The Candice Malcolm Show - Fake News Friday ｜ Journalists cry over mean tweets

00:00:00.000 happy friday canada congratulations on making it to the end of the week for your reward you

00:00:14.900 get fake news friday the only show keeping canada's failing fake and biased legacy media

00:00:19.760 in check i'm harrison faulkner filling in for andrew lawton who usually fills in for the great

00:00:24.900 candace malcolm who's taking some much-deserved time off with her family now sitting in the seat

00:00:28.880 i usually occupy is the very talented rupa supermania the host of the rupa supermania podcast

00:00:33.860 now before i throw it over to you rupa i just got to say besides being one of canada's top

00:00:38.140 journalists you happen you happen to have a real mack at getting a getting a rise out of the left

00:00:42.820 on twitter now i don't know if it's intentional or it's by accident but my goodness you know how to

00:00:47.080 get a rise out of them what's your what's your reaction been to the left's reaction of your

00:00:51.100 reporting what's it been over two and two weeks now two and a half weeks yeah well well first of all

00:00:57.020 harrison thanks for having me here it's a real honor to be here um and you know i i don't i don't

00:01:03.660 think i'm the top journalist in canada i i don't even think i'm in the top 10 i'm just i'm just

00:01:09.100 you know just a simple person sitting here in ottawa and uh writing on things that i care about and

00:01:15.660 that's pretty much it and i'm not afraid to call it as i see it uh and uh but going back to your

00:01:21.700 question uh and this was the big story that i broke a couple weeks ago on uh these court documents

00:01:28.820 that reveal that canada's uh travel mandate um vaccine mandate for travel had no scientific

00:01:35.520 rationale it was all driven by politics uh with the prime minister using the um the the vaccine

00:01:42.560 mandate as a political wedge issue uh in the hopes of getting a majority um uh for an election he called

00:01:49.020 two days after he announced uh the mandate um and the story itself got a you know an extraordinary

00:01:56.660 amount of traction online a lot of people shared it i got uh many many messages of support and

00:02:02.900 encouragement and people uh really glad that i uh that i got to the bottom of this uh but there were

00:02:10.080 a few people i would say who were um more than just a few people who were really riled up uh i i would

00:02:17.560 say uh at this uh at this uh at my story they were um you know making accusations uh that this was

00:02:25.940 well first of all they said these court documents didn't even exist um that i was making it all up

00:02:31.540 um and then uh and then uh the federal court tweets um saying that hey guys uh given the extraordinary

00:02:40.440 amount of interest in this case we're actually releasing these documents right now so that shut them up

00:02:46.000 right away but then they had to move on to something else um and then they started calling

00:02:51.460 me a russian agent and um you know the usual smear uh that that uh that you know those of us in the

00:02:59.100 independent space are accustomed to uh being at the you know we're at the receiving end of such smears

00:03:04.400 um and that uh you know that i was just uh again making it up i'm a liar and so on and so forth no

00:03:11.060 no one actually was engaging with the story no one was actually trying to um you know actually

00:03:15.640 engage with what i was trying to say and what the court documents themselves reveal i mean you don't

00:03:20.260 even have to believe me just look take a look at the court documents um and uh and and i and i flagged

00:03:26.140 two uh two specific responses uh to my story uh one of them was from liberal mp mark greetson um

00:03:35.360 and uh the other one uh being charles angus of the ndp mark greetson uh said that um you know he

00:03:43.160 tweeted saying and he was by the way he was quote tweeting a journalist um who who who didn't even

00:03:48.900 react to what he was saying which which in itself is pretty revealing um and mark greetson said that

00:03:55.440 uh that that my story was uh was was uh blatant propaganda it was that i was lying and that uh and

00:04:03.680 and this kind of we shouldn't wait till the next election to confront uh this kind of blatant lying

00:04:10.320 and propaganda it must be confronted now um when i read that tweet i was you know i was really taken

00:04:16.560 aback i was uh you know it was it was chilling because this is coming from a politician from the

00:04:22.120 governing party he's no garden variety um anonymous troll um and uh and he he was you know he was taking

00:04:29.420 such a strong uh position against a story that he didn't um he he he didn't agree with and he was

