Juno News - The legacy media defends Trudeau’s “well-deserved” vacation

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to you all. This is Friday, August 5th, 2022. You are tuned in to another

00:00:16.520 edition of Fake News Friday here on True North. Not Canada's most irreverent talk show, that's

00:00:23.180 the Andrew Lawton Show. Not the all-seeing eye on things happening on social media, that's ratioed

00:00:28.540 with my friend and colleague and co-host for this foray into the fakery of some of the news media,

00:00:35.160 Harrison Faulkner. Harrison, how was the week? Good, sir. Good to see you, Andrew. It was a pretty

00:00:39.740 good week. I feel like I'm still kind of bringing myself back to speed after that ridiculous 0.52

00:00:44.200 conservative debate on Wednesday that basically slowed me down to a halt. So I'm kind of getting

00:00:50.140 back up to speed, looking forward to the weekend. Yeah, that was Fake News Friday, I believe. The

00:00:54.400 reality of that debate, and I won't rehash it because I do realize that some people might be

00:00:59.140 listening while they drive, and I don't want to be responsible for any collisions on the Trans

00:01:03.840 Canada Highway if we play clips from that thing. But it was interesting how so many people said it

00:01:09.220 was so necessary, and we're now two days after, and I've yet to hear anyone articulate what we gained

00:01:15.760 from that debate, apart from vindication. I think the people that said there didn't need to be a debate

00:01:21.660 were vindicated. So it might have actually been a bit of a win for Pierre Polyev and Leslie Lewis,

00:01:27.020 even if I do think they were wrong to skip out on the official debate.

00:01:31.440 Yeah, I agree with you, Andrew. We made that point on the Wednesday show that at first I was in that

00:01:36.940 camp too. I said, you know, they should show up at this debate, do their part, make sure they give

00:01:40.820 Canadians and the other candidates a chance to hear what they have to say. But then after watching about

00:01:46.180 five minutes of it, I immediately realized that they had made the right choice. So we were stuck then.

00:01:51.120 We were stuck for what was that an hour plus of English, French, back and forth boring

00:01:57.180 conversations. So I'm glad it's over and just looking forward to the weekend at this point.

00:02:02.100 One person who checked completely out of the debate and also out of Canadian politics for a

00:02:07.440 couple of weeks is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has taken a two week family vacation to Costa Rica,

00:02:14.260 where he is going to be at a resort that he stayed at in 2019. It's a purely a holiday. If you look at

00:02:21.040 his itineraries that are coming out, like just look at today's, for example, from the Prime Minister's

00:02:26.100 office, it says it's a personal day. And there it is, Costa Rica in big, bold letters. Now, before we

00:02:32.800 get into the media side of this, I want to just restate the reason that they're putting on that

00:02:37.580 itinerary, Costa Rica, in bold letters is because Trudeau was busted for taking a secret vacation a while

00:02:45.260 ago. I think to Tofino, and maybe, I might be wrong, maybe the previous Costa Rica vacation as well, where

00:02:52.360 the press releases kept saying Ottawa, Ottawa, Ottawa, and then people in the local community were taking

00:02:58.660 pictures of Justin Trudeau, and he was demonstrably not in Ottawa. So now they're at least being honest about

00:03:04.380 where in the world Justin Trudeau is. Two week vacation in Costa Rica. And people reported on this, because I

00:03:11.920 think it is news. When the Prime Minister skips up and leaves, especially in the midst of what the

00:03:16.500 government characterizes as an ongoing pandemic, that is something Canadians are interested in. Now,

00:03:22.400 what you take away from that news, is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Or is it just

00:03:26.640 information is up to you? True North reported on it. And it was interesting to see how some of the

00:03:33.180 legacy media types pounced on True North and other outlets criticizing people for talking about this.

