In this episode of Fake News Friday, True North's Andrew Lawton and Harrison Faulkner celebrate the victory lap after the Don't Trust Mainstream Media debate in Torontonon, where the majority voted in favor of a motion that challenged the notion that the mainstream media cannot be trusted.
00:00:00.000hello and welcome to you all this is another edition of fake news friday here on true north
00:00:15.280swimming through the blizzard of lies trying to make sense of it all and having a little bit of
00:00:19.720fun in the process i am andrew lawton joined as always by harrison faulkner harrison how was the
00:00:26.140week pretty good andrew i mean we've got some we've got some hilarious stories to get into some
00:00:30.380just i i would say pretty emblematic of the state of legacy media right now so it's going to be a
00:00:36.300good show but all in all a pretty good week we're kind of coming down off the emergencies act hearings
00:00:40.660which uh is a welcome relief coming down you talk about it like it was just some big prolonged acid
00:00:46.580trip but uh it might have been better and more tolerable if it were i i think we're going to
00:00:51.660start with a bit of a victory lap here because i i think we can claim some vindication even not true
00:00:57.600north directly but i think in general the issues that we talk about with this debate that took place
00:01:03.360uh wednesday night in toronto the monk debate which if you've never been they're very well put together
00:01:08.260they debate really key issues they bring out good people and the debate was on the following resolution
00:01:15.220be it resolved don't trust mainstream media are advocating for the motion douglas murray and
00:01:23.260matt tabey against it malcolm gladwell and michelle goldberg now the debate itself you think okay what's
00:01:30.940the big deal so what monk debate does when you go there everyone is pulled on what they believe
00:01:36.920on the motion when people walked in pro so in favor of don't trust mainstream media 48 con 52 so a pretty
00:01:48.340even split the final vote when they all left after the debate had taken place pro 67 con 33 so the way
00:01:59.220you measure success in a monk debate is not by your final tally but by the swing from the first tally
00:02:05.560to the end so by the end of it people were resoundingly in favor of this idea that the
00:02:10.720mainstream media cannot be trusted i mean it's it's it's just a perfect visualization andrew those
00:02:17.340graphics i think that of what we're seeing right now why why we're seeing groups like true north
00:02:23.220grow and why we're seeing so much distrust in the legacy media it's because even even when even when
00:02:28.660legacy media advocates are forced to try and defend themselves forced to try and you know say to a group
00:02:33.280of people well yeah you know we know that people don't trust us anymore but here's you know maybe
00:02:37.700why you should compared to these online news outlets it's obvious that they're just losing their grip
00:02:43.060their control in the narrative and it's it's just perfect and i mean the the monk debate social media
00:02:48.340account pulled quotes from the evening and i just want to read a couple of them because it kind of
00:02:53.020shows you i mean i wish it was there it just shows you what the what the what the argument was for
00:02:58.340people who are trying to defend the legacy media it was it was almost embarrassing i mean the best
00:03:03.300one of the best quotes that they had all night i guess for the defense of legacy media came from
00:03:08.920michelle goldberg the new york time the new york times columnist and she said the mainstream media has
00:03:13.580gotten the big things right i'm sorry but last i checked throughout most of covid they didn't get
00:03:20.360most they got most of that wrong uh freedom convoy in canada they got most of that wrong how much have
00:03:25.740they gotten wrong hunter bides's laptop laptop story deliberate deliberate subversion of it
00:03:30.520the exactly the entire trump russia scandal which turned out to be a nothing burger they were rolling
00:03:36.300they were rolling with that for years so for them to basically say of the new york times the new york
00:03:41.380times columnist standard to say we got the big things right it's it's embarrassing almost it's
00:03:46.520embarrassing and if that's if that was their argument and this is the result of it clearly it
00:03:50.520didn't fly in the room and just take a look at some of these quotes as well douglas murray who's from
00:03:53.880the uk he's a great commentator he came in and just basically laid it out for everyone in the
00:03:58.060canadian audience just said your mainstream media is funded by the government a totally corrupted
00:04:02.640system and basically the best that your side has been able to come up with so far tonight is to say
00:04:08.380we get things wrong quite often but you should trust us anyway so that's exactly that's basically
