The Candice Malcolm Show - Legacy media take the money and run!

00:00:00.000 A legacy media outlet took a bailout from the federal government to protect journalism and

00:00:05.460 then they turned around and fired the journalists anyway. It's Fake News Friday, I'm Candice

00:00:09.140 Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into

00:00:17.800 the show. It's a favorite day of the week here at The Candice Malcolm Show. It's Fake News Friday

00:00:21.820 where we go through the legacy media, we dissect and pull out some of the examples of the most

00:00:27.300 egregious journalism and we just generally talk about the problem in Canada when you have a legacy

00:00:33.580 media by and large that is subsidized and funded by the federal government. There are so many so

00:00:39.420 many inherent contradictions and conflicts and ethical issues with this structure and yet they

00:00:45.980 all kind of carry on as usual but of course so much malfeasance comes out of that structure. And so

00:00:51.120 we dedicate the Friday edition of The Candice Malcolm Show entirely in just focusing in on this problem

00:00:56.920 and talking about the very many ways that it manifests. So if you're watching this video on

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00:01:25.980 podcast. It really helps us out in the discoverability of the show and don't forget to subscribe to the

00:01:31.020 Candice Malcolm Show so that you never miss an episode. So before we get to this ridiculous story

00:01:35.280 of a media company, a major media company taking taxpayer dollars and then turning around and firing

00:01:39.960 journalists anyway, I want to talk about the major political development of the week with regards to

00:01:44.880 the Conservative Party, the infighting that we have been focused on so much on the show this week and

00:01:49.500 just talk a little bit about how the media has covered it. So usually with a Conservative leader,

00:01:53.160 be it Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, Scott Moe, Stephen Harper, Andrew Scheer, whoever it is, usually the

00:01:58.920 media do their best to demonize the leader, to point out all their flaws, to make them seem like

00:02:03.660 a scary right-winger and to really make them repulsive. But Aaron O'Toole has done everything

00:02:08.240 he can. He focuses all of his attention on winning over those media skeptics, making sure that they

00:02:12.640 like him, that they know that he's one of them. He's part of the team, he's progressive, he's liberal,

00:02:17.140 he's left-wing on the social issue so they don't have to be afraid of him. So this has led us to a place

00:02:21.120 where the media sort of has this like sympathetic view of Aaron O'Toole, where they sort of feel

00:02:25.420 sorry for him, they don't think that he could beat Justin Trudeau, but they don't want him to be

00:02:29.460 replaced because they fear that whoever replaces him could be a scary right-wing Conservative. So

00:02:34.460 they kind of treat him with kid gloves and you see a lot of editorials saying, you know, making the

00:02:38.980 case as to why Conservatives should leave him in power. All of these liberal and left-wing columnists

00:02:43.940 who would never in a million years vote for the Conservatives are trying to give advice to

00:02:47.440 Conservative members to keep the more sort of left-wing party leader in place. So then at this

00:02:53.240 point, when someone in the Conservative Party does come out to criticize Aaron O'Toole, we see the media

00:02:57.500 sort of shift and try to portray and paint that person in a negative light and demonize them. And

00:03:02.880 that is what we're seeing with Senator Denise Batters, who came out this past week and launched 1.00

00:03:07.000 a petition to ask for a leadership review of Aaron O'Toole. Now, it should be noted that Denise Batters

00:03:11.820 is an eminently reasonable person. She came forth with a very calm, very reasonable, very logical

00:03:18.180 position. And it should be noted that Senator Denise Batters came to the Conservative Party from the

00:03:23.940 Progressive Conservatives. So she didn't come from the Reform and the Alliance, the more right-wing

00:03:27.620 part of the party. She came from the more left-wing part of the party. So she is not a right-wing

00:03:32.500 figure. She's more on the center-left of the party, of the Conservative Party. And she backed Peter

00:03:37.280 McKay in the last leadership race. He was the Red Tory candidate. He was sort of the standard bearer

00:03:42.100 of Red Toryism. So it's not like Denise Batters is from the sort of more Conservative side of the

00:03:47.860 party. She isn't. So this was a headline over in CP's Canadian Press. It's the wire service. So they

00:03:52.800 write the news stories that go in most of the newspapers. Most of the news websites are all based

00:03:56.840 on this wire service. And this was a story. This was a headline. It says, Expelled Conservative

00:04:01.620 Senator Denise Batters' defense position lashes out at O'Toole. Lashes out, we're told. She's lashing 1.00

00:04:08.400 out. Now when I saw that verbiage, I was just sort of put off because I watched Denise Batters. I saw

00:04:14.600 what she wrote. I saw what she put on Twitter. Lashing out. Let me just read you the definition of

00:04:19.720 what it means to lash out. To lash out is to suddenly attack someone or something physically or to