00:03:39.640 And basically, just to give a couple of examples here, there was one notable piece from Max Fawcett

00:03:46.120 who said, stop punishing Trudeau for having a private life. Now, this is the guy who's punished

00:03:52.420 Canadians for making a private decision to not be vaccinated, but we're to just leave him alone on

00:03:57.900 his own time. And what he says here is that it is manufactured outrage by Canada's conservative

00:04:05.040 media ecosystem. And he calls out True North, but even outlets like the Canadian Press, Global News,

00:04:10.800 and CBC for treating his decision to take a well-deserved break as a legitimate news story.

00:04:18.480 It strikes me that whether you agree or disagree with whether he's deserved a break,

00:04:24.520 that he is taking one is inherently newsworthy.

00:04:27.460 Well, it's not only just Max Fawcett, National Observer, trying to cover for Justin Trudeau.

00:04:33.500 The Globe and Mail, Robin Urbach, who I usually don't have any issues with,

00:04:37.140 she also jumped to Justin Trudeau's defense for taking the vacation. And we can get into the

00:04:41.540 details. We can say, yeah, isn't it hypocritical that Justin Trudeau and this, 0.94

00:04:45.840 what the government, as you said, considers to be an ongoing pandemic, and with inflation at this

00:04:52.340 level that it is. You know, Justin Trudeau, the guy that has told several, several thousands of

00:04:58.000 Canadians, I don't know the exact number, but a lot of Canadians for quite a while couldn't board

00:05:02.000 a plane or a train. A lot of Canadians were subject to rules that limited them from having their own

00:05:07.500 private life. And here comes the legacy media to defend Justin Trudeau for his private life. But

00:05:11.620 my biggest issue with this is not even that, Andrew. It's 30 degrees here in Toronto. It's way too hot

00:05:17.180 for me even. So the idea of possibly going further south to Costa Rica to, what, get warmer weather?

00:05:22.940 I don't understand it. He doesn't seem to have a problem vacationing anywhere in Canada. He could

00:05:27.880 have gone somewhere in Canada, but he decided to, I don't know, catch the heat. It's too hot for me

00:05:31.700 here. I don't understand that move. Yeah, that's actually an interesting angle, Harrison. I don't

00:05:36.880 know if I can ever take anyone seriously who lectures us about global warming who chose to go to the

00:05:42.020 Caribbean in August. Exactly. Exactly. It's just like, if you escape the winter, okay, fair game.

00:05:48.060 Everyone wants to get out of here in December. I think, to be honest, Trudeau wants to take vacations

00:05:52.840 all the time. He loves it, whether it's Tofino, Costa Rica, the Aga Khan's private island of Bahamas.

00:05:58.760 I think it's probably annoyed him greatly that he hasn't had time now because there have been summits

00:06:03.620 and meetings and a parliamentary schedule. So he's probably just had like a resort credit that he's

00:06:08.400 needed to use. And finally, it's like, okay, I can get away for two weeks in August. I'm going to go.

00:06:12.960 I don't begrudge political leaders from taking vacation. And I have actually differed from a lot

00:06:18.760 of my colleagues on this issue because I think if Trudeau were to take a vacation 50 weeks of the year,

00:06:24.020 the country would actually be quite well served by it. And I would love for him, and I might actually

00:06:28.540 chip in a few dollars for him to stay at the resort until 2025. Maybe we can get a crowdfunding

00:06:33.580 campaign going. But I think it is the double standard in the media. When you see Doug Ford,

00:06:39.320 who was just eviscerated for going up to a cottage on the long weekend, admittedly,

00:06:44.040 well, Doug Ford was telling people not to go to the cottage. But even so, when Stephen Harper went

00:06:48.680 to New York to take in a ball game with his son, he was chastised in the media for it. So the idea

00:06:54.920 that we're being told, don't mention this at all, by the same people that jumped up and down for

00:07:00.140 vacations that were far less opulent, that double standard is the issue I take here.

