Jesse Brown Was Right: The CBC Did Cave

A week ago I wrote a post based on a report by Canadaland's Jesse Brown asserting that pressure had been exerted by the Keilburger organization over a documentary from the CBC's Doc Zone exploring the dark side of 'voluntourism.' Originally scheduled to air in March, it was pulled from the lineup due to what the Corporation called 'copyright issues.' It was Brown's contention that a Keilburger threat to sue CBC led to the some self-censorship.

Last night an edited version of Volunteers Unleashed aired, minus any critical references to 'Me to We,' the Keilberger movement that has blossomed into a very profitable industry.

Here is one of the original clips that was subsequently doctored:



I can only describe the revised version, as the show doesn't not seem to be play on the Doc Zone website. The above clip cuts out the appearance of the Keilburgers onstage, showing only, from a high angle, and without identification, an electronically blurred-out figure onstage that one would only know is Keilburger if one saw the original clip. As well, the narration adds that Pippa Biddle, (originally disdainful of Me to We,) says that Biddle is critical of some voluntourism organizations, but not Me to We.

Here is the second clip from the original version:



In the censored version from last night's show, the reference to the fact that the young people depicted "are about the 40th group from Me to We to arrive in Quito this summer" was removed.

So why is any of this important? First of all, let me say that I have nothing against organizations that try to motivate young people to rise from their quotidian and often selfish concerns to recognize and embrace the larger world. The problem is that excursions promoted as voluntourism, of which Me to We is a big part, often cause more harm than good to the people such volunteers are supposed to be helping. Last night's program made that abundantly clear.

However, by removing the Keilburger organization from that critical view, the CBC succumbed to threats from an entity what has become a huge machine, and has therefore betrayed both the public trust and the public good. While the same has happened with private broadcasters, I, and I'm sure countless other Canadians, expect more spine and integrity from the national broadcaster.

Finally, the kind of alleged bald threats wielded by the Keilbergers suggests to me that they are more interested in protecting and promoting their 'brand' than they are in achieving philanthropic goals.

That's my view. Anyone else care to weigh in?

CBC: The Appeasement Continues*

Those who read my blog on a regular basis will know that I have felt disaffected from the CBC for some time. While I am a supporter of public broadcasting and believe in its adequate funding, the CBC's futile policy of appeasing its Conservative overlords has eroded my respect for the institution. As well, the recent imbroglio over Amanda Lang's clear conflict of interest and the Corporation's subsequent whitewash has earned it no brownie points with me.

Over at Canadaland, investigative journalist Jesse Brown has uncovered more damning evidence of decline and rot at the Mother Corp. This time, it has apparently succumbed to outside pressure and scratched from its lineup a documentary entitled Volunteers Unleashed, a program critical of 'voluntourism' that my wife had intended to watch earlier this month. While no explanation was offered, Brown has uncovered that

the reason Volunteers Unleashed was pulled was due to "concerns" raised by Craig Kielburger's Me to We, the for-profit sister company to his Free the Children charity. Me to We pops up a couple of times in Volunteers Unleashed. Kielburger happened to be wrapping a stint as a CBC Canada Reads panelist on the day the doc was set to air.

Officially, CBC says the doc was temporarily pulled due to a "copyright issue" and will be "re-edited and re-scheduled". [In fact, it is rescheduled for April 2] Free the Children similarly told us that it was the CBC's use of "unauthorized footage" that led to their complaint.

Brown also alleges

that Me to We may have also raised the spectre of libel with the CBC over how they were portrayed in the documentary. Kielburger has sued journalists for libel before. We asked both parties if libel came up in this case. Neither answered the question.

The larger issue here, of course, is the very real question of how independent our journalism is.

Free the Children spokesperson Angie Gurley was nevertheless quick to dispel any suggestion that her organization tried to kill a documentary because they didn't like how they came across in it. In fact, she asked us to remove our description of the doc as being critical of their organization.

"No Critical Coverage"

Though Gurley admitted that her camp had not seen the doc, they trusted that "there is no critical coverage of Me to We or We Day in the film" because that's what the CBC told them.

