Juno News - The Woke Capture of the Legacy Media (Ft. Tara Henley)

00:00:00.000 hi everybody welcome back to the Rupa Subramanya show it's so good to have you with me again thank

00:00:22.920 you for tuning in as always I really appreciate it unfortunately last week I couldn't record

00:00:29.640 a show because I was traveling I was away in India visiting my parents and things got a

00:00:35.700 bit hectic at the last minute but I'm back in business this week and so it's great to have

00:00:41.640 you with me once again and we have a great show coming up so stay tuned as we head towards the

00:00:49.620 end of the year one of the big stories of this past year has been the abject failure of the legacy

00:00:55.740 media to fairly and in an unbiased way cover major events such as the freedom convoy protests which

00:01:03.300 took place here in Ottawa to the recent revelations contained in the Twitter files which have been

00:01:09.360 largely ignored by the mainstream media surprise surprise my guest today is extremely qualified to

00:01:15.960 speak on what's wrong with the legacy media and can independent media establishments such as true

00:01:22.620 north or free press both of which I'm proud to be associated with can fill the gap so please

00:01:28.200 welcome Tara Henley a former CBC journalist who exited our state-owned broadcaster and now publishes

00:01:35.040 on her sub stack called lean out and hosts a great podcast called lean out so please welcome Tara Henley to

00:01:43.260 the show hey Tara welcome welcome to the show thank you for joining me I just want to get straight into

00:01:50.880 our topic for today you know these past few months we've seen just how rotten the state of the legacy

00:01:58.800 media is and the fact that it's independent journalists and independent media establishments

00:02:03.780 that are that are breaking I think most of the important stories and providing what I think is

00:02:09.500 some pretty fair and balanced coverage of events that are treated with a definite slant or bias by a lot

00:02:17.940 of the legacy uh establishment media um could you uh share with us um the journey you took starting out

00:02:25.980 with the CBC uh which doesn't get more establishment than that to what disturbed or alienated you from

00:02:32.880 their uh mode of operating and inspired you to become independent hmm well Ruba thank you so much for having me

00:02:40.140 it's great to be with you um and I think for me the um legacy media I had worked I've been a journalist

00:02:48.720 for 20-21 years now I have worked in magazines newspapers radio television and digital um and for the

00:02:59.220 last since 2013 when I went to George Strombolopoulos tonight at the CBC um as a producer on that show and

00:03:07.140 then went into radio worked in current affairs radio in both Vancouver and Toronto took a break to write

00:03:13.380 my book and and then came back and worked again in both Vancouver and Toronto uh I was very much a rank

00:03:18.360 and file journalist at the CBC I worked on a lot of different shows um I did a lot of different roles

00:03:24.480 in the newsroom and uh when I quit I was on contract until December 2022 as a full-time current affairs

00:03:32.760 producer on Ontario morning a a small regional show um and I think that what I had observed um

00:03:40.740 and I I've said this before and I think it's a really good way of saying it because I think it

00:03:46.380 really encapsulates my views is just that at the CBC the the woke quote-unquote woke voice had always

00:03:53.180 been present in the room and I certainly have no problem with that being one of the views reflected

00:03:57.560 um but you know after George Floyd and in this sort of extreme moment that we were in in the pandemic

00:04:05.480 that that voice came to dominate story meetings came to dominate interactions in the building it just

00:04:13.640 came to be the only voice in the room and I found it very concerning um and I found it harder and harder

00:04:21.260 to get different views on the air and uh I won't say that I was silenced I argued every day behind the

00:04:28.740 scenes um I did not talk about it publicly at all I I um I I did have an on-air column that I did

00:04:35.440 once a month and uh I I really was careful about what I said in public um but I did argue behind the

00:04:42.680 scenes all the time and uh so I didn't feel silenced I felt stifled I felt that the environment

00:04:49.820 was not conducive to doing my job properly and there were a lot of kind of forces converging on

00:04:56.620 the newsroom all at once um you know there's top-down pressures there was bottom-up pressures

00:05:02.660 but the main thing that I think I was grappling with was groupthink and um and I've written about

00:05:10.320 this a lot over the last year so uh eventually I did make the decision to leave the CBC one of the

00:05:17.060 turning points for me was about vaccine mandates I did not agree with our coverage as a network um and

00:05:24.000 I felt like because the CBC is such an important institution in this country that it was um useful

00:05:33.760 to have a public conversation about that because I was getting so many complaints from the public I

00:05:39.980 felt like it was important to talk about that so uh give me an example of what you thought was

00:05:45.300 groupthink at the CBC and then also can you tell us uh what you found specifically problematic about

00:05:51.360 the CBC's coverage of the vaccine of the pandemic in general and uh the vaccine mandates I'll start

00:05:58.420 with the vaccine mandates as I just felt that this is a sweeping change to society it has a huge

00:06:04.060 implication on people's livelihoods on their ability to provide for their families and I would

00:06:10.400 have liked to see more questioning of that you know at the time that those vaccine mandates came in

00:06:16.260 there were some signals that critical thinking was required at that time we were seeing breakthrough

00:06:21.920 infections for example vaccine mandates rest on the premise that vaccines prevent transmission

00:06:29.940 and if we're seeing a large amount of breakthrough cases in the ICU breakthrough cases and hospitalizations

00:06:36.900 breakthrough cases in the statistics that indicates that maybe vaccines don't stop transmission so I

00:06:43.140 would have liked to have a more fulsome conversation about that I would have liked to hear more conversation

00:06:48.260 about the risk reward analysis we've seen that come out in the last you know six months there was a paper

00:06:54.700 Kevin Bardosh did about looking at the risk reward analysis for the vaccine mandates in the universities for

00:07:03.700 example a lot of questions that could be asked um and I didn't see them being asked on a large scale

00:07:12.020 and I felt like our coverage um often uncritically accepted the kind of party line of public health