00:07:04.720 No, exactly. And the idea that Justin Trudeau taking a vacation, a two-week vacation in the

00:07:10.140 current climate we're in, the idea that that is not newsworthy is just obviously not true. Again,

00:07:14.900 you said it's a double standard. We hear it all the time when conservative politicians make the

00:07:19.180 wrong move and take the wrong time to go on vacation, or even just take the right time to go

00:07:23.380 on vacation. But again, you can't tell me that when the prime minister takes two weeks off,

00:07:27.620 you know, because he's working so hard, right? You know, crossing the country, showing up at

00:07:32.040 photo ops, shaking hands, really tough stuff. Well, you know, the idea that that's not news

00:07:36.540 is just a joke. Obviously, it's newsworthy. Canadians can expect to have high standards

00:07:42.280 for their prime minister, especially when he has such lofty standards for all of us to reach. So

00:07:46.800 again, it's just, it's ridiculous to come at True North as National Observer did. And it's,

00:07:51.660 but then again, it shouldn't really surprise anyone that you're seeing National Observer,

00:07:55.060 you're seeing some Globe and Mail defense of Trudeau's vacation. It's again, like I always

00:07:59.640 say on the, on the, on the show, it's par for the course. Nothing really new is, is changing in the

00:08:04.060 media climate here. I will say I can see the appeal if you're the prime minister of a country like

00:08:09.620 Canada, going to just a completely other place where you're not going to be recognized. There was

00:08:14.580 this photo, I almost feel mean sharing the photo, but at the same time, it's, it's newsworthy in and

00:08:21.140 of itself. And it's already out there. When Trudeau was in Costa Rica last time, one of the locals

00:08:26.280 shopped a spot him. I think it was like buying booze at the local deponeur or whatever the

00:08:31.020 Costa Rican equivalent of a deponeur is. And he looked rough. Like he, he looked like he was in 1.00

00:08:36.700 a vacation mindset that was just like the most depressed vacation a man could ever have. This

00:08:42.680 was the picture there. But he can't walk around like that in Tofino. He can't walk around like that

00:08:47.360 in Canada. So you can be your like true self in Costa Rica. We should all be so lucky.

00:08:52.500 I wonder if he'll wear a mask on the plane on the way down. I highly doubt it, but you

00:08:55.700 never know. We talked a little bit in this segment about media double standards. Let's

00:09:00.700 talk about just complete media ignorance of some very large stories. The vaccine mandates,

00:09:06.840 the vaccine passports, there have been some glimmers of hope in coverage where reporters,

00:09:11.620 especially the longer the pandemic has gone on, have doggedly advanced on this story. The

00:09:18.000 questions about why are mask policies so inconsistent? And why do we need these mandates in Canada

00:09:22.940 and not elsewhere? But Rupa Subramanya, our colleague at True North, who also writes for a variety of

00:09:29.240 other publications, had a tremendous piece in Barry Weiss's substat, Common Sense, which delved

00:09:35.700 into federal court documents in an ongoing trial. And these were documents filed by the court,

00:09:40.880 or filed by the Canadian government in court in its defense of a lawsuit against the vaccine mandate

00:09:47.200 for air travel. And what she found is that the travel ban for the unvaccinated had no basis in

00:09:54.580 science. The panel that was responsible for putting it together was stalked by people that didn't have

00:10:00.960 scientific backgrounds, didn't have health backgrounds. The person in charge was a bureaucrat,

00:10:05.960 not a public health expert. And really, this suggests, as Rupa finds in the documents and says

00:10:11.820 in her piece, that it was all just a matter of politics and not science. So certainly something

00:10:17.560 we've talked about in the past, Harrison. But the big story here on a secondary front has been that

00:10:23.620 three days later, not a single journalist that I've seen in Canada has picked up the torch and moved

00:10:28.980 on with this story. Well, this is what Canadians, I think, should come to expect, Andrew. Independent 1.00

00:10:34.760 journalists, journalists like Rupa, journalists like the ones we have here at True North and other

00:10:40.100 outlets that are actually, that have actually been holding the government to account this entire time,

00:10:44.580 continue to do their job. And the mainstream journalists, the legacy media journalists, who many

00:10:48.120 of them are on the take from the government, consistently failed to hold the government to

00:10:52.120 account. So they've, they've, this is just no different, really. This is a huge bombshell report

00:10:57.020 that Rupa, Rupa wrote in Common Sense. And basically it just, it, it kind of confirms what we've all

00:11:03.360 known, Andrew, which is, this is all based in politics. Justin Trudeau seems to have a different

00:11:08.380 definition of science than the rest of the world. And Canadians, because of that, have had to suffer.