00:04:34.480 taking it out on not just the story but also the journalist and um and and then there was a second

00:04:40.840 reaction from charlie angus of the ndp uh and uh and he said that uh this is written by a national

00:04:47.780 post columnist the national post gets tons of money from the government so uh and so therefore

00:04:53.240 you know they're they get money from the government and they're spreading bs and propaganda

00:04:58.020 um yeah well insinuating insinuating that anybody who takes money from the government can't be writing

00:05:04.400 critical articles about the government that's kind of the angle which is just exposing this whole thing

00:05:09.260 to begin with and yeah i mean i think you know if if they had if the liberals knew that their

00:05:13.660 mandates could stand on their own and there was justification for them to stand on their own

00:05:17.840 i don't think they'd be reacting the way they did to your reporting rupa but you mentioned this

00:05:22.120 point about anonymous online trolls and how usually journalists will face uh will face pushback and

00:05:28.960 even hate from anonymous online trolls that's the game we all end up having to to play with but it's

00:05:33.840 different when it's politicians it's different when it's actual journalists that are on the other side

00:05:38.940 of uh on the other side of the house i mean that's just sort of that's just an unheard of thing but

00:05:45.460 i want to i want to talk about this canadian association of journalists tweet because what we've been

00:05:50.760 hearing it's it's really been i think it's been so overused we've been hearing it for what four

00:05:56.220 weeks now it's it's this whole new push from what we're seeing i think from a lot of legacy media

00:06:00.520 journalists to make it seem as though they are victims that the rest of canada are attacking

00:06:05.880 these journalists particularly these young female journalists and sending them death threats and

00:06:10.600 sending them horrible messages now we're not going to condone any of that anyone who sends any 1.00

00:06:14.380 messages like that are stupid they're dumb but the point that is the point that i think should be 1.00

00:06:19.660 raised about this is the canadian association of journalists wrote on twitter they they tagged 1.00

00:06:24.260 toronto star the hill times global news and they all kind of joint signed this list of demands which

00:06:30.700 they sent to the police to what is it the toronto police ottawa police and the rcmp and i just want to

00:06:35.480 read it because it's just ridiculous so they start off by saying enough is enough online hate against

00:06:41.060 journalists must be addressed and then today the canadian association of journalists send a list of

00:06:45.880 demands to the police including four federal ministers and the ontario attorney general so i'm

00:06:50.120 going to quickly summarize this list of demands because the last one i think is just such a such

00:06:54.420 a kicker so the first one is we need a comprehensive and cooperative approach to online hate across police

00:07:00.700 forces recent threatening emails to journalists use similar language used by domestic extremist groups

00:07:05.780 journalists who showed support for colleagues were also targeted and the next one is police forces must

00:07:11.480 review and improve their processes for making complaints of hate speech and harassment victims

00:07:16.460 should not be waiting hours on the phone to file complaints or be treated rudely and dismissed by

00:07:21.060 officers you see victims should not be threatened by police even i mean it's it's just it's just

00:07:26.360 ridiculous number three we ask for greater transparency and dialogue from police forces to help keep

00:07:32.120 journalists and all targets of hate safe and then and then here at the bottom i just want to list this off

00:07:36.980 they write for the most part the targets of these hateful and threatening messages are women and 0.70

00:07:41.380 women of color in canadian media we will not tolerate anymore enough is enough well there happens to 1.00

00:07:46.020 be a woman of color a female journalist of color who received not just hate from anonymous online trolls 0.99

00:07:51.220 but hate from actual politicians in this country rupa i want to ask you did the canadian association of

00:07:56.300 journalists ever bother to ask you how you were handling all the hate you were receiving for real

00:08:00.920 journalism uh no i i i i didn't even rate a mention in in their uh tweet or uh no i i you know i think i

00:08:13.800 think as far as uh journalists in the independent space are concerned we just don't even exist as far

00:08:18.360 as the legacy media is concerned right it's all about them look um of course you know if there are credible

00:08:24.700 threats to one's personal safety i've been at the receiving end of that not not here in canada

00:08:29.880 but overseas you know over the course of my career uh and when it comes to credible threats

00:08:36.260 like that you go to the cops you go to the police and you you you and you allow uh law and order to