00:07:21.540 that that was like a line in the sand these are experts we have to just go with what the experts say

00:07:26.100 but public health people are like other human beings they are perhaps afraid they are perhaps

00:07:34.980 overly cautious they are perhaps dealing with political stuff behind the scenes I mean there's

00:07:40.260 all kinds of things that can happen in big institutions and particularly in a moment of crisis like the one that

00:07:46.820 we were in um I just felt that there should have been a lot more critical thinking so what what um you

00:07:54.500 know what is the what what is happening here why is there this group think um is it driven by ideology is

00:08:01.540 it driven by the fact that uh you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you uh obviously the cbc's uh state

00:08:10.100 funded and um and you know I wonder to what extent um that um is you know is is um correlated with uh

00:08:19.620 some of what we're seeing um you know you mentioned the vaccine mandates and you know one of the things

00:08:24.980 you know and this is something that I've written about quite extensively about the vaccine mandates

00:08:30.100 is that you know when you speak to uh you know some of the unvaccinated they always um you know they

00:08:35.860 always point this out to me which is pretty shocking actually uh which is you know nobody in

00:08:41.220 the mainstream media ever came up to us and asked us how are we going to put food on the table uh you

00:08:47.140 know the fact that these mandates are going to come into force nobody spoke to us you know how are we

00:08:52.980 going to live our lives how are we going to take care of our families and uh and nobody actually reached

00:08:58.100 out to these people in fact uh the people that they were reaching out to were the public health officials

00:09:03.540 um and um and and and and you know and government officials obviously uh but the people that this

00:09:11.060 was directly affecting in in a pretty pretty significant way were just left out of the

00:09:16.420 conversation and you know and no wonder they they they they descended um upon ottawa uh you know trying to

00:09:24.020 get their voices heard uh and that uh to me makes total sense uh but but you know just back to the

00:09:31.140 question like why what what is it that's driving this group think um and and you know and were there

00:09:37.300 dissenting voices within the cbc on the vaccine mandate situation first of all like you know how

00:09:43.380 are these things how do these things come together you know does an editor decide no we're not going to

00:09:48.340 go there uh we're not going to touch the subject we're not going to talk about um um you know the fact

00:09:55.220 that uh the vaccines are no longer protecting people or that you know because because breakthrough

00:10:00.340 infections are happening who who makes these decisions and is there really any kind of dissent

00:10:05.700 with people saying look you know i think i think we gotta bring in all aspects of this situation

00:10:12.180 into the conversation i think that's only fair is that even happening well i think there's a number

00:10:18.740 of factors to consider here i mean the first one being and this is one that i've spoken about a lot

00:10:23.700 is precarious employment and so uh the last number i heard was that the cbc is made up of about a

00:10:31.380 quarter of precariously employed workers i was certainly in that position sometimes myself as i

00:10:36.260 mentioned i was on contract when i left but um those people will be perhaps getting shifts two weeks

00:10:43.300 at a time okay and you're you know you don't know if you're working past those two weeks you could

00:10:48.980 have been working on that show for a year but your shifts come two three weeks at a time and um

00:10:55.380 in order to continue keep working you really need your show producer to be wanting you to be requesting

00:11:02.740 you so there's a huge um structural incentive to kind of get along and to not rock the boat too much

00:11:11.860 um and i think that if you know if you don't know if you're working past two weeks yeah you just don't

00:11:20.660 have the room most people are not going to kind of jeopardize their livelihood to fight for a story

00:11:25.780 or to fight for a perspective or to say something really unpopular in the newsroom so that's that's

00:11:30.740 one aspect of it i i think there's also another aspect of the over reliance on twitter and that you

00:11:36.900 have all of us just sort of marinating in this stew of one perspective all the time and mistaking that

00:11:44.580 for the public square mistaking that for public opinion um you also have a situation as journalism

00:11:52.900 has become more of an elite profession and less of a working class profession i mean you have to think

00:11:57.700 about who can afford to live in these big cities and to get work two weeks at a time right so the

00:12:04.340 profession has become more elitist and not to the extent that it is in the states i mean in the

00:12:09.860 states they hire from the ivy leagues but here it is still um people who for the most part especially

00:12:17.060 the younger generation people who have some financial resources to fall back on and so um this is a

00:12:23.860 certain kind of world view and often having come through the universities and the universities are very

00:12:30.180 ideological now and um so you're everybody is kind of in this bubble and i um my perception is that a

00:12:39.460 lot of people um aren't speaking a lot to people outside of that bubble and of course this was

00:12:45.780 particularly dramatic during the pandemic where everyone like most people except for the host and the

00:12:51.540 director were working at home and um on zoom and on the phone and you're just not having contact with

00:13:00.340 a ton of people outside of outside of that kind of world view so that's a problem there's also top-down

00:13:07.300 problems i mean the cbc has made public a lot of its policies um in terms of diversity and the way you

00:13:15.540 know its policies are very clear they're all on the website everyone can check them but in my view

00:13:20.820 they do slant towards a particular ideology and that you know so if you're getting that message

00:13:25.780 from the top down as well that this is the ideology that is supported um i also think that there was a

00:13:32.500 real sense during the pandemic of um of a real kind of crisis mentality i think people were at home they

00:13:40.660 were very isolated as i said they weren't exposed to a lot of different views and the stakes were very high

00:13:46.820 and um i think that you know there was not enough of an effort within the building to try to bring in

00:13:56.020 diverse perspectives uh diversity of thought i'm talking about now and um when you see that dynamic

00:14:02.660 going on all around you and you maybe don't have secure work and the leaders in the newsroom have

00:14:09.460 this particular view and the heads of the cbc have a particular view i think all these things and you're on

00:14:14.740 twitter all day and you're getting that same view there i think i think so much of what we're

00:14:19.380 dealing with is group think well that's a great uh description of what you think might be at play