00:11:13.060 So when, when Rupa publishes this post, not only does the legacy media not do anything, sit on their

00:11:19.200 hands. And basically by doing that covering for Trudeau, we, you actually see, maybe it's not the

00:11:24.720 journalists themselves, but you see people who are supportive of the prime minister attacking

00:11:28.720 journalists like Rupa for making the truth and getting the truth out to Canadians. This is the

00:11:33.640 biggest story that we've been living under. These draconian travel measures that have, that have been

00:11:39.280 leveled against Canadians is the most important thing that we need to be holding the government to 0.57

00:11:44.280 account over. And of course, what, what, what else should we expect? And the legacy media is not going

00:11:49.320 to do a single bit of reporting. I will say, I, I, I'll be putting money on this, that in two weeks,

00:11:54.600 two to three weeks, journalists in the legacy media, maybe like the national post might eventually come

00:11:59.680 around to the story. You might eventually write the story, but of course not give any credit to the

00:12:05.000 journalists that broke the story. Where have we seen that before? And of course, just pretend as though

00:12:09.020 they're breaking news that has been broken for weeks already. It's the, these repealing these

00:12:13.840 mandates, repealing these measures that are not based in science is the most important issue

00:12:18.420 facing Canadians right now. At least I believe that. And I'm pretty confident that most Canadians

00:12:22.120 agree with me. So the idea that when journalists break this news and MSM journalists, legacy media

00:12:27.880 journalists with bigger audiences and bigger platforms do nothing, it's ridiculous. 0.67

00:12:34.580 Yeah. And I'm a big Substack fan. I've got my own Substack, so I'll put in a shameless plug there.

00:12:39.960 You can subscribe to that at andrewlotton.substack.com. And I'm a subscriber to Common Sense,

00:12:46.020 the idea of Common Sense and also the Substack Common Sense. And the thing that I find fascinating

00:12:52.120 here is that it's another one of these examples where Canadians are forced to look outside their

00:12:56.740 own country to get coverage that journalists inside the country should be putting forward.

00:13:01.940 Now, obviously there are some, sometimes when stories just happen to get broken outside,

00:13:06.820 like the Trudeau blackface photo, the initial one came from Time magazine, just because of a

00:13:11.840 personal connection between the Time reporter and the person who leaked the photo. And in this case,

00:13:16.980 Rupa's Canadian. She's got a relationship with Common Sense. It was a great platform for it. Fine.

00:13:22.080 But you look at the Freedom Convoy, and one of the themes I've talked about in my book,

00:13:25.900 and we've talked about it at True North, is that by and large, Canadians were better served by outlets

00:13:30.480 like Fox News and GB News and even the New York Times on a couple of occasions than they were by

00:13:37.100 Canadian legacy media outlets. And for all that we see a government that likes to harp on the

00:13:42.660 importance of Canadian content and Canadian media, Canadian media needs to step up because a lot of

00:13:47.600 these stories are only getting covered by outlets outside the country.