Here is the "unauthorized" footage in question, which we present here under the Fair Dealing exceptions for news reporting and criticism in the Copyright Act. You can judge for yourself if it's critical coverage of We Day or not.

Also, Free the Children's Angie Gurley also told us that the CBC assured her that Volunteers Unleashed "did not include footage of Me to We Trips".

You can see here that this is not true:



Brown asks these pertinent questions:

Exactly how is the footage of We Day or the We to Me Ecuador trip "unauthorized"? CANADALAND has learned that the rights to the We Day footage were licensed from Global TV, and does not belong to Me to We/Free the Children.

Is the CBC going to remove footage of a company scrutinized in their journalism because that company asked them to?

That second question should be answered on April 2. As they say, stay tuned.

* Many thanks to my friend Dave for alerting me to this story.

Note To Peter Mansbridge

H/t Occupy Canada

Setting The Record Straight

Weakly constituted as I am when it comes to tolerating disingenuous and dishonest political theatre, I was unable to watch the Chief Prevaricator, a.k.a. the Prime Minister, while his chief courtier and media enabler, the most Reverend (and reverent) Peter Mansbridge, performed what Michael Harris described as his Yuletide foot massage during their year-end chatfest.

However, I was able to muster up the strength to watch this snippet, after which follows a critical analysis on the CBC website of Mr. Harper's claims:



Harper Whopper Number One:

"We’ve got more work to do, but our emissions are falling," Harper said on Wednesday.

"Other countries’ emissions for the most part are going up. World emissions are going up. Canada’s have not been going up."

But the government's own report suggests emissions will go up dramatically by the end of the decade because of oil and gas production, Canada's emissions will be 22 per cent higher than its Copenhagen target of reducing greenhouse gases by 17 per cent below their 2005 levels by 2020.

Harper Whopper Number Two:

Harper says he'd be open to using a carbon-pricing system like Alberta's for the entire continent, a concept he's previously opposed.

"I think it’s a model on which you could, on which you could go broader," Harper said in Wednesday's interview.

Says David McLaughlin, an adviser at the University of Waterloo’s school of environment,

... emissions continue to rise under Alberta's system of carbon pricing.

"The price of $15 a tonne is too low to actually get the emissions reductions we want from these big emitters. So it would not do the job of reducing emissions in Canada."

Harper Whopper Number Three

The prime minister also took credit for getting tough on coal.

"We are phasing out in Canada through regulations, we are phasing out the use of traditional dirty coal. It’s going to go to zero in the next 15 years or so," Harper said.

Alas, as with most pronouncements by the Prime Minister, there is less here than meets the eye:

New federal coal regulations apply to new plants built after 2015. Existing plants built in the last 50 years are grandfathered, meaning they would have up to 2030 to close or introduce carbon capture and storage technology to reduce emissions.

And Ontario's Environment Minister Glen Murray points out an inconvenient truth:

...the province closed coal plants with no help from Ottawa.

[I]"f the federal government wants to start taking credit for provincially funded initiatives, they could at least have the decency to make a commitment to support those initiatives in the future."

Thanks for taking a few moments to see through the Emperor's diaphanous attire.

It's Why I Subscribe

To borrow a line from one of my favourite Shakespearean plays, Macbeth, "So fair and foul a day I have not seen."

It is fair because the newspaper I subscribe to and heartily endorse, The Toronto Star, has achieved a victory whose significance cannot be overestimated. Thanks to its investigative series into Health Canada's scandalous and potentially life-threatening negligence in overseeing drug safety, Health Minister Rona Ambrose, has finally acted:

Health Canada has banned the import of all drugs and drug ingredients made by two Apotex factories in Bangalore, India, with Health Minister Rona Ambrose saying Tuesday night that the trust between the regulator and the Toronto-based drug company has been “broken.”

Despite that action, long in coming, there are no plans to recall any of the 30 suspect drugs manufactured at the plants, drugs that include

a generic form of Viagra, the antibiotic azithromycin, and other drugs made to treat hypertension, dementia, high blood pressure, asthma, convulsions and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Not surprisingly, the information that led to the decision was taken from the FDA database, which is fully transparent and accessible to the public.

