Juno News - January 20, 2023


The legacy media ignores the WEF


Episode Stats

Length

8 minutes

Words per Minute

195.54358

Word Count

1,644

Sentence Count

19


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to a special edition of Fake News Friday coming to you from Davos Switzerland where if
00:00:17.400 you've been following my coverage of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the last few
00:00:22.160 days you'll know there is no shortage of fakery from the facades of buildings going up which will
00:00:28.160 be taken down before the private jets even take their wheels off the tarmac and also the empty
00:00:34.420 ballrooms when heads of government and heads of state are speaking yeah you don't see that on the
00:00:39.100 live streams but one of the big reasons that I was here in Davos and True North thought it was so
00:00:43.680 important to cover is because the mainstream media just doesn't want to cover the World Economic Forum
00:00:49.440 honestly when people like me raise very significant questions about the WEF it gets thrown down as
00:00:56.120 being misinformation or conspiracy theories even though our coverage is rooted in fact and in
00:01:01.560 some cases quoting the WEF officials themselves or the speakers from the panels which is the bulk of
00:01:08.300 what we've been doing over the last week here not to mention just people on the street that we run
00:01:12.840 into some of whom happen to be world leaders but because it is Friday we thought we'd take the
00:01:17.660 opportunity to talk about the media side of things here it's not going to be a conventional fake news
00:01:22.840 Friday program with story one story two and story three or to use the Swiss German eins zwei and drei
00:01:29.400 but we will talk about the narrative that is prevailing and you can't do this without talking
00:01:35.800 about the badges and I'm sorry if you're sick of me talking about WEF badges now but so much of the
00:01:41.360 World Economic Forum issues I think can be explained by the hierarchical Byzantine caste system that is
00:01:47.920 the colored badges the white badges with the blue lines are the invited elites the orange badges are
00:01:53.840 members of the press now I also learned just on my last day here that there is a sub level of orange
00:02:00.720 badge which is the orange badge with the purple line which is like the support staff for journalists so
00:02:06.700 I actually got a purple lined orange badge but I'm like a support staff to myself so I don't know how
00:02:12.440 that works because I was going in there alone they wouldn't actually accredit my videographer and it's not
00:02:17.080 because he's a shady character it's just because they said they had spatial limitations but the reason
00:02:21.520 I bring this up is because so many members of the media are there with their white badges which means
00:02:26.340 they've been invited by the WEF some of them sit on WEF task forces or committees some of them are
00:02:32.720 moderating panels I ended up running into Brian Stelter and asked him how he as a journalist justifies
00:02:39.880 being there as an invited guest now obviously Brian Stelter is not a CNN guy anymore but he still is a
00:02:46.520 journalist and he was very friendly with all the folks at WEF and I think he was doing the who wants
00:02:50.920 to be a millionaire thing you ask him a tough question and he has to phone a friend so his
00:02:55.260 response was I've got to get my wife on the line and I said well if she'd give me an answer to the
00:02:58.880 question then that would be fair ball but I didn't wait around I let him get back to his missus on their
00:03:04.180 little swiss alpine trip but then you look at some of the press conferences now these are where real
00:03:09.560 rigorous vigorous questions can be put to people that are announcing whatever the case may be
00:03:14.960 depending on the press conference I attended a couple of those and at one of them in particular
00:03:20.240 the world economic forum was announcing this climate partnership on public private philanthropy they had
00:03:27.060 someone from the WEF there they had someone from McKinsey there they had other so-called partners there
00:03:32.460 and I was waiting my turn to ask a question the first journalist up to ask a question just congratulated
00:03:39.940 them I want to now open the floor for questions from the media yes and please introduce yourself
00:03:45.040 and then we can have the panelists respond thank you my name is Irene Hell I have a press agency
00:03:52.000 we report for Copenhagen Post and many many many houses so I'm thrilled to be here first of all
00:03:58.100 congratulations on Gaia Gaia means earth and the only way to save the planet is philanthropy all the
00:04:05.600 business are just taking and destroying other than Bader Jaffer's business of course and and then I want
00:04:13.060 to salute Bader Jaffer for taking the lead on COP28 I think there's hope for the planet do you have a