00:13:51.060 So this, this story, it's worth just going into for those of you that haven't read it,

00:13:55.140 for those of you that haven't listened to Andrew's interview with Rupa, which was a great interview and

00:13:58.960 a great explainer. It's important to just bring up some key facts because when I read this,

00:14:02.820 I was blown away. These are things that I didn't even know about. This panel, this COVID recovery,

00:14:08.200 that's the government panel that instituted all these mandates that have basically destroyed our

00:14:13.400 international reputation and destroyed a lot of Canadians' lives. This group, this COVID recovery

00:14:17.680 group, has no website. You can't find the name anywhere on government documents except for tiny

00:14:23.000 brief mentions. So the idea that there's any transparency to go along with these insane

00:14:28.700 rules that have been placed on Canadians. The fact that there is none is, is incredible.

00:14:33.900 And Rupa has been able to get documents that prove that the people in this panel, obviously we know

00:14:40.440 have no medical experience. None of them are actual doctors, but they were scrambling and asking the

00:14:44.980 government over and over, please give us some justification for why we're doing this. Please

00:14:49.320 tell us how in, in, in medicine and in science, we can justify this insane rule to Canadians. There was

00:14:55.640 none. That's the craziest part about this. This is in any other country, in any other circumstance,

00:15:00.860 if we didn't have a media, a legacy media, that is, that is totally on the take, this would be

00:15:05.960 breaking, this would be breaking news. This would dominate the news headline, the headlines for a

00:15:09.620 whole week, but it, but it isn't. And Canadians are not being served by the Globe and Mail. The Globe

00:15:14.900 and Mail cannot be representative as our paper of record anymore if they can't honestly report this

00:15:19.760 story. And like you said, Andrew, we, we are getting better served oftentimes, as tough as it is to say,

00:15:25.320 as a, as a, as someone in Canadian media, a lot of the reporting we get on the convoy on this

00:15:30.100 situation coming from the United States has been far better than the legacy media. I would even

00:15:34.540 throw in some independent sites like daily wire in there. They're, they're constantly on the ball

00:15:38.780 with this. And again, it's just another example of, of things happening to Canadians at such a pace

00:15:43.780 that we can't even really keep up. And when we finally do catch up, when we finally do connect

00:15:49.260 the dots and realize there's no justification for it, it's too late or the legacy media just refuses to

00:15:54.380 cover it. Yeah. And I would, I mean, Rupa herself pointed this out the day after her story broke.

00:15:59.580 She said, it would be a shame if mainstream Canadian media ignored such an obviously important

00:16:03.940 story. It's been a little more than 24 hours since my story broke and more than two weeks since the

00:16:08.700 documents became publicly available. Looking the other way on something this important is a bad look.

00:16:14.420 And of course it's been even longer now that we are having this discussion. And I would add to that,

00:16:20.760 that she got this story and I don't know who tipped her off if anyone did, or if she was just doing a

00:16:26.360 data mine, but as she said, in my interview with her, she saw the court, the trial, she saw the

00:16:31.380 documents, she asked the federal court and they emailed them to her. And that was that she didn't

00:16:35.280 even need to go to a courthouse, which can be a gruelingly unpleasant process. So there's no reason

00:16:40.280 someone else couldn't pick this up because if you look at all the snippy Twitter trolls, they're all

00:16:43.980 saying like, well, show me the documents, show me the receipts. And I look, perhaps the article would

00:16:48.660 have been more compelling if she included the documents, but it's very easy for anyone to

00:16:52.740 verify this, to do it themselves. And yeah, I think the kind thing to do would be to credit the one

00:16:57.080 who originally reported it. But I mean, the sense that I got from Rupa and certainly the sense I

00:17:01.600 would take is just more people need to be talking about this because it's essential to delegitimize

00:17:06.520 what are, I think, very illegitimate policies that the government is still defending.

