this must be confronted now now you can

00:15:20.060 make the distinction that he was he was referring to my story and not me but how do you separate the

00:15:25.100 two no exactly and i think just before we move on to the next story there's so many important points

00:15:30.140 i mean we could talk about this for an hour pretty much but there's so many interesting little

00:15:33.980 points to talk about with this new push from the canadian association of journalists this this

00:15:38.700 this approach to try and engage the police in the defense of a particular class of journalists right

00:15:45.100 they're going to leave independent journalists behind but they want the toronto police the rcmp

00:15:49.740 and ottawa police to come to the rescue of a particular class of journalists now a lot of

00:15:54.540 people have pointed out that this is sort of a way to also justify liberal online censorship and

00:15:59.260 maybe you could go down there i think there's definitely a conversation to be had about that

00:16:02.460 but the caj has just routinely failed to actually defend journalists and this the toronto star is a

00:16:09.660 part of this is a part of this sort of joint letter right this is the same toronto star that wrote a

00:16:15.020 front page news story by pulling tweets that have apparently now been called into question these so-called

00:16:22.060 tweets that that basically say the unvaccinated can go to die we don't care if there aren't enough icu 0.86

00:16:28.380 beds for the unvaccinated they they they poured gasoline on a very very divisive issue back when 0.97

00:16:34.700 the vaccine issue was right at the heart what we were discussing in this country and now after telling

00:16:39.900 the end basically publishing on the front page that unvaccinated canadians can die the same toronto

00:16:45.180 star is now saying that their journalists need the help of the police to come and defend them and it's

00:16:49.820 important to know too where was the caj rupa when andrew lawton was pepper sprayed by police in ottawa or when

00:16:56.620 alexa lavoite rebel was shot in the leg by a tear gas canister point blank by the police or for

00:17:03.340 example when our own candace malcolm was basically being threatened by calistani extremists and had 0.69

00:17:10.940 basically her house uh targeted and her real safety targeted by calistani extremists who didn't like her

00:17:17.100 reporting uh you didn't see a bunch of police rush to the rush to the defense of uh outwardly to the

00:17:23.900 defense of candace you didn't see the canadian association of journalists stop what they are

00:17:27.660 doing and say we need to protect this journalist right to do her job you didn't see them there

00:17:31.420 because i think the truth is they're really in it to protect one class of journalists and that

00:17:36.060 i don't think is us i don't think they're here for the independent journalists they're not uh there for

00:17:41.100 us and neither should we count on them to be there for us i think i think uh that that would be a

00:17:46.380 complete waste of time and i think you know um you know as independent media gets stronger and i it is

00:17:53.660 for sure uh and uh you know gains more traction with the general public uh they're gonna have to uh

00:18:00.220 you know at some point acknowledge our existence and it'll happen sooner rather than later no i think

00:18:05.900 it will and i think as as more canadians realize what they're getting from legacy media the more they

00:18:10.860 cut the cable cord and and and cut their subscriptions to the globe and national

00:18:15.660 posts and all these different places they're going to come to the legacy media and they're going to

00:18:19.180 realize you know actually this is where real journal journalism is being done now switching gears

00:18:24.620 because as you know those who those who watch this program know that we try to end the show

00:18:28.300 on a bit of a lighter note we try and find something to laugh about on this show well there's a

00:18:32.460 toronto star op-ed written by michael corin who's a former toronto uh what's what was it sun news

00:18:38.300 network the failed sun news television network he was he used to work there the guy used to be a

00:18:42.940 conservative but he's totally switched his position and he's now bashing conservatives as

00:18:47.020 much as he can in the media well michael corin wrote a wrote an article in the toronto star

00:18:52.060 and the headline is the headline is canadian christian nationalism not christian it's not

00:18:57.180 canadian or patriotic patriotic either so you read that headline you probably think yeah you know

00:19:01.500 probably not a ton of support for christian national nationalism in this country but then how how

00:19:07.020 did i know rupa that in this article somewhere they were going to tie pierre paulia into canadian

00:19:12.940 christian nationalism sure enough three paragraphs in there he is it seems to be the playbook for the

00:19:16.940 legacy media oh my goodness yes it's it it read like a screed a rant and it had all the elements

00:19:24.380 of verbal diarrhea from the left uh you know yeah you you get uh you have trump um you know you you have 0.57

00:19:30.700 all of the the key keywords key buzzwords right you have trump you have the far right you have uh

00:19:37.020 nationalism you have pierre paulia you have the freedom convoy of course we can't forget those

00:19:43.500 people so you know it just it just read like you know this this guy clearly it read like he had a lot

00:19:50.700 of issues and he was just kind of uh you know you know going into this rant to get get this office

00:19:58.460 chest uh but you know i actually had to read this nonsense uh you could and i blame you for this

00:20:06.540 harrison sorry the things i have to do uh you know for true north but uh but anyway so you know he he's

00:20:13.820 he's making you know he has a very specific interpretation of christianity um he doesn't

