Fake News Friday ｜ An outrageous week for the CBC
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Summary
In this week's episode of Fake News Friday, Andrew Lawton and Harrison Faulkner discuss the growing problem of monopolization in Canadian media, and how government intervention might be the answer. They also discuss a new piece from the CBC op-ed piece "Is Monopoly Capitalism Plundering Canadian Newspapers?" and a call for government intervention.
Transcript
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Hey, and welcome along to another edition of Fake News Friday.
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Yes, it is Friday, February 3rd, sifting through the blizzard of lies, staying afloat in the
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I am Andrew Lawton, here to navigate the week that was through the lens of debunking the
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Fake Rejoined, not as always, but as usually, with Harrison Faulkner.
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The week's been pretty good, and I have to say, the Fake News Friday intro just keeps
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getting honed in on, and it keeps getting better.
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I will say, though, my week was going well, Andrew, until I woke up this morning and it
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I could really use some climate change these days.
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I saw someone say that whenever it's cold out, it's always the weather.
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Whenever it's too hot out, it's always climate.
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Well, seriously, this is getting a bit ridiculous at this point.
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I could really use a little bit of climate change this morning.
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Yeah, I'd actually hoped that the weather forecast was going to be fake news, but alas, my car
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this morning had several inches of snow, so that was how I started my day.
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One thing you could always rely on is media wanting more government money.
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Once you subsidize something, it will never have a life for itself outside of that subsidized
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Canadian newspapers are being threatened, we hear.
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Monopoly capitalism is plundering Canadian newspapers.
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It's actually about the Competition Bureau that needs to step in and start breaking up some
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Part of this is, of course, that Post Media, the largest newspaper company in Canada,
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just announced it's going to be doing several staff cuts.
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It's actually quite a significant workforce reduction after this company has already had
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to do this time and time again in recent years.
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They're also going to be selling off properties.
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But the answer to this is that, well, monopoly capitalism is the problem, not an old business
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Whenever they discuss stories like the failing local media, right, the fact that Canadians
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can no longer get accurate news about where they live, wherever it is in the country, the
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answer, the antidote to this problem is always more regulation, more government.
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It's not just more funding from the government.
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It's actually demanding that the government steps in and engages with these companies and
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stops them from getting bigger or stops them from monopolizing.
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But it is funny, Andrew, how it always comes back to wanting more money from the taxpayer
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Like, that's the problem with Canadian media here.
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The fact that we don't give enough of our money to journalists, it's laughable, especially
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Yeah, and when I mentioned the call for subsidy here, I should mention that Patricia Elliott's
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primary goal here is to break up the so-called monopolies.
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But the other side of this is that she's talking about the importance of Bill C-18, which is
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the bill that forces the social media companies to subsidize news, a government-mandated subsidy.
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She heralds the Local Journalism Initiative, again, another program where the government bankrolls
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So I think the challenge is that they have a very narrow conception of what media is supposed
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And let's face it, you have independent media organizations like Rebel, like True North,
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It's not exclusively for media that has a more conservative editorial bent are growing.
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It's the traditional business model, the legacy media that right now is in such dire
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So I think that the answer to this is not going to come from some government bureaucrat
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And I don't know why no one who wrings their hands about the state of media actually entertains
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And even in this CBC article, Andrew, Elliott, the author of this piece, talks about, and I
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She talks about how good independent journalism is actually being done.
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And they're not being done by these large corporate media giants like the National Post,
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Post Media, Toronto Star, all of these big outlets that we know are failing.
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So she admits that that is happening from independent small outlets.
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Yet, of course, the antidote is just having the government step in and force social media
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There's no recognition in this article, of course, as you mentioned, Andrew, about the
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Like us at True North, we rely on donors to fund our journalism, and that journalism is
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We're breaking exclusive stories, it feels like, all the time now.
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Like always, Andrew, the antidote from the CBC is more government, more regulation.
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And sometimes people on the right are all okay with going in and busting up so-called monopolies.
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But I think the big challenge here is that Post Media is not a monopoly.
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There is actually a quite diverse media landscape in this country.
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And sure, it's consolidated into a few different players.
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But there's no barrier to entry, apart from capital, of someone else saying,
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And again, taking aim at a monopoly, or a so-called pseudo-monopoly, whatever they're
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calling Post Media here, doesn't actually make sense when that company is not being
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So it's not like you're going after Standard Oil, which is just so giant, it's raking in
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So right now, I think that's proof that the problem is not monopoly capitalism.
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So in any case, we will move on from there for now.
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But let's talk about why media needs to innovate.
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And we look no further, of course, than our old friends at the CBC, the paramount public
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broadcaster, so significant, so integral to our lives, deserving of $1.4 billion a year
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in taxpayer money, and without whom we would never know about the dietary habits of New
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Yes, a fridge too far, living sustainably in New York City by unplugging appliances, a CBC
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pickup of an Associated Press story about a Manhattan vegan named Josh Spodek, who has
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decided to get rid of his refrigerator in his Greenwich Village apartment and go packaging
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And you may be wondering, why is this of interest to Canadian consumers?
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And why should Canadian taxpayers have to pay for this?