00:14:25.700 here um you know and what you say i find this extremely interesting that during the pandemic

00:14:31.460 uh except for the host and the producer everybody else was working from home so they weren't having

00:14:35.540 these conversations which is kind of ironic because you know everybody thought that when you know when

00:14:40.580 when when when the pandemic happened and everything moved to zoom technology would enable us to

00:14:46.260 have these conversations you could connect with more people you know you you didn't necessarily have

00:14:52.100 to make that trip to um toronto or ottawa or wherever it is that you uh were going to uh to have these

00:14:59.940 conversations in person you could just do it now on zoom it was all organized within the workplace and so on and so forth but yet

00:15:07.940 uh people but yet it reinforced this um this you know this this echo chamber uh uh of sorts where

00:15:16.660 you know maybe people were just not even talking to each other and then they uh were just uh parroting

00:15:22.500 the same points over and over again um and that's that's a super interesting point um and and and and so

00:15:29.300 it's it's kind of ironic don't you think i also think that um that the work environment is extremely collaborative

00:15:37.460 and so if you have you know all stories the story meetings are collaborative scripts are often

00:15:43.620 collaborative you know if you submit a script it's going to go through many many different hands before

00:15:49.460 it gets on air and if nine out of ten of those people see the situation the same way have the same

00:15:55.380 views and the same perspective that story will continually be nudged further and further in that

00:16:01.540 direction and so i i think that's sometimes hard for the public to understand just how subtle some

00:16:08.500 of this can be another thing i think that is at play is within journalism right now because journalism is

00:16:15.220 so extremely competitive and because it is so conformist there are certain views and you know you've seen

00:16:22.100 this the overton window getting more and more narrow there are certain views that are just considered

00:16:27.860 kind of gauche just like just out outside of sort of decent conversation and you wouldn't want to be

00:16:36.180 associated with those views and um there's a feeling of almost distaste except that that list of views

00:16:44.020 keeps growing and growing yeah and that the the list of views is so out of sync with the public right now

00:16:51.380 these the ideology that's kind of behind lurking in the background is very unpopular one and i don't think

00:16:56.900 that that's widely recognized um so some of this stuff is is i think really difficult to get at

00:17:04.660 yeah and um but i think it's worth getting at and you know the what is not difficult to get at

00:17:10.820 is the coverage you can look at the coverage and you can see these things playing out in the coverage

00:17:17.220 you know if if the if the network changes its approach and i sincerely hope that it does

00:17:24.340 you will see the change in the coverage you will see the coverage being less ideology ideological less

00:17:30.660 kind of uh thrust in one direction you know more ideologically diverse um and that is my hope for

00:17:39.220 the cvc yeah so you said nine out of ten people in that room are like pushing a certain uh narrative or

00:17:46.100 pushing a certain story what happens to that one one voice that is dissenting what happens to that person what

00:17:52.580 are the consequences uh for that person for speaking up um and let's say you speak up repeatedly you just

00:17:58.660 have an issue with the direction which uh things are going in the newsroom um what happens and i ask this

00:18:04.900 sincerely because i've never worked in a newsroom i'm very much an outsider in journalism i kind of just

00:18:10.500 landed in this space um uh and i've always worked from home so i don't you know i have i've never i don't

00:18:17.700 really know what happens in a newsroom uh per se and so this is uh you know it's just up and i'm sure

00:18:25.300 our listeners would also be curious you know what is the process exactly what do you mean what's the

00:18:31.780 process as in you know how do they decide i mean this is this is the story that we want to uh push here

00:18:38.020 you know is this you know we're not gonna um you know how do they make these decisions you know we're

00:18:43.300 we're we're gonna not gonna we're just gonna ignore all of these other things that could potentially

00:18:48.500 make the story fair but instead we're gonna stick to a certain narrative we're gonna pick that

00:18:53.940 narrative because we think we believe in it or for whatever reason we picked this narrative and and

00:18:59.540 this lone dissenting voice is like no i don't think we should be doing narratives um you know that's let's

00:19:05.300 leave that to the op-ed columnists you know as journalists i don't think we should be doing narratives we

00:19:10.340 should just be focused on bringing the facts to light so i'm wondering i mean i guess i have two

00:19:15.300 questions here what what are the consequences to this dissenting voice i mean is that is that is

00:19:20.660 that uh given the fact that you said this uh overton window is just you know just um um you know i mean

00:19:27.380 this this window in terms of what is considered uh acceptable is you know has has really shrunk for one

00:19:34.340 one thing and um and and then you know exactly how are these things decided in a newsroom when we

00:19:40.740 when we read something on the news i think anyone would believe themselves to be pushing a narrative

00:19:47.620 i don't i don't think that's how it's seen at all um i think that people have uh you know a certain set

00:19:54.820 of facts and they have a certain perspective particularly again to twitter you know things are

00:20:00.180 framed a certain way things are you only see a certain set of views you may be completely unaware

00:20:05.300 of views outside of that you know i i i think that there a lot of this is happening uh in many ways in

00:20:11.780 good faith people are doing the best that they can with the information that they have i just think the

00:20:17.700 information is too limited right now and i think the access to different perspectives in the public is

00:20:23.140 too limited um in terms of consequences i would find that hard to speak to for two reasons for one

00:20:28.900 um i've i've sort of made a commitment to not um to not give anecdotal stories from my time there

00:20:38.260 because i don't want to throw any of my colleagues under the bus um i also think that because of the

00:20:45.780 nature of our work during the pandemic because we were so atomized because most of us were at home

00:20:51.380 i had a stint in the newsroom when i was directing uh metro morning but for the most part i was at home

00:20:57.060 and the um conversations that you're having on zoom i mean you wouldn't know who is pushing back

00:21:03.380 and who isn't a lot of the time unless that person is in your story meeting and so i i think i think

00:21:10.020 part of what happened and i've heard this since i left part of what happened is that all of the