00:08:42.120 take its course that's what most normal people do you don't take these threats to twitter and complain

00:08:48.080 about it there you you you you know that that just makes no sense to me or you could do both why

00:08:53.160 don't you do both uh the point is that you know unfortunately what what ends up happening what's

00:08:59.060 ended up happening is the journalists instead of reporting on the story have become the story

00:09:03.600 themselves and i didn't go to journalism school um i think you did but i but but i think this is this

00:09:10.600 is one of the things that they teach you in journalism school you should never become the 0.74

00:09:13.720 story yourself you should you should you should you should report on the story and that's a very

00:09:18.600 important distinction and i think a lot of um many journalists um um you know especially those

00:09:25.380 who identify themselves as being on the left um uh ideologically tend to forget this lesson and they

00:09:31.600 make it about themselves for whatever reason i don't know maybe it's it's to gain more traction

00:09:36.460 on social media it's to get more attention um i i i don't under i i really don't understand if you

00:09:42.560 were to ask a journalist covering a war-like situation in you know whether it's afghanistan or

00:09:48.140 um or you know in a conflict zone for example um do you see them taking to twitter and uh and and

00:09:55.580 you know and and and you know and saying that you know this has been happening to them i i don't think

00:10:01.040 so i think i think part of say journalists are not meant to be liked people i mean this is you've

00:10:06.820 got to understand that um you know i like to be liked but i also understand that that's not going to

00:10:11.520 happen with everybody that i that i interact with uh not all of my readers like me all the time and

00:10:17.040 that's fine um i also get a lot of hate mail i also get a lot of people saying uh why don't you go

00:10:22.320 back to where you came from um you know i could i could i could spend my time on twitter and uh and

00:10:27.740 say and and say that this is you know i'm deeply offended i'm racialized so i'm a victim of uh of uh

00:10:34.660 this sort of behavior and i could spend a lot of time dwelling on this but you know i rather move on

00:10:41.160 because i think there they're bigger bigger things to uh to care about uh you know and i i certainly

00:10:46.920 don't want to be the story um so you know again uh you know not to belittle the experiences of people

00:10:52.600 who um um get uh death threats their way or threats of rape uh i'm sure that's happening uh these are

00:11:01.480 genuine threats these are credible threats take them to the cops let them decide you know let them

00:11:06.080 investigate and get to the bottom of it um yeah i just don't see the purpose in you know in in just

00:11:12.620 taking to twitter and then uh you know and coming up with a conspiracy theory that this is all coming

00:11:18.180 from the right right of course yeah yeah but that's the easy that's that's sort of the easy way out and

00:11:23.600 an easy way for them to continue to villainize a particular group of canadians that i think

00:11:27.560 for the most part have a lot of have a lot of valid reasons to be upset at canada's legacy media

00:11:32.620 now i want to i want to go back to a point you made you know when was the last time you saw a real

00:11:37.060 wartime journalist a journalist who actually reports in the field in combat zone go on twitter and say

00:11:42.800 you know these these enemy combatants are firing bullets at me can can someone please step in and

00:11:47.780 stop i mean it's so rude they're treating journalists so poorly i mean it's just ridiculous right i mean

00:11:52.060 i i i i i can't imagine any one of these crying journalists reporting in an actual war zone they can't

00:11:59.420 even handle twitter bots and twitter anonymous trolls writing messages about them then they can't

00:12:04.920 do any real reporting and you make the point about journalists not wanting to be the story and they

00:12:09.680 don't teach that in journalism school well i think they didn't used to teach that in journalism school

00:12:13.960 that's why we have such a divide we have a group of journalists who are cut from the old cloth the real

00:12:19.220 journalists in this country that know what it's like to uphold journalistic principles they know what

00:12:23.380 it's like to really do the job of holding power to account then you have this new this new kind of

00:12:28.120 fresh blood this new class of journalists that are occupying these legacy media newsrooms who have

00:12:33.720 been told by their journalism schools because i've been in these inside of these classrooms that as a

00:12:38.580 matter of fact it is okay for journalists to be activists in fact i remember in my second year in my second

00:12:44.180 year at school we were given an assignment to write write a story about if journalists could be activists if