00:04:13.860it that's all they that's really all they can offer andrew it's embarrassing yeah i i wasn't able to
00:04:18.940see the whole thing live unfortunately so i'm going to watch the video when it's posted but
00:04:23.220a friend of mine who was there said that douglas murray actually talked about the freedom convoy in
00:04:28.100his comments and and talked about how there was this divide between people that were reporting on
00:04:33.300the narrative they wanted to be true and those that actually went out and talked to people people
00:04:38.380like rupa subramania people like you and i and a lot of others from from different independent
00:04:43.200media outlets and the thing that was interesting and i don't want to generalize too much here but
00:04:47.900the monk debate is a downtown toronto event it attracts a lot of downtown toronto elites now
00:04:54.900they're obviously a type of elite that is okay to go into things with an open mind but if you think
00:05:00.080of that context of it the vote swing is particularly important so this was like a group of downtown
00:05:04.920well-to-do toronto types that by the end of it were saying two two to one yeah we don't really
00:05:11.720trust the mainstream media no exactly that's that's that's an important note to make i mean
00:05:16.020the monk debates are not are not you know i i would say likely it's not like the rebel news live
00:05:21.260event i was no exactly like it's not a really hard and fast like dyed in the wool like independent
00:05:27.220media rah-rah uh group it's a group that is typically very much in that not laurentian elites
00:05:33.540but certainly the toronto elite category well yes andrew they are the globe and mail readers they
00:05:37.980are the cbc lovers i mean i think that's a pretty safe assumption to make
00:05:41.540and for douglas murray and for matt taibbi who matt taibbi is is an amazing journalist i have to say
00:05:46.680he's he you really can't pin him down one side or the other he just tells it like he sees it
00:05:51.100that's a very uh it's a valuable asset to have as a journalist today because it's so it comes so far
00:05:56.180and few between but uh uh you know that that's a really important note to make the monk debate was
00:06:01.100not full of you know i i would say i don't think it was 100 true north uh readers andrew uh like i said
00:06:06.760i think it's more globe and mail cbc readers uh legacy media legacy media types who were there for
00:06:13.380an interesting conversation and i think they really got something that was that was you know
00:06:16.980worth noting i mean look it was another quote that's from malcolm gladwell in this that basically
00:06:21.700said again you just got to look at the social media account to see the quality of arguments that
00:06:27.140were being made you could see douglas murray and matt taibbi really getting to the point bringing up
00:06:30.720key examples of failure in the legacy media and then the legacy media defenders were trying to just
00:06:35.400you know make these grand statements and say well it's not like as apparently malcolm gladwell said
00:06:39.780it's not like there are a bunch of uh legacy media journalists getting into a room in the morning
00:06:44.180and discussing what the narrative is i mean i actually think that is what it is maybe i'm not
00:06:48.660maybe it's not true but i i i don't get to i don't get a front row seat into the you know globe
00:06:53.020mail editorial in the morning uh editorial meeting but i am pretty sure actually that they do have a
00:06:58.420narrative andrew they do stick to that narrative and they just don't report things that don't that
00:07:02.360don't go in line with it i mean it's pretty obvious that's the case yeah and you know i will say that
00:07:07.700one of the great things about the monk debates is that people that go there generally speaking i i
00:07:12.060think have at least a tolerance for the other side and and this swing that we're seeing here has
00:07:17.880happened before there was the famous one i can't remember how long ago it was maybe five five six
00:07:22.860years ago between mark stein and nigel farage on one side and louise arbor and simon shama on the other
00:07:28.920and they were debating refugee policy and like the room was stacked against mark stein and nigel
00:07:34.060farage but by the end of it the room had come around to their side because certain things when
00:07:39.040people hear the facts and they hear them laid out they realize there really isn't a compelling
00:07:44.620argument for it and i think that line that douglas murray gave is quite a strong one that
00:07:49.160yeah we're saying you're saying that you keep getting it wrong but we should keep trusting you
00:07:53.100anyway and michelle goldberg's view well yeah we get the big things so you gotta come but even then
00:07:58.280you don't but even if you did that's hardly the selling point you think and i think one of the
00:08:03.940challenges here is that we're seeing increasingly this line that some people attempt to draw between
