When was the last time you saw a pro-Israel voice amplified on the mainstream media? In the course of her job as a journalist, Sheila Gunn-Reed noticed a marked anti-Israel bias in mainstream media coverage of the Middle East. She asked the question: Does the CBC have a chronic anti-Semitism problem? And if so, what should become of the state broadcaster for it?
00:01:51.600And joining me today is their executive director, Mike Fagelman, to talk about Honest Reporting Canada's work to hold the mainstream media to account
00:02:01.060and what they would like to see happen with regard to the CBC's pernicious anti-Israel bias.
00:18:04.980But more often than not, we average about a 70% success ratio in terms of bringing our concerns to a media outlet's attention and securing some kind of a remedy.
00:18:49.000Well, and I think, too, we don't know the psychological impact of knowing how having somebody watching you constantly might color your work next time around, too.
00:19:02.560Well, we hope that that, let's call it vigilance, that we provide will cause a course correction for journalists that before they're actually going to do a news article, knowing that we are watching everything they say and do.
00:19:18.340Perhaps they're going to ensure that there's a pro-Israel source quoted in their report, or they'll be more careful with the language that they use.
00:19:25.600That, and on top of just being an organization, we have a grassroots subscriber membership of about 60,000 Canadians.
00:19:32.300So they are very much so our eyes and ears.
00:19:34.460They're also more often than not the consumers of the news that these news outlets are providing.
00:19:39.820So, and I should also say, you know, Israel makes mistakes.
00:19:44.400We're not a blanket apologist for Israel, deserving of criticism.
00:19:50.680I think journalists worth their salt who appreciate and understand that will take that into account.
00:19:57.920Now, I want to ask you specifically about CBC because Honest Reporting Canada is calling for an independent commission to investigate CBC's anti-Israel bias.
00:20:08.380Why do you think this warrants an independent commission?
00:20:13.900It does because what we are experiencing, the kind of culture of immunity, when complaints are filed by us or Canadians as it relates to coverage of Israel and matters affecting the Jewish community with respect to the CBC, the responses by and large are overwhelmingly evasive.
00:20:33.860A refusal to cause a course correction, a refusal to really atone for the fundamental misrepresentation of the issues.
00:20:44.500So if CBC is not going to make any changes, there really just has to be an independent commission that will really do a deep dive, independent investigation.
00:20:53.500At this point, we are not optimistic that internally that the powers that be will take any kind of change.
00:21:03.140And effectively, what we're experiencing is the kind of pass the buck mentality of responsibility.
00:21:11.060We believe very much so that the kind of poor and biased journalism that the CBC is producing is causing a lot of the anti-Semitism that is in our midst.
00:21:20.740Now, let's say an independent commission finds CBC has a systemic racism problem.
00:21:30.660What consequences would you be seeking or hoping for if that were the case?
00:21:37.000That's an interesting theoretical, right?
00:21:39.560I mean, internally, you would like to think that if there is an independent arm's length investigation that proves with veracity and credibility that there's a systemic problem, you'd like to think that that is there's going to have to be changes within the journalistic standards and practices, which is the sort of editorial code of conduct that CBC has.
00:22:00.640But also in the sense that they have to actually do some due diligence in making sure that they're providing balanced coverage.
00:22:08.480And that's not just a statement, but it has to be an effort towards some kind of achievement of a ratio.
00:22:14.440The other is I think there will have to be a cultural change from within the ranks of the CBC.
00:22:19.280I don't think it's a surprise for any of your viewers to hear that there is, I think, pretty systemically a very strident left view at the CBC, kind of a herd mentality as it relates to how they view different issues and the kind of reporting.
00:22:39.800And again, we're talking hundreds, perhaps thousands of plays, I'm not entirely sure, but if an investigation proves that through program after program, there's going to definitely, we would recommend changes as it relates to the kind of story selection that they're going to do, the kind of lexicon that they appropriate, which is oftentimes very misleading, and certain cultural shifts and are really an acceptance of that.
00:23:09.800Of having and platforming pro-Israel views to the Canadian audience.
00:23:15.360Yeah, like, I think their mandate involves reflecting the diversity of Canada, but it seems pretty homogenous when you watch their broadcast coverage.
00:23:24.540I mean, I would be happy if they just had one on your actual conservative, but I can't name one.
00:23:29.720I think what passes for one is Andrew Coyne, and that's my criticism of the CBC and not yours.
00:23:34.900Sure, and I like how you focused on their mandate, because it is a betrayal of that mandate.
00:23:41.320And that's why we have the CRTC to really also investigate what's transpiring, because this is bigger than just our organization, even the Jewish community.
00:23:51.720This is a very much so Canadian issue.
00:23:53.880Yeah, I would love to see some strings hatched to all of that money that we give them every single year.
00:24:01.100Now, I promised you 20 minutes, we're at 22 right now.