00:12:49.960 journalists could make themselves part of the story and the professors were pushing that line

00:12:54.120 to us so they they've told a whole new class of journalists that you need to find a way to make

00:13:00.120 yourself part of the story you need to get yourself into it be an activist get in there for political

00:13:03.980 causes and you know that's why i i consider i don't consider myself to be a journalist i consider

00:13:08.660 myself to be in the media space there's a big distinction i know what i do is not right down the

00:13:13.960 line but i don't pretend that i'm i'm one of those people and that's i think the big difference and i think

00:13:18.460 canadians just want some honesty from these reporters and again it just shows you the canadian

00:13:22.760 association of journalists they they are totally lacking in actually standing up for journalists

00:13:28.140 in the field who receive real credible hate of course they weren't there to help you out rupa but

00:13:32.780 no they weren't and and let me just tell you tell you something real quick here uh you know i i come

00:13:39.800 from a family of academics and uh and you know people who uh you know i have a view on everything

00:13:45.860 and you should see the kind of hate mail that they get uh and they're not they're not uh you know

00:13:51.380 they take it in their stride uh you know and again as i say it's not our job here is not to be liked

00:13:58.260 by people i think that's a very that's the wrong approach i think your your your job is to report

00:14:03.960 the facts as they are and let people come to their uh you know decide for themselves whether whether they

00:14:08.920 believe you or not and if you get um hate mail that's par for the course that i get hate mail all the

00:14:15.080 time i get all kinds of you know people are you know i get uh people you know from the progressive

00:14:21.160 left i've i've been at the receiving end of racist attacks from the progressive left i've pointed

00:14:26.460 several of these out on twitter just just out of interest uh uh and uh you know but i'm not i'm not

00:14:33.140 dwelling on this and you know i certainly don't want to be a victim um and i take these things in my

00:14:38.080 stride and if i genuinely feel threatened but here's the thing there's a difference between um

00:14:43.080 you know getting a threat from an anonymous troll and getting an implied threat from a member of the

00:14:49.500 governing party oh yeah um right um and the the latter is pretty insidious it is sinister i experience

00:14:58.100 this kind of thing overseas and uh you know i i i worry about it you know i i'm telling you i i you

00:15:04.900 know it had a chilling effect on me and an anonymous troll tells me something i just block them and i move

00:15:10.420 on uh but a politician a sitting a politician as an mp from the governing party says that this must be

00:15:18.560 confronted now now you can make the distinction that he was he was referring to my story and not

00:15:23.760 me but how do you separate the two no exactly and i think just before we move on to the next story

00:15:29.060 there's so many important points i mean we could talk about this for an hour pretty much but there's

00:15:33.080 so many interesting little points to talk about with this new push from the canadian association of

00:15:37.520 journalists this this this approach to try and engage the police in the defense of a particular

00:15:43.880 class of journalists right they're going to leave independent journalists behind but they want the

00:15:48.140 toronto police the rcmp and ottawa police to come to the rescue of a particular class of journalists now

00:15:54.120 a lot of people have pointed out that this is sort of a way to also justify liberal online

00:15:58.760 censorship and maybe you could go down there i think there's definitely a conversation to be had

00:16:01.840 about that but the caj has just routinely failed to actually defend journalists and this the toronto

00:16:08.700 star is a part of this is a part of this sort of joint letter right this is the same toronto star

00:16:14.300 that wrote a front page news story by pulling tweets that have apparently now been called into

00:16:20.480 question these so-called tweets that that basically say the unvaccinated can go to die we don't care if

00:16:27.400 there aren't enough icu beds for the unvaccinated they they they poured gasoline on a very very 1.00

00:16:32.860 divisive issue back when the vaccine issue was right at the heart what we were discussing in this

00:16:37.880 country and now after telling the end basically publishing on the front page that unvaccinated

00:16:42.700 can die the same toronto star is now saying that their journalists need the help of the police to come

00:16:48.900 and defend them and it's important to know too where is the caj rupa when andrew lawton was pepper

00:16:53.880 sprayed by police in ottawa or when alexa lavoite rebel was shot in the leg by a tear gas canister

00:17:01.100 point blank by the police or for example when our own candace malcolm was basically being threatened