00:08:09.900official or so-called real media and alternative and independent media and we saw this in a round
00:08:17.140table that the public order emergency commission hosted this week and you can take a look at the
00:08:22.340clip of this one particular comment here so what we've seen
00:08:26.760is that more and more extremists extremist groups use what we call alternative media
00:08:34.980my colleagues were talking about the social media but more and more what we see are fringe
00:08:40.560social media that are emerging and i don't want to advertise any of them so i'm not going to give
00:08:46.420you uh specific names they were extremely present during the convoy in ottawa and we saw journalists
00:08:52.480and so they're self-made journalists because anybody can proclaim that they themselves a journalist
00:08:58.920using these platforms and so and they were producing re-information or alternative information on the
00:09:07.800events so they were saying there were 100 000 people but you've seen the police reports even on a big day
00:09:14.580there were about 10 000 people in ottawa and so that kind of that's the kind of information manipulation
00:09:21.220we see but that is a direct result of the distrust of official media but it's now widespread within the
00:09:29.620the general public and public so these alternative media have emerged and some have a lot of followers
00:09:37.540uh hundreds of hundreds of thousands of followers with
00:09:43.540and they appear just as credible as mainstream media with reporters on site on the ground
00:09:51.540so i think uh i wouldn't call it a war but there there there's definitely a rivalry between these
00:09:58.260alternate media and mainstream media and of course these media need funding and they do have access to
00:10:05.300substantial funding so i mean what he's saying there and this is a university of sherbrooke professor
00:10:10.580who's on a harmful online content advisory board so i think the bias is probably pretty inherently visible
00:10:17.700there but what he's saying is that extremist groups use alternative media so anything that's
00:10:25.700independent anything that's not on the government payroll is just some tool of radicals yeah and then in
00:10:32.340that clip you can see as well he makes the point about the the growing rivalry between alternative
00:10:37.780media and legacy media and how these not not much of a rivalry if the monk debate results are to be
00:10:43.380well that's exactly right and just i i would be so interested if we were able to take this question and
00:10:48.100and and take it outside of the downtown toronto you know sort of globe and mail cbc sphere of influence
00:10:54.100and really get a real consensus from canadians about what they feel i mean i am absolutely not i'm not i'm
00:10:59.300not afraid of those results but i have to say i bet you some of the legacy media would be it's
00:11:03.380interesting to note though he says that there's a rivalry between the alternative media and the
00:11:06.500legacy media and then he makes the point about how these alternative media sites they have some
00:11:10.580really have a large following they have a really large following and then and then he also makes
00:11:14.100the point in view which is i thought to be very interesting he says they appear like legacy media
00:11:19.700journalists because they have reporters on the ground on the scene and you were at you were at the
00:11:24.660freedom convoy i was at the freedom convoy and rebel were at the freedom convoy lots of independent
00:11:29.060media were there among thousands of citizen journalists who were there with their own cameras
00:11:36.500telling the truth not with the giant tv broadcast camera the producer the cameraman the uh the the
00:11:44.740the other producer and then the journalist the bodyguard right exactly you know we didn't need a
00:11:49.140four-person team to just tell the truth and the legacy media did and i think what's really going on
00:11:53.700here is there's a there's a kind of a growing concern from whether it be academia these legacy
00:12:00.500media journalists about the fact that they once were able to have confidence that everyone who saw
00:12:07.220the world through their eyes everyone who thought the same thing about the country they could they
00:12:12.340could basically control who was a journalist and the idea that the idea that people who were you know
00:12:16.340maybe not from the not from you know the the universities not from the big media which could
00:12:22.420potentially be journalists scares them and they want to do everything they can to villainize them
00:12:26.980to to basically say that they they attract extremists they're not telling the truth he says
00:12:32.340they manipulate the information that to me tells a lot about the fear that these people have on their
00:12:38.260on the narrative that they they no longer have access to the complete control of the narrative