00:20:18.780 like calvinism that's pretty obvious and he has this very you know he's this elite disdain uh you know

00:20:25.500 that you know he says these people uh at the protest they had misspelled uh quotes from the

00:20:31.580 bible or even misquoted from the bible so my question to him is does that mean that their

00:20:36.140 faith is not genuine uh they're not christians uh if if they can't spell right um you know it all 0.89

00:20:43.500 sounded very very elitist um and and more to the point about you know his criticism of of christian

00:20:50.540 nationalism see you can you can be a christian and you can be a nationalist so you can be a

00:20:56.300 christian nationalist you can you can be a christian and you can be a socialist uh as a matter of fact

00:21:03.100 the foundation of the british labor party is christian socialism and the foundation of many political

00:21:08.140 parties uh in europe um so if you can be a christian and a socialist why can't you be a christian and a

00:21:14.060 a nationalist uh you know and so basically this guy i mean in this you know long rant you know

00:21:20.700 he it comes across as though uh and it's it's unfortunate that this is coming from a an anglican

00:21:26.920 priest uh or you know it doesn't matter that he's anglican but the fact that this is well from a

00:21:32.120 priest in general i think yeah yeah i mean he just seems angry i thought priests were supposed to be

00:21:37.060 kind and compassionate and understanding of the other but it was it was quite the opposite uh he

00:21:43.880 just he just sounded very hateful in his op-ed uh and to me to my mind it sounded like he wanted a

00:21:50.440 situation where uh basically a small power elite decides uh what level of religiosity we should

00:21:57.300 have in society uh what brand of christianity uh we should have maybe even what brand of culture

00:22:02.960 um it it just it just for me you know it was just um you know just plain nonsense yeah well i mean

00:22:11.340 there's there's a the way that the legacy media do this they find the scariest words and put them

00:22:15.840 together to try and gin up a lot of a lot of readership because as we know these guys are

00:22:20.640 struggling to get viewers on their websites anyway so the more that they can use this sort of language

00:22:25.100 and ride the american wave i mean if you're plugged into american news you'll know for example that a lot

00:22:30.260 of people on the american right were having a total laugh at the atlantic this week when the atlantic

00:22:35.560 tried to say that rosaries are now becoming a hate symbol an extreme hate symbol so of course and

00:22:41.120 there's also been some talk about christian nationalism there's a congresswoman who

00:22:45.080 proclaimed that she was a proud christian nationalist and of course that just got the

00:22:49.420 left up in arms so but there's this very strange phenomenon happening where legacy media journalists

00:22:54.960 are are so are so focused on trying to tie the the front runner in the conservative leadership race

00:23:02.580 to the very worst elements of the of of politics in our culture and you don't see that from the

00:23:09.660 independent media on the other side so you won't see that but it's very bizarre it's a very bizarre

00:23:14.020 thing where they're trying to make pierre polyeth out to be this extremely dangerous uh very fringe

00:23:19.680 politician and it's bizarre to me because they almost treat pierre polyeth worse than they do

00:23:24.280 maxime bernier and anyone who knows the inside of conservative politics knows that pierre polyeth

00:23:30.060 is not a nationalist he's definitely doesn't appeal to the christian nationalist or far-right voting

00:23:36.020 block and and his campaign is staffed with insider establishment conservatives so it's like this

00:23:40.720 they're trying to kind of bend reality and i i think this is all desperation and panic really

00:23:45.400 to me it really reeks of panic from them absolutely it's it's not at all bizarre i mean i that's what

00:23:51.480 i wanted to say it's actually all quite predictable actually a pierre polyeth would be very much a

00:23:56.700 centrist in american politics you know and that's that's that's that's the irony of this whole thing

00:24:02.040 they're panicking and uh because you know you you have these polls coming out that show that

00:24:07.380 younger people are turning conservative uh and uh possibly uh turning to pierre so i think i think

00:24:14.080 this is the kind of thing that really upsets them this is the kind of thing that could um you know

00:24:19.240 upset um you know existing narratives you know that they've so tried so hard to uh uh you know have in

00:24:26.680 place over the last few years and uh it's just it's just the elites you know it's just elite opinion

00:24:32.520 facing a direct challenge right now and uh and and they're trying to counter it by uh you know trying

00:24:39.100 to smear the conservative leadership race and particularly pierre polyethro whether you like

00:24:43.160 him or not that's a different issue but you know i think to tie him in with everything including

00:24:48.180 christian nationalism it's just really really bizarre it just is a sign of desperation as you say

00:24:52.900 yeah and i think they're starting to feel it too that they know as they're going to try and demonize

00:24:57.200 uh this new group of of fresh-faced conservatives that are seeing a new option and that's i think

00:25:03.920 their hope well that's going to do it for us on the show today thank you for spending your friday

00:25:08.260 afternoon with us have a great weekend this was fake news friday that was rupa supermania my name is

00:25:12.900 harrison faulkner take care everyone

00:25:22.900 harrison faulkner take care everybody

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Juno News - August 19, 2022

Journalists cry over mean tweets

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