So what is foul? Two things:

One, had it not been for the tenacity of The Star, Health Canada would have continued to give its imprimatur to potentially life-threatening drugs, thereby egregiously failing in one of the most important aspects of its mission.

Two, despite the significance of the scandal, and despite the fact that it provoked some intense questioning from the NDP in The House of Commons, no other media outlets reported the story to my knowledge, not even the CBC, our putative national broadcaster.

Why the silence? One can only speculate, but I do intend very soon to write a letter to the CBC to ascertain the reason. Some might link it to the Corporation's policy of appeasement, about which I have written previously.

I will let you know if I get any response from the CBC.

A Leading Exemplar of The CBC's Policy Of Conservative Appeasement

Thanks to Montreal Simon, DESMOG CANADA, Press Progress and others for alerting us to the true extent of Rex Murphy's egregious conflict of interest in his role as CBC commentator.

Murphy is yet another sad but solid indication of the policy of appeasement the Corporation has adopted toward the Harper cabal.

My own complaint to the CBC about this disgraceful state of affairs is still awaiting a response. When I filed it a couple of weeks ago, this is what I received from their ombudsman:

I write to acknowledge receipt of your email. The first step in the process is to share your complaint with the relevant programmers, who have the right and responsibility to respond. I have therefore shared your email with Jennifer McGuire, General Manager and Editor in Chief of CBC News. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you may ask me to review the matter.

Programmers are asked to try to reply within twenty working days.

Sincerely,

Esther Enkin
CBC Ombudsman
ombudsman@cbc.ca
www.cbc.ca/ombudsman

I will post the response if and when I receive it.

A Guest Post From John B.

Click here to read an unflattering magazine profile of this 'titan'.

Yesterday afternoon, I wrote a brief post on Kevin O'Leary, the fatuous, obnoxious self-promoter the CBC, likely in its futile efforts to appease the Harper government, keeps in its stable of right-wing cranks.

In response to the post, I received a thoughtful commentary on O'Leary from John B, which I am featuring here to ensure a larger readership than the comments' section normally affords:

Is it part of Mr. O’Leary’s deal with the CBC that his daily commentary as chief business analyst be introduced with a mention that he is also the “Chair of O’Leary Funds”? I’ve wondered about that for some time.

I think that the important story here is that "the Chair of O'Leary Funds" is getting media exposure that may help him market his shtick internationally. Look at the sly little grins and the glint in the eye obvious in the video as he spews his nonsense. I think he knows that it's nonsense. It’s been designed to beg for attention.

This guy doesn't believe in anything besides running his business. And for several years one of his main businesses seems to have been marketing himself as a caricature of the iconic greedy capitalist. Now they're writing about him in the Independent. That's the scoring play - his money shot. That's why he likes to mention his U.S. show when being interviewed - international exposure. In the U.S. ‘they call him Mr. Wonderful’. Yes - that's probably because someone told them he was known by that handle in other circles without mentioning that it’s likely he made it up. It's how you create and sell a product. And the product is the act.

The act may have taken over the person and the act may have started long before the advent of O'Leary TV; but it's still just about making the sale, whether it's dog food, a worthless corporate asset or a cartoon character.

The Lang & O'Leary Exchange isn't a business news programme; it’s third-rate entertainment with a little synergistic libertarian propaganda along for the ride. And the worst part of it is that you can’t escape exposure to its juvenile propaganda efforts by not tuning in. At every station break the network is sure to broadcast one of their promotional spots for the show featuring inserts of still close-ups of Mr. Wonderful’s wonderfully-manicured digits posed in that silly configuration that he seems to have come to prefer. In each of these spots his sidekick, Amanda, stumbles into a staged ambush that Mr. O’Leary can accomplish by rhyming off some line that could have come from the Market Libertarian’s Handbook for Disturbed Teenagers: “If you want a share, become a shareholder” or “The market will decide.” God has spoken.