00:12:42.900because groups like true north other independent media outlets and just the citizen himself
00:12:47.540with his camera are now doing a better job of telling the truth that speaks volumes to me
00:12:51.620yeah and i mean i would just say to close on this it's not a left right issue as well there are
00:12:55.940lots of people on the political left that i i think are also increasingly tiring of the mainstream
00:13:01.380media narrative which is why when i say independent media it's not about conservative media i want
00:13:05.780more voices i want more people in this space so that consumers of media can decide things for themselves
00:13:11.940and i think a case in point of this is this associated press article which ctv picked up in a number of outlets around the world
00:13:19.860about china's covet approach now let me first off say that when you look at all these protests that are taking place in china right now
00:13:27.540people are protesting policies that are rooted in china's zero covet approach this view that the chinese regime has that one covet case is too many so
00:13:37.300they're using this to lock people in their homes to do these incredibly draconian and orwellian crackdowns
00:13:43.460to keep covid passes and vaccine mandates and passports going almost indefinitely and the headline china's zero
00:13:51.780covet limit saved lives but there's no clear exit so yeah it's great at saving lives but the problem is that
00:13:59.380they don't have an off-ramp for it nothing else is wrong with it if they put in an end date it would all be
00:14:04.260fine is what they're saying this goes right to the heart andrew of why so many people are just sick and
00:14:09.860tired of the legacy media i mean they couldn't if you read this article it really just it really just
00:14:15.860uncovers a lot about what what's really going on behind the legacy media narrative they they first
00:14:20.340talk about how you know the zero covet policy of literally putting you forcing you to stay in your
00:14:25.300apartment in your massive high-rise building for months on end you know not being able to leave
00:14:30.260in some cases welding your doors shut in in china i mean there are videos all over social media of
00:14:37.380of the chinese police welding doors to apartments shut so that you can't leave it's tyrannical it's
00:14:42.900completely insane with their whole idea of trying to basically like you said stop any any case of
00:14:48.820covid from entering the country it's never going to happen everyone knows that it's a failed policy
00:14:52.420but they're doing it anyway so the article rides along the chinese protest um interest that's going around
00:14:58.420around the world everyone's trying to pay attention to what's going on so this article picks it up and
00:15:02.100says well yeah the zero code policy it saved lives according to the chinese communist party data
00:15:08.180which again if you take the communist party data uh you take that data at your own at your own peril
00:15:14.100i mean i i i don't think you should trust that data for a second they apparently had the low
00:15:18.740the article pump pumps up the chinese zero cover policy as well saying well china's policy had the
00:15:24.020resulted in the lowest deaths per capita in the world i mean i don't believe that for a second
00:15:28.260personally i'll leave that up to you the viewer to decide what you want to take of it but then at the
00:15:32.500very end of the article at the very bottom of the article they kind of let the truth slip and it
00:15:36.500ends up just being becoming an advertisement for pfizer and moderna vaccines who could have guessed
00:15:41.700andrew just look at this paragraph at the end here dr barat pancania an infectious diseases
00:15:47.380expert at the university of exeter said china should import mrna vaccines made by pfizer and
00:15:52.660and moderna uh sounds a lot like an advertisement for the vaccines i have to say i mean it is pretty
00:15:59.540brazen and then and then at the end he also says this should not be about saving face the chinese
00:16:04.340population is clearly fed up with lockdown after lockdown and the quickest way out is to immunize
00:16:08.580as fast as possible so there you go andrew who could have guessed actually the policy is just
00:16:12.980to vaccinate and not to actually just call out what's really going on which is tyrannical
00:16:17.620covid policy that the chinese people are clearly fed up with yeah it also forgets that like
00:16:22.100all these western countries like canada that said you would vaccinate vaccinate your way away from
00:16:26.900restrictions kept restrictions in place long after the vaccination rate got saturated to you know
00:16:33.380well over 80 pushing 90 percent so absolutely absurd and it's terrible that the media is not seeing
00:16:39.780through this i mean you could save a life but if while saving a life you are trampling on everyone's
00:16:44.980civil liberties and making that life not worth living which is what china is doing you're not actually