00:24:05.160I just want to give you an opportunity to invite people, maybe people who are just finding out about Honest Reporting Canada.
00:24:12.460And I know a lot of my journalism relies on your original source reporting.
00:24:45.860Effectively, our goal is to embrace, to educate, and to empower Canadians, to really be vigilant media monitors and hold Canadian news organizations, specifically the CBC, accountable for their journalism.
00:25:00.720We're also here to help in any possible way in terms of helping to draft and craft a legislative editor, outreach to journalists, engage in cooperation with different news outlets, and to try to foster change.
00:25:15.380Well, Mike, thanks so much for the work that you do to hold the Canadian media landscape to account.
00:25:24.180I think that's sort of a little bit of what we do over here at Rebel News, but I just appreciate you telling the other side of the story of not just Israel, but Canada's Jewish community as well.
00:27:06.640If you're watching a clip of the show on YouTube or Rumble, send it to your friends.
00:27:10.620I want to know what your friends and non-subscribers have to say about our work.
00:27:15.380Because ideally, one day I would love to convert them to becoming subscribers.
00:27:21.260So, you know, if they send me feedback and maybe they want to hear if I read their feedback, they might just have to pick up an eight buck a month subscription to Rebel News.
00:27:34.540And you get my show, as you know, as you're showing a lot of extras as well.
00:27:39.200Now, today's viewer feedback comes to us by way of YouTube on my show with my friend Chris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:27:49.940Last week, we were talking about Mark Carney and the carbon tax and how he really is the architect of the carbon tax as we know it.
00:27:57.640Now, he's sort of backing away from this version of the carbon tax.
00:28:02.700He wants to move it upstream, take it away from the consumer and put it on the upstream producers, which, of course, will just pass it along to the consumer at the end of the day because that's how cost inputs work.
00:28:17.360Like some economist, he is, what he wants to do is make sure that you can't see the carbon tax when you're looking at the cost of your gas bill.
00:28:29.500I mean, you already can't see it in your grocery bill, but he wants to make it even less visible to you.
00:28:36.760He wants to hide the inflationary nature of his carbon tax from your prideful peasant eyes.
00:28:44.700So, Wes Spruill 5779 says, my carbon tax is already more than the natural gas on my bill.
00:28:51.980Yeah, I think that's the experience of a lot of people.
00:28:55.120Now, Mark Carney doesn't want you to know that.
00:28:57.880He doesn't want you to look at your gas bill and see the outrageousness of paying more in tax than you are for the goods that you're purchasing.
00:30:44.800Stephen Harper was an economist and boring.
00:30:48.280There was something so, I don't know, Mr. Rogers-y about him and his boring Lego hair.
00:30:56.620Uh, that you didn't think he was lying to you about what he planned to do.
00:31:04.440And I, I think Canadians feel as though Mark Carney is full of BS.
00:31:09.940And, uh, of course he is because as we've seen, he will say one thing about pipelines in English, or at least energy projects, by which he means green energy projects.
00:31:18.140In English, he will invoke the emergencies, powers of the government to get those things done.
00:31:26.300And then in French, he'll say, actually, we're going to give Quebec a veto over any energy projects that might go through Quebec, which is exactly how we're in this mess.
00:31:34.580In the first place, without an east-west pipeline in a country that has the world's third largest oil and gas resources.
00:31:41.560Can you imagine? What a joke of a country we are sometimes.
00:31:46.940All right. And the curse of common sense says, at the WEF summit, Carney said he's European.
00:31:54.880Changing the clown doesn't make the circus better.
00:31:57.440I've never heard that phrase before, but I think that's really quite prescient.
00:32:01.340Uh, yeah. Mark Carney has three passports, says he's a European.
00:32:05.820I don't know if he has a primary residence in Canada. I'm doubtful.
00:32:09.120Um, but remember all the trouble, the outrage that we saw from the liberals when, uh, they uncovered that Andrew Scheer was a dual citizen because one of his parents was American.
00:32:22.920And they were all like, oh my God, dual allegiances.
00:32:27.580Like, and like, I don't know if you're old enough to remember the attack ads against liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, but the conservatives ran these very effective attack ads.
00:32:40.400And you know how I know they were effective?
00:32:42.560Cause here I am like almost two decades later and I remember them like they were yesterday.
00:32:47.720And it was, he didn't come back for you as in he came back to be in charge.
00:32:55.060And if he's not going to get to be in charge, he's going to leave.
00:32:59.800Uh, so Mark Carney has been making these bad decisions for Canadians from somewhere else,
00:33:05.980because why would he want to live with the consequences of his policies where the rest of us are poor, uh, peasants?
00:33:17.460And Mark Carney will come and go as quickly.
00:33:23.420So if he, let's say he wins the leadership, uh, and then runs in the next election and loses, which he definitely will, will he stay on as an MP if he runs in a safe riding?
00:33:37.400You know, like, will he be the liberal leader and an MP and not in power in the prime minister's office?