00:04:22.900 question for the panelists yes can you imagine doing something so gushy and fawny and calling it
00:04:29.040 journalism now I don't know the woman I don't mean her any ill will maybe she does great work but the
00:04:33.820 whole point is it seems like a lot of the journalists that are covering the world economic
00:04:37.420 forum are doing it because they want to be a part of the club not because they want to speak truth
00:04:42.600 to power and I think that brings us around to the Canadian context of this where were the Canadian
00:04:48.880 journalists and you may say okay it's expensive to send a crew over to Europe which is true but that
00:04:55.100 also hasn't exactly turned off CBC and other companies from going elsewhere CTV will send crews to any
00:05:01.240 earthquake anywhere in the world and I think there's a reason for that if you have journalists
00:05:04.960 that are in different parts of the world you can send them somewhere I think all of the news
00:05:08.660 companies in Canada have London bureaus in England it's not a terribly expensive flight to get over to
00:05:13.080 Switzerland and you may say well what's the big deal why do Canadian journalists need to be covering
00:05:17.140 what Klaus Schwab is doing or what the Chancellor of Germany is doing and I would generally speaking
00:05:22.020 agree except two of the speakers at this year's World Economic Forum were Canadian cabinet ministers
00:05:27.860 one of whom our deputy prime minister now I know journalists from Canada have followed her around
00:05:33.220 the world especially when she was foreign minister Canadian journalists were over in Ukraine when
00:05:38.080 Canada's ministers and the prime minister went over there so when we've got Canadian cabinet ministers
00:05:43.040 representing Canada at this pseudo multilateral affair that is the World Economic Forum annual meeting
00:05:49.580 I think that would actually be something that Canadian media should cover now you may recall this week
00:05:55.440 I tried to do what no other Canadian journalist to my knowledge has done which is ask Deputy Prime
00:06:00.780 Minister Freeland how she justifies being a member of the WEF board of trustees while also being a
00:06:06.980 Canadian cabinet minister which I think is a conflict of interest as it would be if she were on some
00:06:12.000 corporate board or some lobbying company board. Hi Minister Andrew Lawton True North I was just wondering if it's a
00:06:17.760 conflict of interest for you to be a trustee while also a cabinet minister. Are you proud of the work and if so
00:06:23.600 why is there an issue answering a question about it? Enjoy your panel minister. Ah Christia Freeland former
00:06:30.540 journalist herself the woman who literally wrote the book on the Davos elites and once tried to speak
00:06:36.200 truth to power herself but as it turned out just had her nose pressed up against the Davos window
00:06:40.600 until she was a part of the club didn't want to answer any questions. Now I don't exactly do this
00:06:46.540 because I'm expecting an award I'm certainly not looking for any recognition which I know is not the
00:06:52.000 motivating factor of journalism or at least shouldn't be but I did find it funny how the mainstream media
00:06:57.180 type started poo-pooing. What I maintain was an exercise in journalism. Globe and Mail columnist
00:07:02.720 Andrew Coyne responded to that video with just two words and pardon the blasphemy here but he writes
00:07:07.480 oh lord. Yeah and I don't think he was talking about Christia Freeland's conduct I think he was
00:07:12.680 talking about mine. Now it's worth noting that Andrew Coyne's boss at the Globe and Mail David Wamsley
00:07:18.400 is here at WEF. I ran into him and had a lovely chat. David Wamsley is a very nice man but he wasn't
00:07:24.820 here as a reporter covering it. He was here as a participant. So I think that it's clear the coin
00:07:30.800 types are probably more dominant in mainstream media in Canada in that they believe there is nothing to
00:07:36.820 see here and they would be happy enough and comfortable enough hobnobbing with the elites
00:07:41.140 instead of asking them any questions that might challenge the safe space that is Davos.
00:07:46.200 Well you know what the silver lining of all of this is that if the mainstream media types aren't
00:07:50.480 interested in reporting it is more space for us when we come back year after year as long as there
00:07:56.540 is a story here. Let me know if you think we should do that by the way because obviously this is entirely
00:08:00.960 a donor supported project so if people don't see value in this there's no point in doing it but if
00:08:06.000 you do see value you can head on over to donate.tnc.news. I know it's been a little bit of a different
00:08:11.080 fake news Friday but we couldn't get away from Davos without shining a little bit of a light on
00:08:16.220 the fake news that tends to be attracted to this global billionaire Disneyland in Switzerland.
00:08:21.860 For True North from Davos, I'm Andrew Lutton.