00:16:49.860able to claim a win in my view on this but absolutely shameful that chinese propaganda finds such an easy
00:16:56.020home in legacy media outlets uh we go to a bit of a fun more fun one here a legacy media journalist
00:17:03.700went clothing shopping harrison yes andrew he went he went he went christmas shopping tried to get in on
00:17:09.060the early uh deals he found himself and i i really do feel bad for glenn he he had to he had to withstand some
00:17:15.140serious some serious uh danger here he went to one of the outlets just outside ottawa and take a look
00:17:21.620at what he was faced with i mean the absolute horror andrew the absolute horror of seeing an underarmor
00:17:27.460sweater with the word wait for it freedom with a canada flag andrew i mean it's it's bordering on hate
00:17:34.820speech this is the kind of stuff i think that c11 the online uh all this legislation the online hate
00:17:40.980speech bill that's going to come through this is the kind of stuff that we need to censor because
00:17:44.980it's just too much to handle andrew yeah so this is glenn mcgregor ottawa journalist went to
00:17:51.540the i don't know if it's tanger or tanger or tangier maybe it's in algeria i don't know he went to
00:17:57.140this tanger outlet store outlet mall in canada which is a suburb of ottawa he is uh there he sees this
00:18:05.460and doesn't actually comment on why it troubles him he he plays it very smart he just posts the
00:18:11.780tweet he plays it straight and then everyone immediately jumps on him as though he he's
00:18:17.060effectively triggered by the word freedom now here's the thing glenn mcgregor covered the convoy so
00:18:23.220i assume that what he's seeing there is that perhaps this is a nod by underarmor to the freedom
00:18:29.460convoy but the reality is the underarmor freedom campaign has nothing to do with the convoy nothing
00:18:36.180to do with canadian politics it is actually about veterans it is a veterans initiative proceeds from
00:18:43.620the sale of underarmor freedom products go towards veterans who are fighting for freedom but glenn
00:18:50.260shares this and here's just some of the response that he gets uh terry hagan writes wow they just lost
00:18:56.100my business uh ms t mick says what honestly i have to throw out so much now uh and bellissimo says
00:19:04.260never buy from that company again now whether these people were under armor customers to begin with i have
00:19:10.100no idea but the point is is that now people are whipped up into a frenzy based on what is a misrepresentation
00:19:17.300tacitly anyway of what this thing was because i don't have an easy time believing it was just being
00:19:23.620shared because he liked the pattern that was on it i think the libs of tick tock response was my
00:19:29.060favorite here this is hate speech literally shaking did you survive yes no exactly i mean that's all you
00:19:35.460can really do when you look at something like this it's absurd andrew and i mean it's it's we've reached
00:19:40.660a point now where the legacy media glenn mcgregor being one of being one of the one of the main
00:19:46.580offenders in my opinion because of the convoy have been so shaken that the sight of the canadian flag
00:19:53.860and we know this to be true because the legacy media write articles about the canadian flag all
00:19:57.300the time the canadian flag being a symbol of hate being seen as a as a freedom convoy symbol it's a
00:20:02.420negative thing the sight of the canadian flag is is is horrifying to some of these people let alone
00:20:09.620andrew even worse the word freedom on top of the canadian flag i mean you can't even you can't even
00:20:14.740begin to imagine how how horrifying it must be for these legacy media journalists but think about this
00:20:19.300this all goes back to the conversation we started the show off with about legacy media and independent
00:20:24.660media i have not i i don't for a second believe that the canadian public seeing the word freedom
00:20:31.620and the canadian flag are triggered are are you know are hit with uh hit with a tsunami of phantom
00:20:38.180honking andrew that they can't they can't handle themselves i mean i don't believe that to be a for a
00:20:42.580second but legacy media journalists who created their who created their sort of their information
00:20:47.380silo where they really believe this stuff they believe the fandom honking they believe the fact
00:20:51.220that the canadian flag is seen as this as they believe that freedom is now this fringe ideal
00:20:56.180right exactly they literally believe this stuff and that then that becomes their reality that becomes
00:21:02.420their truth and there's just no way there's no way that that is what that is what the majority of
00:21:07.060canadians really think of when they see the word freedom there's no way that that's what the majority
00:21:11.060canadians think of when they see the canadian flag but you know it takes a certain person i really do