00:21:14.500 dissenting voices were so isolated within the network and didn't necessarily know that all of these other

00:21:20.980 dissenting voices existed and i i heard from a lot of people of course after i left um but i think that

00:21:28.900 the nature of the way that we were working um made it really difficult to know who was pushing back and

00:21:34.420 who wasn't well yeah so you know let's you know just uh talk about something that's been um in the uh

00:21:43.220 you know it's been in the news recently it's the monk debates um and the monk debates is uh you know very

00:21:49.940 much an establishment platform um and they hosted uh a debate called the mainstream media um and um

00:21:57.700 uh featuring matt taibbi douglas murray uh malcolm gladwell and michelle goldberg um and um and the

00:22:07.060 question was uh don't uh you know do you trust the mainstream media or should you trust the mainstream

00:22:12.020 media and to the surprise of a lot of people um taibbi and murray uh uh prevailed over gladwell and

00:22:19.940 goldberg uh on this question um in fact i think there was a pre-event uh vote of um a vote that

00:22:27.700 happened where 48 supported the pro side uh versus 52 for the con side um and uh douglas and taibbi uh

00:22:37.060 swung the vote 39 in their favor um ending with a pretty decisive win and uh taibbi went on to

00:22:44.900 write about this in a sub stack and he said this was the most decisive route in the history of the

00:22:49.540 event um first of all were you at that debate tara i was yeah and what were your tell us tell you tell

00:22:57.060 us what you thought about it i i was actually invited to come to the debate but i couldn't because i was uh

00:23:02.500 on my way to india but what were your takeaways uh from from that um and uh were you at all surprised

00:23:09.060 uh that the that the vote uh went the way it did uh yes i was i was very surprised um as you say uh

00:23:19.460 the majority of the audience at the beginning was against the idea that you should not trust the

00:23:24.660 mainstream media and the um it was it was really quite an astonishing night rupa because um the sort of

00:23:36.100 feeling i think many people had going into this is you know malcolm gladwell is a massive star

00:23:42.340 michelle goldberg new york times that this was going to be a real kind of match of um like a

00:23:49.700 real face-off and it did not turn out to be that way at all in fact um if anything the performance

00:23:58.100 from malcolm gladwell and michelle goldberg was was quite embarrassing and i found that uh quite

00:24:05.140 surprising not as surprising as i might have a couple of years ago but still quite surprising

00:24:09.940 um and what you saw during that debate was um was a real sort of illustration of the the specific

00:24:19.700 reasons why the mainstream media is losing trust and we watched in real time as that public's trust was

00:24:27.140 eroded and so there were a number of things on display there i think there was a lot of mendacity on

00:24:33.700 display um the a lot of bad faith arguments particularly from malcolm gladwell which was

00:24:38.980 disappointing because i had liked him uh a fair bit in the past um you also saw a real uh sense of

00:24:45.860 condescension to the public and um of course we know that from online and from the tone of a lot of

00:24:53.220 media and journalists on twitter right now but to see it in a public forum was still quite shocking

00:24:58.260 yeah um you also saw a real kind of sense of self-absorption from uh malcolm gladwell in

00:25:05.940 particular and the stakes were quite high at this particular time because of course we've just been

00:25:11.380 through the public order emergency commission we have just been through the trucker convoy uh crisis this

00:25:17.620 year and i i think that um the public is very finely attuned to the consequences of not having a trustworthy

00:25:25.940 media media media trust in canada is at its lowest point in seven years right now and uh and yet you

00:25:32.660 saw malcolm gladwell kind of grandstanding kind of going for cheap laughs um it was it was a very strange

00:25:39.060 event and in particular you also saw this kind of ideology that we have touched on in uh malcolm

00:25:46.260 gladwell accusing matt taibbi of being nostalgic for a time in which white men were in charge yeah no i i

00:25:54.980 noticed that like i um i mean i i heard it and i was very uh shocked uh and it reminded me of an event

00:26:03.060 that i was part of a few months ago and i was invited on a panel to talk about misinformation and

00:26:08.980 disinformation and uh um you know and i was completely um um you know just um you know it was supposed to be

00:26:17.780 a civilized panel discussion everybody comes with a different perspective an expert on misinformation

00:26:23.780 disinformation who um doesn't you know uh really like me literally was spewing misinformation

00:26:31.140 disinformation on the panel about me i mean you you couldn't and and you know you couldn't it couldn't

00:26:36.420 get it didn't get better than that and i was appalled and you know and you had the moderator

00:26:41.220 basically cheering this on this reminded me this this the monk debate this this particular monk debate

00:26:47.140 reminded me of that experience um where you know you can just pretty much spew anything and i saw i

00:26:53.620 saw the accusations i heard the accusations uh malcolm gladwell made um uh towards matt taibbi he deliberately

00:27:02.340 miss i think he deliberately mispronounced his name a few times um and then to to extrapolate from

00:27:09.460 from from you know matt taibbi saying uh you know i have this you know walter cronkite was one of the most

00:27:15.380 trusted uh journalists uh and you know today you're not going to find that kind of uh um sentiment uh if

00:27:22.340 you were to go and you know go around asking people because a lot of much of the public distrusts the

00:27:27.860 mainstream media and uh for him to um extra you know from that to extrapolate this to like you know

00:27:36.340 you're basically a white supremacist is what he was saying that you have this nostalgia for an era where

00:27:40.820 there were mostly white people in charge and it was i was just shocking and uh it was and and like

00:27:45.780 you i used to be a fan of gladwell but you know the the number of people that i used to admire once

00:27:52.020 that list is just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and and uh it's it's it's it's very very

00:27:58.980 disheartening so um what did you think of that i mean it was bizarre i know we're trying to make sense

00:28:04.580 of it but uh the fact that you know a civilized discussion on you know what is ailing the

00:28:09.940 mainstream media should be trusted let's debate this descends into um a group uh you know one side