00:17:07.980 by calistani extremists and had basically her house uh targeted and her real safety targeted by

00:17:15.600 calistani extremists who didn't like her reporting uh you didn't see a bunch of police rush to the rush

00:17:21.340 to the defense of uh outwardly to the defense of candace you didn't see the canadian association

00:17:26.280 of journalists stop what they are doing and say we need to protect this journalist right to do her

00:17:30.280 job you didn't see them there because i think the truth is they're really in it to protect one class

00:17:35.120 of journalists and that i don't think is us rupa i don't think they're here for the independent

00:17:38.740 journalists they're not uh they're for us and neither should we count on them to be there for us i think

00:17:44.780 i think uh that that would be a complete waste of time and i think you know um you know as as

00:17:50.700 independent media gets stronger and it is for sure uh and uh you know gains more traction with the

00:17:57.220 general public uh they're gonna have to uh you know at some point acknowledge our existence and it'll

00:18:03.080 happen sooner rather than later no i think it will and i think as as more canadians realize what

00:18:08.860 they're getting from the legacy media the more they cut the cable cord and and and cut their

00:18:13.880 subscriptions to the globe and national posts and all these different places they're going to come

00:18:18.300 to the legacy media and they're going to realize you know actually this is where real journal

00:18:21.900 journalism is being done now switching gears because as you know those who those who watch

00:18:26.560 this program know that we try to end the show on a bit of a lighter note we try and find something

00:18:30.640 to laugh about on this show well there's a toronto star op-ed written by michael corin who's a former

00:18:35.960 toronto uh what's what was it sun news network the failed sun news television network he was he used to work

00:18:41.680 there the guy used to be a conservative but he's totally switched his position and he's now bashing

00:18:46.460 conservatives as much as he can in the media well michael corin wrote a wrote an article in the toronto

00:18:51.540 star and the headline is the headline is canadian christian nationalism not christian it's not canadian

00:18:57.680 or patriotic patriotic either so you read that headline you probably think yeah you know probably

00:19:01.920 not a ton of support for christian national nationalism in this country but then how how did i know

00:19:07.680 that in this article somewhere they were going to tie pierre paulia into canadian christian

00:19:13.460 nationalism sure enough three paragraphs in there he is it seems to be the playbook for the legacy

00:19:17.360 media oh my goodness yes it's it read like a screed a rant and it had all the elements of verbal

00:19:25.000 diarrhea from the left uh you know yeah you you get uh you have trump um you know you you have all of

00:19:31.120 the the key keywords key buzzwords right you have trump you have the far right you have uh nationalism

00:19:37.600 you have pierre pierre pauliavra you have the freedom convoy of course we can't forget that those

00:19:43.580 people so you know it just it just read like you know this this guy clearly it read like he had a lot

00:19:50.880 of issues and he was just kind of uh you know you know going into this rant to get get this office

00:19:58.580 chest uh but you know i actually had to read this nonsense uh because and i blame you for this

00:20:06.700 harrison sorry the things i have to do uh you know for true north but uh but anyway so you know he he's

00:20:13.900 he's making you know he has a very specific interpretation of christianity um he doesn't

00:20:18.920 like calvinism that's pretty obvious and he has this very you know he's this elite disdain uh you know

00:20:25.580 that you know he says these people uh at the protest they had misspelled uh quotes from the bible

00:20:32.040 or even misquoted from the bible so my question to him is does that mean that their faith is not

00:20:36.860 genuine uh they're not christians uh if if they can't spell right um you know it all sounded very

00:20:44.360 very elitist um and and more to the point about you know his criticism of of christian nationalism

00:20:51.160 see you can you can be a christian and you can be a nationalist so you can be a christian nationalist

00:20:57.200 you can you can be a christian and you can be a socialist uh as a matter of fact the foundation

00:21:03.800 of the british labor party is christian socialism and the foundation of many political parties uh in

00:21:09.320 europe um so if you can be a christian and a socialist why can't you be a christian and a

00:21:14.260 nationalist you know and so basically this guy i mean in this you know long rant you know

00:21:20.740 It comes across as though, and it's unfortunate that this is coming from an Anglican priest, or, you know, it doesn't matter that he's Anglican, but the fact that this is...

