The Candice Malcolm Show - INTERFERENCE： Freeland’s office “pressured” legacy media to change critical stories

00:00:00.000 The legacy media is every bit as dishonest, immoral, and corrupt as you and I suspect.

00:00:05.940 Today, I'm going to be talking with a legacy media reporter who recently left the mainstream media.

00:00:11.460 She finally resigned out of principle. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:14.840 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. My producer, Jacob, made that awesome new intro promo. I'm really happy with it. I hope you like that as well.

00:00:34.400 So today, I am pleased to be joined by Rachel Emanuel. Rachel is a parliamentary reporter now with the Western Standard.

00:00:40.940 She used to be part of the legacy media in Ottawa. She's part of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

00:00:45.620 She worked with iPolitics, and she resigned out of principle, which is what we're going to be talking about today.

00:00:51.800 She said that this story, the reason that she left, was over the Chrysia Freeland story, the one that we wrote and broke here at True North,

00:00:59.620 and that her editor changed it, edited it without her permission.

00:01:03.500 This isn't the first time that she says iPolitics has mischaracterized and heavily edited her words.

00:01:08.540 So we're really excited to talk to her today. So, Rachel, first of all, welcome to The Independent Media, and thank you for joining The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:01:16.060 Yeah, thank you very much. I'm excited to be here on both fronts.

00:01:19.820 Great. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell us about your background, what led you into journalism, and where you worked prior to the Western Standard.

00:01:28.740 Sure. So I grew up in Niagara, Ontario, and actually, when I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to pursue journalism.

00:01:35.540 Awesome. Kathleen Wynne was the premier at the time, and I'm sure you remember all what a disaster that was.

00:01:42.280 And I actually found that I was taking this writer's craft course, and I would frequently be writing about her many scandals.

00:01:48.020 People in my class hated editing my work. But at that point, I decided I was going to pursue journalism.

00:01:53.200 So I studied journalism at Carleton University. I got pretty lucky immediately out of university.

00:01:57.820 I got an internship at The Globe and Mail here in Ottawa. So I was working at their parliamentary bureau.

00:02:02.500 And then I got hired at iPolitics right after that, and that was just under three years ago.

00:02:07.560 So all in all, I've been in journalism at the federal level for about three years.

00:02:11.440 You know, I've done some other internships at my local newspaper at home and things like that.

00:02:14.500 So I haven't been, you know, in the industry for a super long time.

00:02:17.420 But certainly, I had hoped to make it work in the mainstream media, and I realized very quickly that that was not going to be a possibility for me.

00:02:25.100 Well, you say that you got lucky with being placed at The Globe and Mail, but I think it's probably because you're an excellent writer, and that's probably why they selected you.

00:02:32.940 I want to pick up on something you said. You said that you were writing about Kathleen Wynne, and your classmates hated that.

00:02:38.800 Did you find that even in high school, there was a pro-liberal bias?

00:02:42.400 So, no, I didn't have that at my high school. Certainly, Niagara is actually like a very pretty conservative part of the country.

00:02:51.260 It's called like the Bible Beltway. I definitely went to a very conservative school growing up.

00:02:55.700 I think people in grade 12 just largely weren't interested in politics, and nobody could really understand why I was, and they had no interest in reading about it.

00:03:03.080 Got it. Got it. Yeah, I can relate to that. I was obsessed with politics when I was in university.

00:03:07.760 My friends would just roll their eyes if I started talking about it at a party or something.

00:03:11.280 Okay. So, let's talk a little bit about this piece that you wrote for the Western Standard.

00:03:16.460 So, congratulations on moving over there. Derek Fildebrandt, the editor, is lucky to have you, and it really is a remarkable piece.

00:03:23.820 So, why don't you tell us, I know we broke the story here at True North about Chrystia Freeland holding the Stefan Vandera banner,

00:03:30.200 which is a, Stefan Vandera was a prominent Nazi during the Second World War.

00:03:34.540 He, well, at least he collaborated with the Nazis in Germany and had his hand, his militias had a hand in murdering over 100,000 Poles and Jews. 0.64

00:03:43.600 We wrote about it. I didn't think that the legacy media would pick up on it.