00:28:16.820 not even listening to the other side and just making stuff up literally on on you know in front of the

00:28:21.940 audience yeah i mean i think the moment that i felt like things really turned completely was when

00:28:32.180 malcolm gladwell accused matt taibbi and douglas murray of being conspiracy theorists um that was

00:28:38.900 kind of the most outlandish point of the night i think and it was such um because matt taibbi and

00:28:46.180 douglas murray had both performed so well they had excellent examples they were making excellent

00:28:52.100 arguments uh they were arguing just very well um and uh and came across this of course very credible and

00:29:00.100 so to have the conspiracy theorist thing i you just heard the audience kind of cringe at that and the

00:29:07.780 the acoustics are quite good um at that hall and there were moments where there was just complete

00:29:15.300 silence and there were moments where you could just feel people going like what um and i think that

00:29:21.620 uh michelle goldberg and malcolm gladwell sort of failed to read the audience in that respect um but

00:29:29.940 i i i do think i do think part of the problem here is that when you narrow the field of acceptable speech

00:29:38.340 and thought to the point that it is right now that if you subscribe to the mainstream and are um

00:29:46.180 are in that bubble and very much immersed in that and don't see perspectives outside of that and believe

00:29:51.220 most of that kind of cluster of beliefs um you don't have a lot at your disposal to argue from

00:30:00.340 because they're so um it's so circumscribed and so wrote and so your arguments just aren't very good

00:30:07.300 arguments and that was my feeling i felt michelle goldberg was sincere but i don't think she

00:30:14.020 performed well and i felt malcolm gladwell was pretty smug and superior and self-absorbed but

00:30:21.380 neither of them had particularly convincing arguments and i think that's part of the consequence of the

00:30:25.940 field of acceptable thought being narrowed so much you just don't have that much to say yeah no absolutely

00:30:32.660 and uh one line that really stuck with me uh i mean douglas murray was on fire literally and uh

00:30:39.460 he has he had some of the best lines and uh you know in response to gladwell telling them to get

00:30:44.980 their story straight guys um murray said well why should we get our story straight we're two different

00:30:50.900 individuals we think differently we we have different views uh you know this idea that we should be in

00:30:56.740 lockstep uh and you know and that we should get our story straight is ridiculous that really clinched

00:31:02.500 it for me i mean i you know i came into this debate obviously supporting murray and taibbi um you know

00:31:09.860 but i was curious to see what the other side had to say because you don't want to be in this echo

00:31:15.620 chamber yourself when you're criticizing the echo chamber right and um and i think that line really

00:31:21.780 literally clinched it for me because that is um basically you know it's a good summary of where we are

00:31:29.140 now you know i find that uh the mainstream media wants to be in lockstep they they there's this

00:31:35.460 hive mind there's this group think as you as you mention um on so many important issues uh over the

00:31:43.220 last few years including more recently the pandemic um and and um yeah so i you know i was really struck

00:31:50.420 by that line what did you what did you think about that i thought it was hilarious because yeah i mean if

00:31:55.700 you look at matt taibbi's from the left yeah douglas murray is a conservative and so what is the

00:32:02.340 expectation here that they're supposed to you know agree i mean they're they're arguing for a free press

00:32:09.060 for diversity of thought for you know diversity of perspective and they're arguing that you know this

00:32:15.140 new model that we've seen rise that matt taibbi chronicled in his book hate inc of kind of going after

00:32:21.540 one demographic is disastrous for journalism because you're now fighting to retain that narrow demographic

00:32:30.180 instead of trying to speak to everyone and that causes you to select different stories to select

00:32:37.780 different views to put on the air like you're you're the whole thrust of it is for a narrow demographic

00:32:44.420 of people instead of for everybody and so the idea that that these two very different thinkers should

00:32:51.620 should be in lockstep as you say sort of uh exposes yeah exposes that kind of mistake yeah no absolutely

00:33:00.740 um so i mean i think we kind of touched on this um earlier but you know why do you think the mainstream

00:33:06.500 media has failed to uh live up to what they ought to be doing uh you know that is you know giving fair

00:33:14.100 and unbiased and informative uh coverage uh that enlightens people rather than giving this pre-digested

00:33:21.140 narrative um that often tallies with the political establishment and we saw that happen during the um

00:33:27.220 the truckers convoy during the freedom convoy uh where pretty much i mean um you know i was astonished

00:33:33.380 because uh you know i i used to you know i was based in india for almost 10 years before i returned to

00:33:40.100 canada um and i thought the media there was bad uh they're actually very honest about where they're

00:33:46.420 coming from they just support the government that's it you know they're like they're not pretending to be

00:33:52.740 fair and uh fair-minded or anything like that they're just chilling for the government they're very

00:33:56.900 very honest about it um but here i was just astonished like what is going on here like i i live in the

00:34:02.660 city and i'm walking around and i'm not seeing any of this stuff i literally went out there looking for the

00:34:07.540 bad stuff but i couldn't find anything um and uh you know so what what do you think has happened here

00:34:14.260 in canada i think there's a lot of ways to answer that question that's one of the questions i'm

00:34:19.300 trying to get at in my podcast series right now on the independent press so there's a lot of views

00:34:23.540 on this i think one of the views i heard that i think is quite convincing is holly doan from black

00:34:27.780 locks reporter and one of the things she's saying is that um this is this issue of skills in addition

00:34:33.380 to many other things right and that the journalism used to be an apprenticeship model and so you would

00:34:39.300 be starting out on you know in a small town somewhere you'd be covering the courts and the

00:34:43.780 school board and then you would move to a bigger town and then you would move to the capital and you

00:34:48.420 know cover the legislature and then you would finally come to ottawa and you know you'd come to

00:34:53.060 ottawa out with 10-15 years under your belt of understanding how government works and but but now it

00:35:00.100 doesn't work that way at all it's not an apprenticeship and there are tons and tons of