00:17:11.060 So Andrew, what I want to know is where the drive, where the kind of the engagement from

00:17:17.620 journalist has gone from the legacy media, this would be a great opportunity to, to hold the

00:17:22.640 power to account, to hold the government to account, to break a huge story. Like Rupa said

00:17:26.960 on your, in your interview, it wasn't as though she did some incredible groundbreaking piece of

00:17:31.540 investigative reporting, not to take anything away, that it was there for the taking. It was

00:17:35.700 there for a journalist who had the drive to find this story and to do it. They could, they could

00:17:40.680 have found it. I don't think we're going to see any, uh, any Watergate style breaking, uh,

00:17:46.240 breaking news stories coming from the legacy media anytime soon. But, uh, again, that's,

00:17:50.600 that's just what we've, we should come to expect from the media. Now, Andrew, we got a, we got an

00:17:54.800 interesting story in the CBC, which is basically telling us that not only should we transition away

00:18:01.740 from, uh, fossil fuel burning those, those awful nasty cars we've been driving for so long, not only

00:18:07.660 should we transition away from those to EVs, but actually our whole dependence on cars to begin with

00:18:12.460 is the problem. And it turns out maybe even the left are starting to turn on EVs because they're

00:18:17.220 not environmentally friendly enough. I can't even keep up with these guys. Yeah, this is a weird one.

00:18:22.060 Shifting to EVs is not enough. The deeper problem is our car dependence. Now, by the way, I'm, I'm going

00:18:28.500 to just take aim here at some of the critics, because I think that some of the science in the article

00:18:34.280 here is incredibly valid. When the author talks about the importance of looking at the full process

00:18:41.820 of electric vehicles and the, uh, pollution that comes from it and the harm to the environment that

00:18:47.760 mining causes, when you're talking about the minerals for all of the, uh, cells that are used

00:18:52.720 in the batteries and cobalt mining and water contamination and, and all of this, not to mention

00:18:57.380 shipping costs. These things are mined in, you know, Democratic Republic of Congo and the batteries

00:19:02.240 are manufactured elsewhere. And in the lifespan of a battery from creation to installation in an

00:19:08.240 electric car to then manufacturing of the car, which involves plastics, which of course are petroleum

00:19:13.180 based, the environmental impact of an electric car is not any better in a substantial or discernible

00:19:20.660 way from the, from what a combustible engine car does. So I think that's a valid point to make.

00:19:28.080 Now, where I differ from Marx, uh, take from that what you will, is that the conclusion from that is

00:19:34.800 not, well, no one should drive any car. It's that, okay, we should stop trying to foist electric cars

00:19:39.780 when they're not doing the thing that they say they're going to do. We are still a culture that

00:19:43.580 needs to get around in rural parts of the country, especially in suburban parts of the country.

00:19:48.760 The idea of abandoning cars is just not viable. And I don't think ever can be. Certainly there's not

00:19:54.520 going to be a bus stop that can pick you up on County Road one and take you to County Road two

00:19:58.540 and take you around to Farmer Joe's field. Like that's not what public transit is. So I don't buy

00:20:04.180 into the fact that because electric cars aren't great, no one should use any car.

00:20:08.560 No, exactly. And where do you even start with this article, right? I mean, the author's last name

00:20:12.580 is Marx. He leads with that. And then, and then, you know, he's trying to get us all to take public

00:20:17.080 transportation or to, you know, to, to kind of go together on, uh, on public transport and embrace

00:20:22.700 public transportation. I just found that to be quite, quite hilarious. But again, like you said,

00:20:26.700 any honest conversation about electric vehicles, about a, a transition to electric vehicles, like

00:20:31.420 we hear from some of these, uh, climate zealots, any honest conversation would include, as you

00:20:37.080 mentioned, Andrew, the fact that these EVs are not any better for the environment. I mean, as you know,

00:20:42.240 from start to finish the production to the driving of one, even when, even when the EV battery is dead,

00:20:47.020 where do those go? You know, it's not like it's, it's not like it's renewable energy that, uh, that

00:20:51.860 we're talking about. Of course you can power the battery, but where does it all come from? All the

00:20:55.300 materials, as everybody already knows are not renewable. So again, it's this, it's this idea that,

00:21:01.020 uh, I love to see it when you have sort of leftists turning on leftists, it's, it's, it's quite the

00:21:05.580 spectacle. Um, but again, the idea that the idea that a complete transition to EVs is any better for the

00:21:10.980 environment is obviously not true. And an honest conversation about that would include that part.