00:03:47.080 It seemed like the story got so big online that they couldn't really ignore it.

00:03:50.460 So, why don't you walk us through the process of how you came to want to write about it, you pitched it to your editor, and why and how you wrote about it.

00:03:59.620 Yeah. So, it's kind of a complicated story.

00:04:01.480 So, actually, I'd seen that you guys had written about it, and I thought, well, okay, I have to cover this.

00:04:05.660 And I kind of thought the same thing that you had thought on Twitter.

00:04:07.660 I didn't know if anyone else in the MSN was going to cover it.

00:04:10.060 So, what we were dealing with at iPolitics was very critical staffing levels at the time.

00:04:14.880 So, we didn't actually have, like, an official editor in place.

00:04:18.140 A colleague and I were tag-teaming, like, editor duties.

00:04:21.340 So, when I pitched it, I sort of just told my team, this is what I'm working on.

00:04:24.960 And certainly, my other, like, co-editor knew that I was going to be writing it.

00:04:28.440 And you guys had come up with the story, I believe, on the Monday.

00:04:31.300 And just because I was so busy, I didn't have a chance to write it until Wednesday.

00:04:34.460 And as soon as I had emailed, like, Freelance Office, they called me, and they tried to sort of talk me out of writing the story, you know, using some of the, like, it's disinformation techniques.

00:04:43.460 And I thought, like, no, I said to them, you know, I'm going to cover it.

00:04:46.540 I appreciate your comments.

00:04:48.260 Put this in an email or give it to me on the record.

00:04:50.860 I find that government offices have such a bad habit of calling you, and they'll tell you all these things off the record.

00:04:56.140 And I'm like, you need to say this to the Canadian people.

00:04:58.840 Like, there's no reason for this conversation to be on background.

00:05:01.660 Put it in an email.

00:05:02.820 Tell it to me on the record.

00:05:03.740 So I said that to them.

00:05:05.020 And they followed up with a rather lengthy email response, which I was pleased to see.

00:05:08.580 You know, a lot of times they give you sort of non-answers, but it was quite lengthy.

00:05:11.480 So I was like, okay, great.

00:05:12.520 I have something to work with here.

00:05:14.760 So Wednesday, I wrote up the story.

00:05:17.080 And then I was actually walking home from work.

00:05:19.940 And when I got a call from an editor who is, like, I didn't think I technically started with the publication yet.

00:05:26.920 I thought she was starting a little bit later.

00:05:28.420 So I was just surprised to see her call.

00:05:30.380 And then she said that we had received a call.

00:05:32.000 She had received a call, rather, from Christy Freeland's office, who was upset with some of the wording in the article and what they characterized as factual inaccuracies, i.e.

00:05:40.640 my use of the term banner over scarf, which an editor and I who had worked on the story had actually made the decision to refer to it as a banner because of how it was being used.

00:05:48.900 It was being held. It wasn't being, it wasn't thrown around someone's shoulders carelessly.

00:05:53.100 And they also were upset with the editorial framing of the article.

00:05:56.480 And then a couple hours later, you know, time goes by.

00:05:59.160 And then I get another call saying that my article has been edited and changed online.

00:06:03.880 And my editor kind of goes, I want to know, like, what happened?

00:06:07.440 How did this mistake get made?

00:06:09.240 And I was like, what's what mistake?

00:06:10.740 So then I went online and saw the changes that were made.

00:06:13.240 And I absolutely did not agree with them or even have prior knowledge of them to them being made.

00:06:18.100 Wow. That's incredible.

00:06:19.020 And so so they that the your editor received a phone call from Chrystia Freeland from someone in her office, basically upset that the piece didn't mimic the talking voices she had told you on background.

00:06:31.180 So you on your own independently decided to write the story in the narrative that you thought was accurate to the point where they went above your head, bullied your editor and changed it.

00:06:42.340 That's really remarkable.

00:06:43.720 That that kind of you call it pressure in your Western standard piece.

00:06:47.380 But to me, that that that's government interference in the media in in in the most damaging way possible.