00:04:25.460 criticize him or her in an angry way. Okay, so we're told that she's lashing out, which implies

00:04:31.600 sort of physical violence or at least lashing out, criticizing someone in an angry way. When I

00:04:37.900 looked at what Denise Batters was saying, I didn't see an angry lady. Again, I saw a reasonable, 1.00

00:04:43.740 logical, calm, clear-headed plea for the party to review this leader. And so the fact that the media

00:04:52.060 is painting this as her lashing out. Now, even if you read the story, read the article that's attached,

00:04:58.140 a very short one, and nothing in there suggests that she's lashing out. Okay, let me just read

00:05:02.300 the news story. It's really short. And again, nothing in here suggests anything close to

00:05:08.040 lashing out. Okay, so it says, Senator Denise Batters is taking off the gloves in her fight 1.00

00:05:12.820 with conservative leader Erin O'Toole. Okay, again, this sort of builds it up and implies that

00:05:16.640 by taking off the gloves and that she's engaging in this fight with Erin O'Toole, that maybe there's

00:05:21.700 like a war of words or she says something harsh. But as we'll see, that's not the case. Let's go on

00:05:26.160 to see what Canadian press is writing about a fight, taking off the gloves and saying that

00:05:30.340 Denise Batters is lashing out. So it just says this. O'Toole announced late Tuesday that the 1.00

00:05:35.940 Saskatchewan senator will be expelled from the Conservative caucus after she launched a petition

00:05:39.420 calling for a referendum on his leadership within six months. A leadership review is currently

00:05:43.440 scheduled for the party's national convention in 2023, though MPs did vote in October to give

00:05:48.100 themselves the power to potentially host him earlier. Okay, so that's just all background.

00:05:51.580 Nothing about Denise Batters yet. Now it comes on to tell us what Batters is actually doing

00:05:56.500 and it says this. Batters in a statement this morning says she is and will always be a Conservative

00:06:01.320 and says members deserve to have a say on the leadership and direction of the party after

00:06:06.260 an election loss. So how is this lashing out? How is this taking off the gloves? How is this

00:06:11.460 fighting? She issued a calm statement just saying that she's still a Conservative and she believes

00:06:15.700 that members should have a say on the direction of the party. How is that lashing out? How is that

00:06:20.580 fighting? How is that taking off the gloves? Give me a break. Okay, the story goes on. It says

00:06:24.080 she goes on to question why she's being singled out. Another Conservative senator, Michael McDonald,

00:06:29.100 urges Tories ahead of the October vote to give themselves the power to hold an early leadership

00:06:33.100 review. And Batters says if O'Toole is truly confident in the direction he's taking the party,

00:06:37.200 then he should have no fears about an expedited leadership review. And then that's it. That's it.

00:06:42.740 Then the story just goes back to explaining the background of the story and saying that Batters

00:06:47.180 is kicked out of the party before the caucus, the Conservative caucuses meeting in Ottawa.

00:06:51.800 And again, that's it. That's the whole story. It's like a 10-line story and that's it. So nowhere

00:06:56.680 in there did we see anything like the headline was saying. So much so they've actually have changed

00:07:01.260 the headline now. But this was the initial headline that was out for the first day of the story was up

00:07:05.000 and across the internet. Again, the media just love creating a narrative. They love trying to create

00:07:09.820 conflict, trying to make it seem like Denise Batters here is just like crazy, unhinged, bad guy, 1.00

00:07:14.500 villain. Really, she's just being very reasonable and the media just can't help but demonize and

00:07:20.240 create these really, really ridiculous caricatures of the Conservatives. Okay, going on. This is 0.92

00:07:25.400 actually pretty amusing. So as the MPs were heading into go into this meeting, journalists were sort of

00:07:31.200 camped out and again, trying to exploit this division, trying to drum up the drama and asking MPs

00:07:37.120 what they thought about Denise Batters petition and where they stand on Erin O'Toole. Now, let me just

00:07:42.360 pause from the show for a moment to just say that things in British Columbia are absolutely horrendous.