O'Leary is serious about what he's doing - getting a paycheque and getting exposure for his fund and his comedy act. But his sparring partner provides the best comedy on the show. She presents herself in a manner that suggests she considers herself to be a journalist, while she actually just plays one on a boring TV show. Maybe it’s just part of her “straight-man” act. Whatever the case, she does it very well.

I’m still puzzled about one thing: did he come up with the thing with the hands or did he have to pay a personal stylist to do it?

The Ad the CBC Refuses To Air

Are they right or wrong? You decide.



You can read the full story here.

Two Blogging Recommendations

With so many things of note to comment on, today is one of those days when, if I had the time, I suspect I would spend most of the day writing blog posts. Instead, allow me to direct your attention, if you haven't already read them today, to Alison over at Creekside, and Owen at Northern Reflections.

Alison has been doing an excellent job tracking the murky details surrounding outsourcing. In today's post, she lambastes the CBC's Amanda Lang for her enthusiastic and disingenuous endorsement of outsourcing practices in The Globe and Mail.

As I noted in my comment on her post,

Thanks for following this issue so closely, Alison. The fact that Amanda Lang is staunchly defending the bleeding off of Canadian jobs does not really surprise me, nor does it surprise me that hers is a voice given prominence on the CBC, which has capitulated to the forces of the right in a misbegotten effort at appeasement - all of course, under the rubric of 'balanced reporting.'

There is a similar apologia written by The Globe's Doug Sanders, who suggests xenophobia and wage fears are at the root of the opposition to these abominable practices, and laments the fact that foreign workers have no easy route to citizenship in our country.

Over at Northern Reflections, Owen does his usual excellent job, this time exploring the dark side of outsourcing, aided and abetted by compliant politicians, through an article by Michael Harris.

These are but two of the many excellent and conscientious bloggers who help me retain some hope for a better tomorrow.

The Synchronous Decline of Peter Mansbridge and The CBC

I admit that I stopped being a regular viewer of the CBC years ago; I think the catalyst for my disaffection was its transparent policy of appeasement (under the pretext of balanced reporting) of the Harper regime which, of course, holds its funding strings. Especially evident in its flagship news program, The National, hosted by that one-time icon of journalistic integrity, Peter Mansbridge, the Corporation has become a parody of itself. And as I have written in past posts, Mansbridge himself has to take the bulk of the blame for its sad decline.

On February 8, The Star's Rick Salutin wrote a piece entitled CBC’s Peter Mansbridge coulda bin a contender. Somewhat dirgelike in tone, Salutin asserts that Mansbridge just seems to have given up on doing any substantive journalism, contrasting him with the redoubtable Walter Cronkite, who he describes as ... ready to stand up against the state and the flow and was solid as the bronze statue of the American revolutionary minuteman who stood “by the rude bridge that spanned the flood/ His flag to April’s breeze unfurled.”

Mansbridge, on the other hand, has happily gone with the flow — and the pressure. CBC has become numero uno for crime stories, weather coverage (today’s snow), product launches, celebrities and awards gossip. None of this is new, or news, and CBC itself doesn’t contest the point.

In this morning's Star, the majority of readers appear to agree with Salutin's assessment. I am taking the liberty of reproducing some of them below:

Leave Mansbridge alone. After his last interview with Stephen Harper, it seems obvious he’s angling for a Senate appointment a la Mike Duffy. Calling attention to his soft-shoe journalism will only make his task that much harder.

Mike Sampat, Toronto

I watch CBC’s The National mostly for entertainment. For real news I watch Aljazeera English and BBC World.

Entertainment, news.

Raja Khouri, Toronto

.... How can one explain that in every half-hour broadcast the “weather person” comes on three times. I suppose it is easier to kill time having the weather person on than to go out an find some news. If we want to dwell on weather there is always the Weather Channel. We can surely do better.

Bob Joakim, Oakville

.... Yes, he is rather apolitical and borderline fawning at times, such as his interview with Stephen Harper before the last federal election, but I can forgive him for that. At least he hasn’t pulled a Mike Duffy and obtained a sinecure in the seniors club we call the Senate. He could have gone to New York a few years ago, but decided to stay, to his and our benefit.

Sigmund Roseth, Mississauga

Expect nothing to change in the near future.