00:35:05.300 people who don't have the experience and then you know it's also an issue i think of resources as well

00:35:12.660 and you know this very well because i know you've done some of the investigative reporting which is the

00:35:18.420 most resource intensive work we just as a profession don't have the resources right now like how many

00:35:24.100 people do you think sat there and watched all 300 hours of poec like you know who has the resources

00:35:30.580 yeah yeah absolutely i mean i i have to be honest i didn't um but i'm not like i'm i'm an independent

00:35:37.220 person like you know uh yeah yeah i mean i don't have the resources of a cbc or you know or maybe even

00:35:47.220 the national post but uh but yeah you're absolutely right i mean you know the people are not you know

00:35:53.300 the incentive structure is such that you're not putting that much work into these things i mean

00:35:58.820 speaking of holly doan i'm really struck by this her the model is extremely simple right uh when you

00:36:05.220 are you know i've interacted with her on twitter a few times and she says we just show up to these

00:36:10.100 committee hearings and we when we and we write about it and we tweet about it why isn't the mainstream

00:36:16.020 media these committee hearings what is going on like i mean it's so simple i mean you you what's the point

00:36:22.500 in having this parliamentary press gallery pass which i don't have um you know what's the point

00:36:29.380 in having that if you're not showing up for these things yeah i mean it's it's an excellent question

00:36:34.820 and i think their work they do is incredibly valuable it's just so focused um i do think

00:36:39.860 it's an issue of resources for sure sometimes i mean when i was at cbc i was not an investigative

00:36:45.220 journalist i was a current affairs journalist which is putting you know the the news of the day into

00:36:49.780 context what does it mean what does this mean for society but i i did two stories a day every day

00:36:55.300 yeah every day and you know if one of your stories falls apart you start all over again and so

00:37:00.660 the the level of depth that you're able to go into on that story is is like i think about the reporting

00:37:06.980 that you did on um on the trucker convoy and how you you interviewed over 100 people i mean like yeah

00:37:13.780 this is this is very resource intensive work so that's that's one thing another thing that i think

00:37:18.500 about a lot and this is something that leighton woodhouse um who is has also been working with

00:37:23.540 the free press um working on reporting out the twitter file so something he said to me is just

00:37:28.980 the role of kind of enforcing on twitter and so if we're all on twitter all day every day and this is

00:37:35.300 how the media speaks to itself you step out of line of the narrative one tiny little bit and you can

00:37:41.540 feel the effects of that immediately um there's a real sort of the way he talks about it is it's

00:37:48.180 the new kind of manufacturing consent in the digital age i think there's something very powerful to that

00:37:53.940 there's also the issue of class that we've just discussed the fact that this is no longer a working

00:37:59.140 class profession this is more of an elitist profession and with that the idea that um that people are

00:38:07.300 living alongside uh the elites who are making the decisions and that that there's not a separation

00:38:14.500 in the way that that it used to be that there's and also with that it's it's become a status game

00:38:20.180 a power game a popularity contest all of those things are at play i mean there's a million ways

00:38:24.980 to answer that question but but it is the question is like what has happened and what do we do about it

00:38:30.900 because we need a working press for democracy well i yeah i mean you said something about um um you know

00:38:37.700 going against the narrative uh i can tell you um um you know uh many in the mainstream media were

00:38:46.020 you know were were nice to me before the protests uh you know they were civil they were cordial they

00:38:51.380 were uh you know generally very nice and uh and then it all changed um you know all my invites to

00:38:58.820 to mainstream media um um uh you know by from the mainstream media for uh you know to appear on

00:39:06.500 shows or whatever all of that just stopped it just completely stopped like i was just now um you know

00:39:14.660 untouchable essentially you know i'd crossed the rubicon you know i there was no turning back

00:39:19.860 and and if that that can happen to me um you know as an outsider i mean i guess it's easier to deal

00:39:30.020 that way in that manner uh when it when it's when it's an outsider right a freelancer like you can just

00:39:35.140 like just dismiss this person but you know i just wonder what what you know say someone from the cbc

00:39:42.260 decided to do something similar to what i did would would that have had any um encouragement would

00:39:48.260 that would would that have had had would anybody at the cbc would they have even entertained that

00:39:54.340 possibility that idea well there's still really good journalists in the cbc and there's still lots

00:40:00.100 of really good work getting i mean it's every day yeah it's not i don't want to single them out but

00:40:05.380 you know uh but you know in general with the mainstream media because apart from the national

00:40:09.940 post i think they were you know fair and they had some of their reporters go and speak to some of the

00:40:15.700 people at the protests and they were generally very sensible in their coverage um everybody else had

00:40:22.260 you know we're calling them seditionists and uh um you know just just far-right um nazis and whatnot i

00:40:32.580 mean you you know you know you know you know how that went down so you know what what what exactly is

00:40:38.340 this you know the like what i'm trying to i think what i was trying to ask you is you know if someone

00:40:44.740 in the cbc or someone in the mainstream media had decided to do something similar to what i did um

00:40:51.060 you know what what uh what would that have been uh would that have even been entertained i think it

00:40:57.540 probably depends on the day it depends on the team it depends on which way the wind is blowing on

00:41:01.860 twitter i mean it probably depends on a hundred different factors i mean i think this stuff the thing i

00:41:06.420 keep trying to do all the time is just complicate the narrative around all of this because i think

00:41:11.220 it's very complicated and i think there's lots of really good journalists in the mainstream media i

00:41:16.180 know lots of people pushing back against and what you and i are talking about are big trends right yeah

00:41:21.220 big trends and i but in terms of the daily kind of minutiae of it all it's incredibly complicated

00:41:28.660 and you have a lot of people trying to navigate that system at all times and so you're going to

00:41:35.220 get different outcomes sometimes and i do think there's lots of good work getting through but i

00:41:39.860 think on the whole my experience was it was really hard to represent diversity points on air and it got