00:07:47.740 I know my parents are out there. Most of my family lives in the lower mainland and Vancouver and they

00:07:51.620 are dealing with a catastrophic flood. It is unbelievable, probably will end up being the most

00:07:56.680 costly natural disaster in Canadian history. And of course, if something like this was happening in

00:08:01.740 central Canada, something like this was happening in Quebec or Ontario, it would be all the news. It

00:08:06.260 would be everything wall-to-wall coverage, nothing but. But in our country, because it's happening out in

00:08:10.820 Vancouver, barely anyone's paying attention, barely anyone's talking about it. This is a sad reality

00:08:15.240 of the sort of regionalism in our country that anything that happens out west is kind of an

00:08:19.040 afterthought and anything that happens in British Columbia is even more than an afterthought. It's

00:08:22.720 almost like a different country out there. It's a sad state of affairs and this MP, this Conservative MP

00:08:26.860 rightfully points it out. So as these Conservatives are walking in, this is again Wednesday afternoon,

00:08:31.080 right in the height of the flooding and the chaos in British Columbia. So we have Conservative MP

00:08:36.860 Brad Vease, who is the MP for Mission, Matt Squee, Fraser Canyon, and an unidentified reporter

00:08:43.160 jumps in to ask him about the air neutral drama. And to him, it's like he is completely focused on this

00:08:49.280 crazy disaster that is happening in his writing, in his constituency, completely worried about the lives of

00:08:54.400 his constituents, the lives of Canadians. And that is where he's focused. And he just sort of takes the media

00:08:58.840 to task for asking sort of like a dumb political partisan question, instead of really asking the more

00:09:05.200 pressing question at that moment in that time about his writing and the people in his writing and how

00:09:10.160 he's acting to represent them and to help them. So here is a BC Conservative MP just sort of smacking

00:09:16.780 down the media.

00:09:17.500 Do you support Erin O'Toole's decision to remove Senator Batters?

00:09:20.480 You know what? The most important question needs to be, why aren't you asking me about Mission,

00:09:24.740 Matt Squee, Fraser Canyon, and the devastating flooding that's taking place in Chilliwack,

00:09:29.680 Cope, Abbotsford, in the Okanagan, in Dan's riding. I want to thank Minister Blair for meeting with us

00:09:37.900 this morning to discuss the dire situation on the ground. Our constituents, 7,000 people were evacuated

00:09:46.120 in Dan's riding. All of the major roadways in British Columbia are destroyed. We don't have rail

00:09:52.660 infrastructure right now. Our country is facing an unprecedented situation in the province of BC right now.

00:09:58.800 Do you think Batters should have been kicked out of caucus?

00:10:00.580 Right now, my only focus is on supporting the people of Mission, Matt Squee, Fraser Canyon,

00:10:05.020 in British Columbia. There's no time for partisan politics. Right now, there's only time to support

00:10:10.200 British Columbia and get people safe. That should be your only question right now. Keeping British

00:10:17.460 Columbia safe. The people need our help. They don't want to hear about a senator. They want to hear

00:10:22.420 about what we're doing here today to help our province and to help our country.

00:10:26.500 Do you attribute this to climate change? How do you prevent this from happening again?

00:10:29.500 Well, right now, we need to focus on the safety of British Columbia. How do you prevent

00:10:33.500 this from happening again? You've talked about the fires. You've talked about the flooding.

00:10:37.500 How do you prevent this from happening again? Ed, why don't you comment? It's Barrow Townsend

00:10:39.500 in your riding. Listen, there are many things that are going to have to take place going forward

00:10:44.500 to rebuild all the infrastructure that has been damaged. There's infrastructure that needs to be upgraded

00:10:51.500 to seismic standards. There's a lot of work that has to be done going forward. These are long-term

00:10:57.500 fixes that won't be resolved overnight.

00:11:00.500 And you can just see how completely tone-deaf these journalists are. Like, he makes a passionate

00:11:04.500 plea about his riding and how dangerous it is and how worried he is. And the journalists

00:11:10.500 like can't even compute that. They don't even care. They just go and ask the same question.

00:11:14.500 Uh, but do you think batters should have been kicked out of caucus? It's like so tone-deaf

00:11:18.500 and so unbelievably callous of these journalists. They don't actually care what the

00:11:22.500 MPD has to say. They don't care about the Canadians that he represents. They don't care

00:11:25.500 about the real challenges that are being faced out there. They just care about the drama.

00:11:29.500 They just care about the soundbite. And they just want to possibly exploit this, this drama

00:11:33.500 even more to get even more news out of it. And then finally, once he really just schools

00:11:37.500 them and says like, like, this is not my priority. I don't care about the partisan

00:11:40.500 infighting. I'm completely focused on this flood and saving my constituents. And then

00:11:44.500 of course they pivot to, uh, well, do you attribute this to climate change? Like trying

00:11:48.500 to sort of like trap him and again, turn it into a partisan wedge trap manufactured by

00:11:53.500 the liberals to say, well, if you care about this flood, then how can you not admit that

00:11:57.500 it's climate change and therefore don't you want a carbon tax? Like it just, again, just

00:12:01.500 shows how out of touch and bad these journalists are at their job. Okay. So I want to move on

00:12:06.500 to this story about the media company taking taxpayer money and then firing its employee

00:12:11.500 because this in a nutshell is the problem with Canadian media. So this comes to us from