00:21:16.040 Um, but again, as you said, it's, it's very classic CBC. I feel like let's just all do public

00:21:21.760 transportation. Let's just all ride bikes. Let's just all, you know, take it easy on the cars.

00:21:25.740 We don't need cars. Well, I don't know, Andrew, how often, uh, Paris Marks has, uh, has left Toronto

00:21:32.320 or left an urban center. Again, I haven't met this guy, but you can't just be calling on all of us to,

00:21:37.400 uh, to take public transportation. As you said, when we have to go from County road one,

00:21:41.280 you know, two hours away to get to work in a whole other, in a whole other city,

00:21:45.460 whereas the public transportation outside of the cities, obviously it's not there. So

00:21:49.280 it's just a ridiculous piece. It's another sort of climate target, which has never been reached. 0.94

00:21:53.540 Uh, it'll always just be one of those on the horizon things that I guess we're going to pretend

00:21:57.720 to try and work toward. But, uh, again, when you see even the EV, even the, the idolatry of the

00:22:03.700 electric vehicles, I guess, is starting to shift and I'm kind of looking forward to seeing how that

00:22:07.640 all plays out. I did see though, a concept presented of a viable alternative. Take a look.

00:22:16.400 See, I mean, there you go. They might not like the, the, the few trees had to come down for the

00:22:20.180 wood frame, but carbon neutral entirely. So, uh, that's what we're all headed for. It's Marks

00:22:25.540 approved. It's Trudeau approved. It's WEF approved. Everyone should be happy. And speaking of WEF,

00:22:31.780 I know everyone says, Oh, it's a conspiracy to talk about Klaus Schwab, but I'd be remiss to not

00:22:36.100 point out that this is the exact sort of big idea that tends to come out of there. That even these

00:22:41.820 things that we're told were initially our big contribution to the environment are not enough.

00:22:46.600 So, uh, let's end on a somewhat happier note or at least a more amusing note. I, I, this one is a

00:22:53.320 little bit interesting and I could see how this one might just fly under the radar for a lot of people

00:22:58.540 who aren't pro wrestling fans. It was our producer, Phil behind the scenes who alerted us to this one.

00:23:04.640 The headline sounds like a legitimate news story. Ronda Rousey suspended indefinitely after attacking 0.98

00:23:10.640 ref at SummerSlam. This is a Toronto stunt article by the national entertainment editor for the Toronto

00:23:17.200 Sun and for the national Sun newspaper chain, Ronda Rousey, former UFC fighter. Now she is in the WWE.

00:23:23.760 You may think, Oh wow, she was suspended. She attacked a ref. That's not good. Well, not exactly.

00:23:30.320 There's a little bit of missing context here in wrestling. When you take time off, when you go on summer

00:23:36.300 holiday, perhaps a suspension is what they do that works into your character. So you get suspended because

00:23:43.340 it lets them gin up a bit of drama and you take some time off. The attacking of the ref was a scripted 0.99

00:23:49.360 wrestling bitch. She didn't actually attack the ref. The WWE's tweet about this, that Ronda Rousey was 1.00

00:23:55.220 fined and suspended. You see the photo here of her with the ref in a chokehold. That is not real. That is

00:24:03.060 standard wrestling posturing. But this article plays it straight. Reports on it as though it is an entirely

00:24:09.600 real thing without missing the fact that this is just one big giant wrestling bit. This has to be one of the

00:24:17.440 fake news Friday stories of the year. I know it's only August. Am I overstating this one, Harrison?