00:06:54.820 And the fact that that happened here in Canada is is newsworthy.

00:06:59.060 And I think I think everyone should be aware of it.

00:07:01.420 So was was this was this the first time something like this had happened or is this sort of a common theme at iPolitics and I assume more broadly in the legacy media?

00:07:13.120 Sure. So, I mean, I can only speak to my experience at iPolitics.

00:07:16.180 I'd heard rumors that the National Post had also been receiving some pressure for their piece.

00:07:20.120 You know, obviously, Chrystia Freeland's office was upset that it was even being covered. 0.99

00:07:24.680 I think like for me, I wasn't even necessarily surprised that our office called us.

00:07:28.540 It is sort of a minister's prerogative to call someone when they deem a story to be unfair and inaccurate.

00:07:32.940 But as your writer, it's your sincere hope that your editors will back your work.

00:07:36.240 And certainly that was not my experience in this instance.

00:07:39.100 And also in previous instances, I found just sort of as I mentioned in my op ed, like just a lot of pressure about the things that I was writing about and the way that they were being covered, not necessarily even from government offices.

00:07:50.560 This was obviously sort of like a one off from that instance, to my knowledge.

00:07:54.120 But definitely just in terms of like COVID coverage, that there is sort of like a certain way that we were going to be covering these things.

00:08:00.600 There was an editorial tone that we were going to be taking.

00:08:02.600 And I did not agree with that editorial tone.

00:08:05.440 And that caused a lot of tension and a lot of conflict in the office between me and my editors on a fairly regular basis to the point where I was either like, I can write about these issues and it can turn into such a big fight.

00:08:15.520 And we're all going to be working late and arguing all night over a specific wording.

00:08:19.380 Or I can just agree to let them take their editorial tone with it and then be unhappy and uncomfortable with words that are being published under my name.

00:08:26.560 Or I can just avoid covering the topics that I think are important and just do the stories that they want me to do and life will be easy for everybody.

00:08:33.780 Wow, that's such a compromise that, you know, for someone who goes into journalism because they're passionate, because they're interested, because they want to have a voice and to be treated that way.

00:08:44.720 Later in your op ed for the Western Standard, you write,

00:08:47.860 When I wrote about a federal MP who was concerned about restrictions on mobility rights, editors mischaracterized my work as being anti-vax and anti-science.

00:08:55.680 I was told to stop giving a platform to voices that oppose mandatory vaccines and lockdowns because such views represented just a radical and small minority of Canadian society.

00:09:05.460 So much for journalists being a voice for the voiceless.

00:09:08.040 So can you can you explain what you mean by they just mischaracterized your work as being anti-vax and anti-science?

00:09:15.900 Sure. So this that part of the op ed was specifically referring to like a specific conversation that I had with an editor that basically led to like a boiling point.

00:09:24.980 So there was like a bunch of disagreements that we had and then it led to a meeting between me and the two editors at the time where they said we're just very concerned about your work lately.

00:09:33.380 We're concerned about the views that you're presenting and the views that you're putting forward and we need to have a talk about this and you need to basically like stop doing this.

00:09:41.240 And when I was writing the op ed, it was actually like a difficult thing for me to write just because I'm not used to writing from my own perspective and sharing my perspective on things.

00:09:48.380 It's like a first time for me. So I was having a hard time deciding what's right.

00:09:51.920 And then I sort of just went back and anytime I'd had a conflict with an editor or disagreement, I recorded all those conversations.

00:09:58.320 And so I started listening to them again and I was kind of reminded of how bad things had gone for a little while there.

00:10:02.700 So that conversation was specifically during, I think, like the boiling point of the COVID-19 pandemic when we just had such like restrictions across Canada.

00:10:09.820 And the really unfortunate time for us, like in Canada at that time was also that, you know, under Aaron O'Toole, the conservative opposition was really not speaking out against any of these things.

00:10:20.240 You know, Trudeau light, they were sort of just going along with everything the government was doing and we didn't have an official opposition in any way.

00:10:26.240 And so the one person we did actually have who was speaking out against these things was Derek Sloan, who was obviously kicked out of the conservative party, largely for being too conservative.