00:21:16.020believe this to be triggered by the word freedom and a canadian flag so much so that they'd be willing
00:21:22.180to embarrass themselves by posting it on social media um you know he didn't add context but like
00:21:27.060you said we all know what he's getting at here it takes it takes a certain level of of complete you
00:21:33.460you know removal from i believe the normalcy uh real life reality to be willing to post something
00:21:42.660like this totally absurd ridiculous and honestly what else can you do other than laugh and just say
00:21:48.020you know you hope that uh you hope someone like glenn can recover one day from this horrifying
00:21:52.420experience yes indeed and you know what we always have the quiet comfort of cbc to get us through the
00:22:00.660tough moments harris why don't you take the lead on this one because i still haven't been able to
00:22:04.020figure out what on earth is happening well for those of you that saw ratio yesterday i i brought
00:22:08.580this up as the ratio of the week award the the cbc gem which is the streaming service you have to pay
00:22:14.820more for because the 1.2 billion dollars that we all pay the cbc isn't enough to get if you felt they
00:22:20.740need more of your money there is an option and to access such gems as this i mean you have to take a
00:22:26.180look at this i won't even bother to try and explain it all you got to do is just watch it it's less
00:22:30.820than a minute do your best we hope that you stick around after the next 56 seconds to hear our
00:22:35.380commentary on this because it is a bit it is a bit difficult but watch this sabi are you listening
00:22:41.220to me sabi are you listening to me totally then they said they're open to deepening their relationship
00:22:50.340with me at other galleries in the foreseeable future and i was like what does that mean are
00:22:55.700these chia vulvas so there i am thinking i'm getting a very subtle brush off and then they offer me
00:23:02.740are you ready yep you seem weird i'm not you sure yep berlin they offered you the city in germany
00:23:12.420bah that's russian to work at a gallery in the queerest city in the universe germany literally
00:23:18.580legalized a third gender option on birth certificates can you imagine curating there
00:23:22.900while paid internship being there sabi i'm gonna have the most delicious orgy god is like good yeah
00:23:29.940totally allahu akbar so andrew i mean uh that is uh that is comedy in the eyes of canada's state
00:23:37.860broadcaster they've got 1.2 billion dollars to work with some of that assume some of that i presume
00:23:43.220goes to salary some of that i presume goes to their news coverage which is pitiful but you have to
00:23:47.780imagine a good amount of money goes to the comedy uh wing of the cbc um and this is what they come up
00:23:55.460with a story a comedy bit about chia vulvas if i'm getting that right the show is called sort of and
00:24:04.660the dialogue where they where they kind of just slip in the the germany being the queerest country in the
00:24:09.860world they legalized the third gender on the birth certificate and how this woman says i'm going to
00:24:15.860germany god is like great and then the other person says alahu akbar like oh my god it's so hilarious i
00:24:22.180mean that's just just brilliant stuff andrew totally totally brilliant and uh i mean i'm not even going
00:24:29.540to try and bother to add even more context just i actually i actually love this in a way and the
00:24:34.100point that i made on twitter when i saw this is that you know everyone jumps up and down on pierre
00:24:38.820polyev for talking about defunding the cbc but i feel cbc makes the most compelling arguments for
00:24:44.900defunding the cbc when they publish stuff like this so here's the thing i'm not actually a prude i don't
00:24:51.460care about chia i believe volvae is the proper plural if my latin is correct it's you know v u l v a e
00:24:59.700although that probably is not the most important point about it all in any case i feel like like i don't
00:25:06.500actually care about the bid i i care that canadians don't have to support it or not support it like
00:25:14.100they do with any private sector thing like if true north for example were to pivot from fake news friday
00:25:19.780and the andrew lawton show and ratioed and instead do something like this the audience would be the one
00:25:26.660that had to decide if it was worth supporting us in continuation or not cbc fails or succeeds
00:25:34.100uh ratings wise it doesn't matter they still keep getting the money and typically they get more of
00:25:39.860the money so uh take from that what you will and know that the queerest gallery in the world has
00:25:46.420chia vulva so maybe that was actually the reboot of the national you never know uh that does it for
00:25:52.020us you can catch harrison on ratioed you can catch me on the andrew lawton show and you can catch us
00:25:57.060both next week on fake news friday thank you and have a great weekend