00:12:15.500 our friends over at Blackhawks Reporter also reported by us at TNC.news. And it's about

00:12:20.500 a newspaper company called the Halifax Chronicle Herald. So the media company, the Halifax Chronicle

00:12:25.500 Herald took taxpayer funded media rebates, but then they ended up firing employees. So according

00:12:30.500 to Blackhawks Reporter, the media outlet, which is part of a broader company called Salt Wire

00:12:35.500 Network Inc. They ended up firing 111 employees on September 1st, 2020. In the same year, the

00:12:41.500 company received an undisclosed amount of taxpayer COVID-19 funding and was also benefiting

00:12:45.500 from payroll rebates passed by the liberal government. So they're getting the $600 million

00:12:51.500 newspaper bailout. The whole idea was that all of these media companies couldn't compete

00:12:55.500 with the CBC. The Trudeau government was giving the CBC money and then the newspapers couldn't

00:12:59.500 compete with them. So they went hat in hand and asked the Trudeau government for money as

00:13:03.500 well. So Trudeau gave them money. The purpose of that was all under the guise of protecting

00:13:07.500 local journalism to make sure that in all of these markets across Canada, these companies

00:13:11.500 could still employ local journalism because the role of a local journalist was so important

00:13:16.500 to democracy. And it was so important that we had these reporters on the ground to keep

00:13:19.500 our democracy strong, to hold politicians accountable. Never mind the contradiction there

00:13:24.500 about the government paying journalists to investigate them, which of course doesn't happen

00:13:28.500 in the way that it should. But regardless, the idea is this media company is taking our money,

00:13:32.500 taking taxpayer dollars to protect journalism jobs. And then on top of that, when the economy

00:13:37.500 crashed, when the government forces all into lockdown, the idea behind the COVID rebate

00:13:42.500 was to keep things afloat, was to make sure that people didn't lose their jobs, to make

00:13:45.500 sure that companies didn't go out of business. So here is a company, a media company that's

00:13:49.500 basically double dipping. They're getting a bailout from the government for the newspapers,

00:13:53.500 for local journalism, and they're also getting a bailout from the government for COVID.

00:13:57.500 And yet on top of this, they still fire 111 employees. It is such a joke.

00:14:02.500 So here it says under the rebate program, the company could have received up to $13,750

00:14:08.500 per employee. Court records show that six form employees pursued legal action with regards

00:14:13.500 to their dismissal. Saltwater contends in March, 2020, its business was significantly

00:14:17.500 impacted by COVID-19 pandemic revenues more substantially reduced. So that's all justification

00:14:22.500 as to why they were taking taxpayer money. What we still don't understand though, is why

00:14:26.500 they took taxpayer money and then turned around and fired a whole bunch of people, 111 people.

00:14:31.500 Well, some of them are now suing the paper, regardless, you know, it's going to be stuck

00:14:35.500 in the legal court battles for a while. But again, what a sad state of journalism

00:14:39.500 where you have these big, big companies taking all this money, basically part of their business

00:14:43.500 model now to just lobby the government. Rather than go out there and try to find a more successful

00:14:47.500 business model, rather than try to go out and try to build your audience or try to find new revenue

00:14:51.500 streams. These media companies are part of the revenue. Part of their business plan is spending

00:14:56.500 money on lobbyists, spending money on consultants, and going hat in hand to the government. That is

00:15:00.500 part of the revenue stream. And you see it across the spectrum in the media.

00:15:03.500 So another example is the FP Newspaper Inc., the Free Press newspapers, including the Winnipeg

00:15:09.500 Free Press, which is one of the most left-wing papers in the country. As of May of this year,

00:15:14.500 the company had received $6.2 million in taxpayer funds, majority of which were the COVID subsidies,

00:15:20.500 federal grants. They make up 54% of the company's revenue. So more than half the money that this

00:15:25.500 newspaper and this media company are bringing in every year is from the government. I can't imagine,

00:15:29.500 you know, we talk a lot about the CBC and how they get billions. Well, more than half of the

00:15:33.500 money that this company, I mean, it might as well be a state broadcaster as well. They're taking so

00:15:37.500 much money from the government. They're so beholden to the government and the governing party. It's just

00:15:42.500 absolutely wild, the landscape in Canada. It deserves to be criticized because you're not

00:15:47.500 going to get a situation where opposition parties and other politicians get a fair shake when these

00:15:51.500 newspapers that are so influential in telling the stories and reaching Canadians are so beholden to

00:15:56.500 Justin Trudeau and the governing Liberal Party. It is a huge problem in Canada. It's all the more

00:16:01.500 reason why we need independent outlets like True North. It's Fake News Friday. I'm Candace Malcolm,

00:16:05.500 and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - November 19, 2021

Legacy media take the money and run!

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