00:10:33.840 So I was kind of consistently referring to him because I knew that he's represented so many Canadians who were upset with how things were going.

00:10:42.000 And I knew that because I know people that are upset with how things were going.

00:10:45.080 I'm very aware that there was deep pockets of the country where people were very angry at the direction that Canada had taken.

00:10:50.500 And I knew that Derek Sloan had so much support because the conservatives were being silenced and, you know, they have to answer for that themselves.

00:10:57.420 But my editors couldn't wrap their heads around that.

00:10:59.420 They're like, he's just one person.

00:11:00.860 He's just an independent MP.

00:11:02.200 Like, he doesn't have a lot of power in the government.

00:11:04.500 So, like, there's no point to give credence to what he's saying.

00:11:07.260 And I was like, I know he represents so many people.

00:11:09.440 And obviously, we've seen that since then.

00:11:11.240 We've seen that with supports for the Chakras Combo.

00:11:12.720 He really did represent a lot of people.

00:11:15.220 And so whenever I was, like, writing pieces, I would refer back to him for comments a lot because he was the one person in federal government who was willing to speak out against these things.

00:11:22.500 But yes, I was a lot of times talking about, like, how much our restrictions had been limited.

00:11:26.640 And especially, like, when the vaccines first came out, the recommendations on vaccines was changing quite frequently.

00:11:32.240 Like, who should get which doses and, like, which vaccine was best for which groups and if there was any side effects.

00:11:37.880 And so a lot of people were concerned and said, I'm not jumping to get this.

00:11:40.820 Like, the recommendation is changing every other month.

00:11:42.800 It's like, I'm going to wait this out.

00:11:43.980 Like, I want to see how it goes.

00:11:45.660 And I was just basically told that putting forward those views was, like, an anti-vax status.

00:11:50.760 And just that I would put forward views that anybody would question these things or that anyone would be skeptical or unsure.

00:11:57.200 It was, I was basically being told that it was anti-science to write about perspectives that wasn't, like, the government's perspective on, like, the science of the time, which, as we know, was changing all the time.

00:12:06.600 It's wild. And you also mentioned that your editors told you to default to the government science.

00:12:13.820 So it's not just science because you found credible doctors and scientists to say, you know, we have concerns about this policy, X policy, Y recommendation for a vaccine.

00:12:24.800 And yet you wrote that your editors told you to just defer to whatever the federal government was saying, which puts another layer of complication there.

00:12:32.380 Rich, let's take a step back. Why is it that the media in this country is so one-sided?

00:12:38.640 Why are they so willing to go to bat and defend Chrystia Freeland and the liberal government?

00:12:44.000 And why are they so, I don't know if weary is the right word, or hostile towards conservative sentiments, conservative values, and conservative principles?

00:12:55.420 Sure. That's certainly something I've been reflecting about quite a bit over the last number of days.

00:13:00.440 And I think the only answer that I can really come up with is I just don't think there's a lot of people from different backgrounds within mainstream media right now.

00:13:08.820 It's very difficult to be different than what the mainstream media is.

00:13:12.640 It's difficult to have an independent way of thinking or a different way of thinking.

00:13:16.300 And I certainly tried. I really tried. I wanted to stay.

00:13:19.080 I wanted to be a voice that I felt didn't exist in legacy media.

00:13:22.380 But I just had to leave because I was sort of pushed out in the sense that I couldn't write about stories I wanted to write in a way that I was comfortable with.

00:13:30.260 And so even now, after I wrote the op-ed, some people said to me, like, oh, you know, I hope iPolitics receives pushback for this.

00:13:37.480 And I just thought to myself, like, maybe I should be more angry about what happened there.

00:13:41.620 I don't feel angry partly because I did really like the people that I worked with.

00:13:45.320 I had good relationships with them, and I liked them on a personal level.

00:13:48.520 Just the political ideology made it very difficult.

00:13:51.060 And obviously, like, my editorial tone was not aligned with theirs.

00:13:54.820 But I liked them on a personal level, and I just knew that they couldn't see, like, my side of things, and they couldn't realize that there was a different perspective.