00:41:47.220 harder um but i d i do think that um i do think the tide is turning i am starting to see particularly in the

00:41:55.140 last couple of months um signs that we are getting a little bit more health back in the system as a

00:42:02.500 whole signs from the mainstream media that they are entertaining more views you know a lot of not a

00:42:10.100 lot some of the stories that were totally off limits that were taboo have now become mainstream

00:42:16.500 stories i'm thinking about the lab leak theory i'm thinking about the hunter biden laptop story

00:42:20.820 thinking about school closures i mean we are getting more discussion now so i i feel cautiously

00:42:27.860 optimistic yet yet but we're yet at the same time you know you're not seeing discussions uh a discussion

00:42:34.660 or coverage of the twitter files for example uh you know there's just been silence and in fact i mean any

00:42:40.900 anytime um it's it's being covered in the mainstream media it is to you know criticize musk or you know or

00:42:49.140 you know that he suspended an account and haha you know so much for free speech and uh so on and so

00:42:56.180 forth so um you know i i i i i take your point that you know there is that the tide is shifting and you

00:43:03.220 know there's coverage of these things um you know give you an example of this immigration um you know i've

00:43:10.180 seen a spate of stories and op-eds uh in in places like the globe and mail toronto star and a bunch of

00:43:18.900 other places actually cautioning um you know and and asking the question do we really need to have

00:43:25.220 500 000 people coming into this country every year can can our system really sustain it do we have the

00:43:30.660 resources uh can our health care system which is on the verge of uh collapse collapsing at this point

00:43:36.420 can it handle it now had you made these points about a year ago you would have been bracketed as

00:43:42.020 a far-right anti-immigrant racist whatnot but i'm actually astonished that i mean this is

00:43:49.460 you know if i were truly cynical i would you know i would i would say you know i would say um you know

00:43:55.060 and if i were if i were like the left you know i would i would say ah you know this is just a

00:43:58.980 sophisticated a way of saying that you are not for immigration but i'm not going there you know i think

00:44:04.260 these are very this is a very important topic and it needs to be um uh discussed in the content in

00:44:11.140 that context yeah we have to be able to discuss public policy in this country like we have to be

00:44:17.060 able to discuss these things of course yeah yeah i mean sorry go ahead no to your point about the

00:44:23.460 twitter files i i think that's a really important example i was really disheartened to see um legacy

00:44:30.900 press journalists kind of line up to slag matt taibbi i found that incredibly disheartening i mean

00:44:38.020 there's no universe in which this is not a big story calling it a nothing burger is ridiculous yeah

00:44:43.460 uh matt taibbi is one of the best investigative journalists of our time um calling him far right

00:44:50.580 is ridiculous he's been on the left his whole life i mean like it's just um it's those sort of instances

00:44:57.780 that i think really like the public is not stupid they're not stupid and i think when arguments are

00:45:05.220 made in such bad faith like that and in such a public forum as twitter it just does not help our

00:45:10.100 cause in the media at all and i think one of the best things the journalists could do and you saw this

00:45:15.300 during the trucker convoy crisis as well there you know some of the coverage um was not as hysterical as

00:45:22.660 some of the other coverage and yet so many of the journalists were on twitter all the time saying

00:45:29.140 um pretty extreme things and it compromises their own coverage like i think i think one of the best

00:45:35.300 things we could all do is just stop on twitter like yeah uh but you know i i'm not even sure that's

00:45:43.060 you know that's enough at this point because i i feel like you know this an ideology has really taken

00:45:48.820 hold uh there's a lot of uh self-flagellation there's a lot of you know we're uh and we'll

00:45:55.220 come to this i mean this is going to be my next question it's the um you know it's it's it's not just

00:46:00.180 media houses but you know even universities have bought into this uh ideology um whatever this i woke

00:46:07.940 progressive ideology um and i i wonder if you saw the uh this carlton university school of journalism

00:46:15.220 event on online hate uh where the where the battlefield is everywhere um um and and i and i

00:46:22.500 that that that title itself was um you know quite something and um you know but but what struck me

00:46:28.420 about this among many other things was the fact that not a single person from the indian independent

00:46:32.740 media was invited there uh and they were all insiders singing the same tune um and this is at

00:46:40.100 canada's top journalism school um and you can already see kind of the indoctrination happening here

00:46:46.660 uh of the next generation of journalists right so i watch all of these media panels because i'm

00:46:55.700 i'm ever hopeful that we will have a moment of sincere self-reflection in this country yeah um that

00:47:03.300 one i found particularly puzzling and particularly concerning for a number of reasons um as you say

00:47:10.420 the ideological capture and like i say this all the time i'll say it again i come from the left

00:47:16.500 um but this particular cluster of views is not popular even with the broader left again i call it

00:47:23.220 woke i know people find that term offensive and upsetting i don't know what else to call it we have

00:47:26.980 to call it something but you know from the very moment so the head of the carlton journalism school

00:47:33.940 opens with a land acknowledgement yes and with a trigger warning yep with a commitment to commit

00:47:41.540 the journalism school and the wider profession of journalism to the dismantling of white supremacy

00:47:48.020 and colonial mindsets and with the mention of a higher like a higher by diversity category of

00:47:56.260 indigenous journalism of course i want to see indigenous journalists in this country of course

00:48:00.820 yeah but but this is a particular like all of these are signals of allegiance to a particular

00:48:08.340 political ideology and they are coded as such in language in um in kind of core tenants and the

00:48:15.940 public recognizes them as such i get mail all the time from the public on this and oh you know i come

00:48:21.380 from the left a lot from people on the left about this this is not what the public wants

00:48:26.180 from us as journalists they do not want this they want us to go out there and as matt taibbi says

00:48:33.060 do the best that we can to reflect reality to go out find out what the facts are to the best of our

00:48:40.180 ability which is as you know hard enough yeah absolutely do that and let the public make up their own mind