00:21:31.520 Well, from a priest in general, I think.

00:21:33.460 Yeah, yeah. I mean, he just seems angry. I thought priests were supposed to be kind and compassionate and understanding of the other, but it was quite the opposite.

00:21:42.860 He just sounded very hateful in his op-ed, and to me, to my mind, it sounded like he wanted a situation where basically a small power elite decides what level of religiosity we should have in society, what brand of Christianity we should have, maybe even what brand of culture.

00:22:03.980 It just, for me, you know, it was just plain nonsense.

00:22:10.280 Yeah. Well, I mean, the way that the legacy media do this, they find the scariest words and put them together to try and gin up a lot of readership, because, as we know, these guys are struggling to get viewers on their websites anyway.

00:22:22.720 So the more that they can use this sort of language and ride the American wave, I mean, if you're plugged into American news, you'll know, for example, that a lot of people on the American right were having a total laugh at the Atlantic this week,

00:22:34.680 when the Atlantic tried to say that rosaries are now becoming a hate symbol, an extreme hate symbol.

00:22:40.160 So, of course, and there's also been some talk about Christian nationalism.

00:22:44.100 There was a congresswoman who proclaimed that she was a proud Christian nationalist, and, of course, that just got the left up in arms.

00:22:50.200 But there's this very strange phenomenon happening where legacy media journalists are so focused on trying to tie the frontrunner in the conservative leadership race to the very worst elements of politics in our culture.

00:23:07.700 And you don't see that from the independent media on the other side.

00:23:11.480 So you won't see that.

00:23:12.460 But it's a very bizarre thing where they're trying to make Pierre Polyev out to be this extremely dangerous, very fringe politician.

00:23:20.740 And it's bizarre to me because they almost treat Pierre Polyev worse than they do Maxime Bernier.

00:23:25.480 And anyone who knows the inside of conservative politics knows that Pierre Polyev is not a nationalist.

00:23:31.940 He definitely doesn't appeal to the Christian nationalist or far-right voting bloc.

00:23:36.400 And his campaign is staffed with insider establishment conservatives.

00:23:39.860 So it's like they're trying to kind of bend reality.

00:23:42.660 And I think this is all desperation and panic, really.

00:23:45.780 To me, it really reeks of panic from them.

00:23:48.240 Absolutely.

00:23:49.040 It's not at all bizarre.

00:23:50.540 I mean, that's what I wanted to say.

00:23:52.380 It's actually all quite predictable, actually.

00:23:55.060 Pierre Polyev would be very much a centrist in American politics.

00:23:58.760 And that's the irony of this whole thing.

00:24:02.080 They're panicking because, you know, you have these polls coming out that show that younger people are turning conservative and possibly turning to Pierre.

00:24:12.900 So I think this is the kind of thing that really upsets them.

00:24:16.360 This is the kind of thing that could, you know, upset, you know, existing narratives, you know, that they've tried so hard to, you know, have in place over the last few years.

00:24:27.980 And it's just, it's just the elites, you know, it's just elite opinion facing a direct challenge right now.

00:24:35.220 And, and, and they're trying to counter it by, you know, trying to smear the conservative leadership race and particularly Pierre Polyev, whether you like him or not, that's a different issue.

00:24:44.880 But, you know, I think to tie him in with everything, including Christian nationalism, it's just really, really bizarre.

00:24:50.520 It just is a sign of desperation, as you say.

00:24:53.280 Yeah. And I think they're starting to feel it too, that they know as they're going to try and demonize this new group of, of a fresh face conservatives that are seeing a new option.

00:25:03.040 And that's, I think their hope.

00:25:04.460 Well, that's going to do it for us on the show today.

00:25:07.040 Thank you for spending your Friday afternoon with us.

00:25:09.040 Have a great weekend.

00:25:10.040 This was fake news Friday.

00:25:11.260 That was Rupa Supermania. 0.64

00:25:12.500 My name is Harrison Faulkner.

00:25:14.080 Take care, everyone.

00:25:20.520 Thank you.

The Candice Malcolm Show - August 19, 2022

Fake News Friday ｜ Journalists cry over mean tweets

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