00:14:01.300 I don't know why that is.

00:14:02.920 Is it just because they haven't been around, like, real conservatives before, and they don't know, like, what real conservatives believe in?

00:14:09.000 I couldn't. I couldn't understand that.

00:14:10.780 And I actually had said that to my editors at one point.

00:14:12.740 And I said, I understand your perspectives.

00:14:15.020 I understand where you're coming from.

00:14:16.240 Every single day, I come into work, and I have to put myself in your perspectives because I know that's the editorial lens that you are wanting me to put my work through.

00:14:25.240 But I don't feel like there's any effort being made to put yourself in the perspective of someone else, in the perspective of people that are uncomfortable with the vaccines.

00:14:33.900 And so I don't know if that's just because they haven't, like I said, been around real conservatives or just an unwillingness to understand that there's a different side of things.

00:14:40.300 But it is very unfortunate, and I don't really see it changing anytime soon because it is so difficult to be, you know, to think differently than the legacy media does and work within that ecosystem right now.

00:14:50.420 Well, it's their prerogative, right?

00:14:52.440 Like, if iPolitics wants to be a left-leaning, big L liberal publication, they can.

00:14:58.040 That's their prerogative.

00:14:59.220 True North tries to cover the other side of the story.

00:15:01.140 Here, we try to put forth more of a small-c conservative editorial position.

00:15:06.420 I think the major difference is that at True North, you know what you're going to get.

00:15:10.080 You know that we have a small-c conservative editorial position, and those are our values.

00:15:15.280 Whereas when it comes to legacy media, they don't tell you that.

00:15:18.360 They sort of pretend that they are the arbiters of truth, that they are completely neutral, that they're fair and unbiased.

00:15:24.860 All you have to do is look at the difference between the way that they covered the one provocateur that showed up with a Nazi flag at the truckers' rally.

00:15:34.520 You know, Trudeau characterized every conservative there as standing with those who wave a swastika.

00:15:39.620 Whereas when Chrystia Freeland, someone who is so deeply steeped in Ukrainian politics, she's lived in Kiev, she's studied in Kiev, her mother helped draft the constitution of that country, and she was there throughout that process.

00:15:52.260 She understands Ukrainian politics better, perhaps, than anyone in Canada.

00:15:56.660 And we're supposed to believe that she just didn't really know what she was doing, give her the benefit of the doubt, and not get her to take responsibility, not be held account.

00:16:04.960 It's a strange state in the media where journalists feel the need to defend a very powerful politician as opposed to hold them accountable.

00:16:14.440 Rachel, one of the things that I get some pushback from is the fact that we are sort of polarizing the media, right?

00:16:22.160 So you have the legacy media over there.

00:16:24.480 More and more conservatives are leaving the media.

00:16:26.360 And, you know, whether you describe yourself as conservative or just an alternative thinker, independent thinker, contrarian, whatever, more and more of those types of people are leaving the media.

00:16:38.500 We're creating our own infrastructure and ecosystem over here.

00:16:43.080 And so you kind of have this situation where people only talk and listen to people that they agree with and that they already know that they're going to share the values with.

00:16:52.440 So do you see concern in that or do you think that this is a necessary thing that conservatives have to do because we don't have, we're no longer basically welcomed in the legacy media?

00:17:03.640 I think it's a necessary thing that needs to be done.

00:17:06.080 I think the media is very skewed.

00:17:07.580 It has definitely moved to one side.

00:17:10.040 And, like, what are our other options?

00:17:11.800 We can't just, like, let that be the case and step out of politics.

00:17:14.960 That's absolutely not the response that we need to have.

00:17:17.340 And even as I said, you know, like, I didn't wish ill on anyone that I worked with formerly.

00:17:22.260 It was hard for me to make a decision to write this piece because there was, like, a piece of me that was, like, I could just say nothing and, like, move to the Western standard and, like, be done with it all.

00:17:29.700 Like, do I really want to deal with, like, the drama and, like, the headache of it?

00:17:33.040 And, like, I don't want to make anyone that I worked with, like, feel badly.