00:48:48.420 this kind of signaling of political allegiance just puts the public off and i i find it astonishing that

00:48:55.060 there's no awareness of that it is it is uh quite extraordinary i was um i mean speaking about this

00:49:03.380 panel uh there was a similar panel um a few months ago shortly after the protests and um and and you

00:49:10.580 you know talking about the uh protests um forget what what it was called something about the mainstream

00:49:17.540 media uh um you know something about the mainstream media's coverage of the protests anyway they forgot

00:49:26.100 to invite me i was the only a person i mean everybody else on the panel was were the usual suspects and

00:49:33.140 then there was outrage on social media saying how is it that you didn't invite the person who actually

00:49:37.860 wrote about the protests and had a very different take on it and then i got a last minute invite and

00:49:42.580 then they and they put me on the panel uh but you know it was when when you're when your starting point

00:49:50.180 is that you just want to speak among yourselves um and you don't even consider that there could be

00:49:56.900 another point of view out there there's another journalist uh doing something different uh when you

00:50:02.900 don't even think that is relevant for the for discussion where's the introspection gonna happen

00:50:09.300 right yeah i watched that one too yeah yeah that one too yeah i um yeah i mean i couldn't be there in

00:50:16.900 person but you know i i did uh did it on zoom and uh it was fine but you know um but you know i i was

00:50:23.940 just uh very disappointed that you know it was it was once again you know you're just speaking among

00:50:28.980 yourselves like what why are you doing that like i hate i i mean i like i like being in a group of

00:50:34.820 people who are always agreeing with me but i find that boring after a certain point it's like you know

00:50:40.980 come on challenge me you know make me change my mind about something yeah the other thing that i

00:50:46.660 would say about the carlton panel which i think is important to bring up and i know you raised this

00:50:50.740 point on twitter is that to equate um online abuse yes which i think is an issue i i take it seriously

00:50:58.660 i i know i've seen on twitter some of the stuff you've had to deal with i don't like that any

00:51:02.820 journalist has to deal with that i take it seriously but to equate that to being in a war zone literally

00:51:11.300 literally is is hyperbolic it's hysterical and it's unhelpful yeah and i think it doesn't help our

00:51:19.700 cause if you go to a public that already distrusts us and say being on twitter is

00:51:27.860 causing us trauma and you know and again i don't want to diminish like actual threats of violence

00:51:34.500 no one should have to deal with that but we can we keep can we keep um a measured tone about all of

00:51:43.700 this and not you know um hyperbole just doesn't help our case at all yeah no absolutely and um um

00:51:54.100 i yeah it's just that's just massively disappointing you know here was another opportunity to actually

00:52:00.260 um you know have a sensible discussion but uh it veered into something totally uh different and yeah

00:52:07.860 the war zone analogy i can never get over that um i i mean actual wartime correspondents war

00:52:14.260 correspondents don't take to twitter and say you know i'm being abused online i mean how silly would

00:52:19.460 they look um it's just uh it's just ridiculous but anyway i i don't want to take up too much of your

00:52:27.220 time tara one final question for you when you left the cbc um you know you took a very courageous decision to

00:52:34.180 you know give up this job uh and strike out on your own as an independent journalist um you know

00:52:41.540 as you know it's very precarious um and you're not backed up by the big resources of a large corporate

00:52:49.140 media house um looking back do you feel you made the right decision and um how do you see your career

00:52:55.620 and for that matter um um you know the rest of us who are in the independent space evolve over the

00:53:01.300 coming uh few years i do feel i made the right decision i felt uh i feel i made the only decision

00:53:08.820 that i could make um and i feel very optimistic about the independent press i i'm so uh i'm finding

00:53:17.780 it so satisfying and so rewarding to be able to follow my journalistic instincts to do the stories

00:53:23.620 that i think are important to be able to speak in a straightforward uh kind of free way on the podcast

00:53:30.260 to do some of the media criticism which i think is necessary in a healthy democratic society which

00:53:36.900 is never going to make you popular and will always probably limit your employment opportunities going

00:53:42.900 forward yeah but i think it's a really necessary thing and there are some of us doing it and i think

00:53:47.860 that's healthy for democracy um i think there are i think it's a really exciting time in independent

00:53:55.060 media i think that some of the people who are kind of blazing the trail right now barry weiss and you

00:54:00.900 are now going to the you know the free press it's very exciting i think that there's real movement i

00:54:06.660 think there's real hunger from the public and uh for this kind of journalism i think there are

00:54:12.180 downsides um again resources i would have liked to watch all 300 hours of the poec commission

00:54:18.020 yeah um i did not get on the ground in ottawa and i would have really liked to so there there are

00:54:24.820 resource issues when you're just one person of the what you can cover i don't do investigative

00:54:29.780 journalism i would sometimes really like to but um but i think that overall um overall it's been

00:54:38.580 an incredibly satisfying time for me and i think one of the most satisfying things about it is all of

00:54:43.060 the mail that i get from the public i've never gotten this level of mail in my entire career

00:54:48.020 and um it's incredible to read people's stories and to get that huge kind of depth of experience

00:54:56.260 across the country and now in the states as well and i i feel um yeah i just feel incredibly satisfied

00:55:02.660 to be part of that conversation yeah well i'm really glad that you're part of that conversation and

00:55:08.340 uh and for taking that courageous decision when you did and uh and you know your substack

00:55:15.300 is is amazing i often go to it and uh there's a lot of great content there and uh you know thank you

00:55:22.020 for doing what you do and uh and you know it was a real pleasure having you on my show um and i'm just

00:55:29.780 so glad that we had this conversation and thank you so much for sharing your insights with us it's so

00:55:35.220 a pleasure ruba it's always great to talk to you thanks so much thanks so much tara thank you

Juno News - December 17, 2022

The Woke Capture of the Legacy Media (Ft. Tara Henley)

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