00:24:22.360 On the list for sure. It just has to with, with all the, you can throw it up there with the headline

00:24:27.280 changes and, uh, and some of the CBC keys and O's. This one is definitely up there. I think, Andrew,

00:24:33.360 I mean, it was just kind of weird because we were tipped off to this by, uh, by our producer. I saw this

00:24:37.900 article yesterday and I read the headline knowing it's wrestling, knowing that everything in a wrestling

00:24:43.220 event is staged and fake. It's like when they whisper to the guy, I'm going to punch in the face to be

00:24:47.020 ready. And then he throws the hook and, uh, then it's a big, oh, it's a big, you know, big act as

00:24:51.800 though he got really hurt. So obviously it's fake. They run it as though it's real news.

00:24:56.420 And then when I read it, I thought to myself, well, hold on, I know it's fake, but it's in the

00:25:00.420 Toronto sun and you know, they're telling us that she got fined. So what is true? What is fake?

00:25:05.660 That's the, they're blurring the lines with wrestling. That's the problem, Andrew. You just don't really

00:25:09.020 know what you're even reading. Uh, but it's quite, I just got to say, this is a bit embarrassing for the

00:25:13.960 Toronto sun. I think they do deserve to hear it a little bit, uh, from us, from maybe the audience.

00:25:18.920 They've got to take a little laugh at this because obviously everything about wrestling is fake. We

00:25:23.140 all know that it's not a surprise. There's a word for, I mean, there's even a word for the fakery in

00:25:28.160 wrestling. Kayfabe. This article is kayfabe and the, or the whole incident was kayfabe. And when you look

00:25:34.780 at the comments in the article, it's hilarious because no reader is buying into it. Like Mario says,

00:25:40.460 uh, this is literally fake news. Michael says, yawn, definitely kayfabe. Why is this news?

00:25:46.300 Uh, Ian writes, probably wanted a break and this was the way to script it. Kevin, why is this news?

00:25:51.280 So it's like not a single person in the process of writing, editing, and publishing this story

00:25:56.200 realized what every single reader has realized.

00:25:59.300 So it exactly. And it's worth just because just showing you how ridiculous this story is. I want 0.91

00:26:04.100 to just read the, the sort of the lead paragraph here. And you might be expecting, if you knew that it

00:26:09.020 was fake going into it, you would probably be expecting this is, you know, WWE standard procedure

00:26:13.400 at some point in the article. There's no, there's no qualifier in here at all. It's just reported

00:26:18.300 directly as though it's a breaking news story directly as though Ronda Rousey is back in the

00:26:22.240 MMA octagon and not in the WWE staged, uh, staged ring. So it's, it leads with Rousey 35 flipped

00:26:31.000 angler and pinned the 44 year old after she lost the women's title match to Liv Morgan in front of a 1.00

00:26:35.900 sold out crowd at Nissan stadium. Either even talking about the sellout crowd. It's like a

00:26:39.860 puff piece for WWE. It's ridiculous. It's probably one of those Toronto sun ad articles that you'll 0.98

00:26:44.560 see in these, uh, on these websites. It's just a complete joke, perfect fake news. And in my,

00:26:49.800 my opinion, the absolute perfect way to, uh, to end the show this week and to throw us to the weekend.

00:26:55.060 All right. Well, make sure you check out Harrison Faulkner show ratioed. Make sure you check out my

00:26:59.620 own show, the Andrew Lawton show, pick up my book, fake news, not at all in there. It is the freedom

00:27:04.720 convoy, the inside story of three weeks that shook the world. And we've got lots of great programs on

00:27:10.020 true North. Now I absolutely love, we've got like more than the TV guy did when I was growing up.

00:27:13.840 We've got, uh, the Rupa Subramania show. We've got reality check. We've got a brand new show that

00:27:19.180 is Alberta focused hosted by Rachel Emanuel and lots more. So do keep tuned to tnc.news. And if you

00:27:25.900 can chip in a few bucks to support any or all of these shows, you can do that at donate.tnc.news.

00:27:31.360 That does it for me, Harrison. Thanks very much. We will talk to you all next Friday.

00:27:35.700 Have a great weekend and God bless.

Juno News - August 05, 2022

The legacy media defends Trudeau’s “well-deserved” vacation

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