00:17:36.500 But, you know, there's a bit of a responsibility when you're a journalist.

00:17:39.600 You are sort of a public figure.

00:17:40.940 Like, people know who you are.

00:17:41.860 They know your work.

00:17:43.000 So I did feel like I owe it an explanation.

00:17:44.760 People were certainly asking me what had happened and also just to expose the truth.

00:17:49.280 Like, it is uncomfortable.

00:17:50.180 It was an uncomfortable experience for me, but it's necessary for these things to come out.

00:17:54.260 And, you know, like, I think legacy media gets their back up because alternative media, conservative media, whatever you want to call it, will sort of point out the inconsistencies and the hypocrisies within it.

00:18:03.640 But they do need to be held accountable.

00:18:05.640 There are public figures.

00:18:06.600 They're putting out news.

00:18:07.760 Trusting media is at an all-time low right now.

00:18:10.800 So people in the public are certainly noticing this and they're upset with it.

00:18:14.760 So I think it's absolutely incumbent on us to be sort of pointing these things out and to be filling in that gap.

00:18:20.220 There is definitely, like, an underserved part of the Canadian population who doesn't feel like they have news sources that they can turn to.

00:18:26.360 And when I actually was interviewing at the Western Standard, they said to me, we don't want to be known as conservative media.

00:18:32.940 Now you can argue whether or not they've achieved that.

00:18:34.880 We just want to write for a conservative audience.

00:18:36.720 We want to cover stories that the mainstream media won't cover that conservatives will read, which is essentially what I had been trying to do at iPolitics, just with my hands tied behind my back.

00:18:45.340 So it seemed like it was going to be a very good fit for me.

00:18:47.640 And absolutely, it makes sense that, you know, the Western Standard and True North doesn't need to rely on government funding because conservatives and other independent thinkers are willing to pay for this news that they can't get elsewhere.

00:18:58.160 Absolutely.

00:18:58.520 Have you heard any feedback or blowback from your column so far?

00:19:04.520 The feedback has been largely positive.

00:19:06.720 I've had a lot of support for it, for sure.

00:19:09.000 I've even had some people say, you know, I don't necessarily agree with your views, but, you know, you shouldn't have had your work edited or you should have been allowed to write as you wish.

00:19:15.500 And I absolutely respect that it is your freedom to say these things now.

00:19:19.500 Haven't heard from any of my former colleagues, which I don't think is terribly surprising.

00:19:23.340 I mean, there was maybe a bit of shock about the whole situation.

00:19:25.900 Maybe I'll hear from some of them yet and perhaps not, which wouldn't be terribly surprising either.

00:19:30.840 Great.

00:19:30.940 Well, I think it's really exciting for you and your career that you've come on over to the independent side.

00:19:35.460 And I think that the future is really bright for independent media.

00:19:39.020 There's so many more people interested in this perspective and that more and more people see through what is happening in the media.

00:19:45.680 You said that trust in media is at an all-time low.

00:19:47.620 So, I mean, the Chrystia Freeland's office and liberal government could just pick up the phone, demand that a piece gets edited to suit their worldview.

00:19:56.680 And an editor says absolutely and changes it without a reporter's permission.

00:20:00.320 It's unbelievable that this is the practice in Canadian media.

00:20:04.100 Rachel, thank you so much for blowing the whistle and exposing this kind of behavior,

00:20:09.060 because I think Canadians really deserve to know just how deep that relationship goes between the true-to-liberal government by and large subsidizing and paying so many of these media outlets

00:20:20.620 and the way that they get what they want, essentially, which is just news that mirrors their worldview.

00:20:27.620 It's really incredible.

00:20:28.640 So, thank you for doing this and we look forward to seeing what you will do over at the Western Standard.

00:20:33.820 Thank you for joining us here at True North.

00:20:36.140 Yeah, absolutely.

00:20:36.740 Thank you, Candice.

00:20:37.300 All right, that is Rachel Emanuel.

00:20:40.000 You can find her over at the Western Standard.

00:20:42.280 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - March 15, 2022

INTERFERENCE： Freeland’s office “pressured” legacy media to change critical stories

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