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And I still, after reading this, do not know anything apart from how Josh Spodek decides
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It's like the number keeps going up almost monthly.
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Last, I swear, almost last episode, we were talking 1.2.
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But the reason CBC gets the money is because they have a mandate.
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They have a mandate given to them by Parliament for this money.
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And let me just read what that mandate says, and then we can see how this story about New
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York City sustainable living from one hipster in New York City matches up with this mandate.
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The mandate for the CBC, the reason why they get $1.4 billion from us, is to inform,
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enlighten, and entertain, to contribute to the development of a shared national consciousness
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and identity, to reflect the regional and cultural diversity of Canada, and to contribute
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to the development of Canadian talent and culture.
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This story has absolutely nothing to do with the CBC mandate.
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And yet it just gets put out there, and it's like, oh, you know, we're just trying to reach
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We're just going to talk about this New York City hipster without a fridge, because that
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I mean, I'm not even going to get upset about this.
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I pointed this out on Twitter a few days ago, and I was like, you know, why would we at all
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care about this, was basically the subtext of my tweet.
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And a few people pointed out something that I had missed initially, which is that keeping
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up on all the latest trends in New York is probably tremendously relevant to the CEO of
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CBC, Catherine Tate, who you may recall lives in New York.
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She has a $5.4 million home in Brooklyn, a little bit of a ways from Greenwich Village,
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So perhaps the New York City coverage is just to keep Catherine Tate happy over in the remote
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Just a little bit of top-down editorial control by Catherine Tate saying, you know, we're not
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We need to get these hipsters in New York City more coverage for their refrigerator-less,
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You know, and for those who wanted to know, I guess we have to do the story justice here
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I know all Canadian news consumers care about this.
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He cooks with an electric pressure cooker, occasionally a toaster oven, but fear not, he powers them with
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Although he has to bring it up and down 11 flights of stairs to recharge it on the roof
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of his building every day because the sun don't shine on whatever floor he's on.
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We have kind of a good CBC theme going on here.
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So let's bring it back to Canada, but keep the CBC commentary running here.
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There was a bit of an interesting exchange in the House of Commons foyer this morning when
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Pierre Polyev, the leader of the Conservatives, was commenting on the withdrawal by the Liberals
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of their amendment banning hunting and farming rifles and shotguns.
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And Pierre Polyev was commenting on this and he had this rather unique exchange with a CBC
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There are some guns, yes, that we're going to have to take away from people who are using
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He'll reintroduce this either in this parliament or he'll dream that, God forbid, if he ever
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And that's why the only way law-abiding hunters and farmers will be able to protect their way
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of life is to elect a conservative majority government led by Pierre Polyev.
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It shows good faith that maybe he heard what you were saying and heard what people are saying.
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You think that anything about this process has been good faith.
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No, like, I mean, you've got to ask, obviously you're from the CBC, you're trying to help
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them out of a bad situation, but the reality is this.
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He introduced, he introduced this amendment, he, he, no, it's, it's CBC is trying to carry
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He introduced this amendment with hundreds and hundreds of firearms owned by law-abiding,
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He tried to use fear and divide and conquer as he always does.
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And he reiterated his plan in December to ban hunting rifles.
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The only reason Trudeau has put his tail between his legs and paused this plan is because my
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But if he ever got the chance, make no mistake, he will ban hunting rifles.
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And the only way to prevent that is with a conservative majority government.
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So, Andrew, it's good to see that we have some politicians now calling out the CBC, especially
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on the conservative benches, because for a while they were just kind of going out there
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berating conservatives, clearly doing the government's bidding and never really getting
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And it is really refreshing to hear Pierre Polyev take a CBC journalist to task.
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The idea that this whole, that any part of this process was conducted in good faith by the
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Look, there's no way that they can possibly claim that unless, of course, you're on the
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take from the government, unless, of course, you receive $1.4 billion from the government
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and the opposition are now saying they want to defund you.
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That then would make sense for the journalists like this to be talking this way.
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But really, it's an absurdity for them to be saying that this was conducted in good
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And thankfully, Pierre Polyev put this journalist in his place.
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Yeah, and I've long said that politicians in Canada in general, certainly conservative
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politicians, need to stop accepting the premises of bad questions.
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And I literally said on my show many months ago that Pierre Polyev should be available
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to the media, but he should take a page out of Ron DeSantis' book and actually flip the
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And I'm not saying he was taking my advice, because I think he has a bit of that instinct
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But I was glad he did that and brazenly, blatantly said, yeah, they're carrying water for the
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Well, it's exactly what Pierre Polyev, I think, needs to do.
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As the year goes on, as we get closer to 2025, the journalists inside the House of Commons,
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the Parliamentary Press Bureau, are going to continue to get sharper and sharper with Polyev.
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And until such time as conservatives have a leader that is going to actually fight them
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on these issues, then it's going to be a bloodbath for conservatives.
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The journalists are never going to give them an inch.
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They're certainly not going to treat them the way they treat the Liberals right now.
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It's good to see that the leader of the opposition isn't hiding away from the parliamentary press,
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And if you support the work that True North does, not just on Fridays where we let our,
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well, metaphorical hair down, but throughout the week as well.