Trust in the media has been eroded for some time and the recent CBC defence did little to quell reasons to question the media.
We’ve written about the erosion of trust in the mainstream media plenty of times. Study after study after study continues to show this continues to be a trend to this day.
The erosion of trust in the media is a complex one. Part of the reason is the surge in biased reporting meant to convince readers that their business interests overrules reality. Big Lie 1.0 and Big Lie 2.0 were excellent examples of the mainstream media, in unison, pushed obvious bald-faced lies to defend the link tax. In short, the lies were ‘linking is stealing’ and ‘social media is censoring the media’ – neither of which was actually true, but a talking point that was pushed heavily by the mainstream media in years past as if it was fact.
Of course, the Online News Act was far from the only incident where the mainstream media pushed false narratives. Other examples include the incident where the media tried to blame social media for ADHD being over-diagnosed with little to no evidence, blaming social media for human smuggling, or saying that video games are dangerous and comparable to cocaine. We could go on, but you get the idea. Mainstream media, has been on an anti-technology campaign for years.
In some of these incidences, we noted another part of the problem. This is something I’ve termed “expert shopping”. This was particularly evident during the human smuggling story that the media was desperate to portray. In that incident, they ended up bringing in an actual expert on the subject matter. When the media outlet in question tried to get the expert to say that social media is the reason human smuggling is the problem, the expert pushed back, pointing to economic realities of the countries of origin, law enforcement, and a number of other reasons for human smuggling. In other words, she actually addressed the roots of the problem instead of just buying into the narrative that the outlet was pushing with little to no evidence. The outlet responded to this problem by shopping around for a different expert who was happy to sit there and say that, yeah, social media is entirely at fault for human smuggling. Hence the term “expert shopping”.
Time and time again, I’ve witnessed the media who was more interested in pushing a narrative rather than presenting the facts. It’s not as though the mainstream media hasn’t noticed that they have been pushing narratives and killing their trustworthiness. They have received numerous complaints to the point where it caused them to respond to the backlash. Unfortunately, rather than admit to the problems that they had, their response generally is to say that they did nothing wrong and that it’s the audience who is wrong on this. That’s exactly the approach one “journalist” employed last year when he pointed to the code of ethics and argued that the audience is just too stupid to understand what the role of the media is in the first place. It went over like a lead balloon.
Generally speaking, the defence to this pushback from their audience is to say that they are perfect in every way and that they did nothing wrong. The mainstream media sometimes pushes back by saying that this is also the fault of social media for “polarizing” everyone into believing conspiracy theories. While that is a problem, the mainstream media can’t deflect blame for the situation and shoulder the problem entirely on social media, either.
Recently, I found out that the CBC took a kick at this can by defending their practice of picking and choosing who they platform. The post follows the familiar pattern of arguing that the audience it just too darned stupid to understand what the role of journalism is and saying that they are perfect in every way and did nothing wrong. From the CBC:
In the past year or so, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people writing to complain about how CBC News “platforms” certain viewpoints, people and organizations in our journalism.
The complaints come from across the political spectrum. Some are polite and thoughtfully worded. Some less so. They often include sentences like these recent examples:
“I’m writing to express my deep disappointment with your recent decision to platform …”
“I’m truly disgusted that CBC interviewed …”
“Stop giving airtime to … !!!”
“It’s vile, disgusting and totally inappropriate to give this person a platform.”
The list of those who should be excluded from our stories according to these complaints is wide and long: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and representatives of the Israel Defence Forces; Gaza’s Health Ministry and representatives of Hamas; academics on all sides of the Middle East story; an anti-vaccination convoy participant; former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh; Canadian businessman and reality TV star Kevin O’Leary; a representative from UNICEF; Alberta separatists; gender-affirming care providers; U.S. President Donald Trump, members of his cabinet and his ambassador to Canada, to name a few recent examples.
In each case, the critiques imply that inclusion of these voices in our journalism is somehow an endorsement of them by CBC News. We are told that by including certain ideas or figures in our news coverage, we “legitimize” or “normalize” them. And always there are concerns about balance and false equivalency in the perspectives we surface.
Hoo boy… where to begin here? If anything, the CBC is outing themselves to a major problem that they, along with other media outlets, have had for the longest time. They don’t listen to valid criticism. Even in their own examples, it is quite clear what a number of these complaints actually are. It’s not that the CBC is giving air time to certain perspectives that members of the public are disgusted by, it’s how much air time the CBC is giving to these individuals.
Some examples provided above vary in difficulty in balancing this, but probably the easiest one to point out is the Alberta separatists example. In terms of overall coverage I witnessed from the CBC, there are only four things I’ve ever seen covered in Alberta: The Oilers NHL run, the Calgary Stampede, the Premier demanding more pipelines, and Alberta overwhelmingly wants to separate. The first is an obvious sports story, so that is not problematic. The second is a culture event which I have no problem with. The third is annoying, but the Conservative Alberta Premier is going to Conservative Alberta Premier. The separation issue, however, is where the coverage has long run into problems.
Based on mainstream media coverage, you would think that an overwhelming amount of Albertan’s want to separate. In fact, you could very easily be led to believe that Alberta is practically on the verge of separating and it’s not a matter of “if”, but “when”. Despite the coverage, however, reality paints a very different picture. Abacus Data polling shows that less than 20% would vote to separate if a referendum was held. Further, 63% of Albertan’s believe separation is unlikely to happen as well. Yet, despite this overwhelming support to stay in Canada, this is not reflected in the coverage I’ve seen in mainstream media outlets like the CBC. I don’t even recall coverage of people who actively support staying in Canada. If there was, I’ve personally never saw it. At most, you might get a call-in during a live event where an Albertan might get through to point out that there are those in Alberta who clearly don’t support the separatist movement. This is often met with reporters expressing disinterest before trying to change the subject. Yet, at the same time, those who want to separate get all the air time whenever the subject is brought up.
Had the coverage been more fair, it would actually be very different where plenty of people would be talking about why so many Albertan’s don’t want to separate and, on a rare occasion, someone voices their support to the movement, but such coverage would be rare. This is why some of the complaints are coming in to organizations like the CBC.
The CBC dismissed the comments about “normalizing” certain perspectives. That has long been a major problem with mainstream media outlets. The so-called “Freedom Convoy” was a great example of this. Criminals took over downtown Ottawa, hijacked a major trade bridge, pumped diesel emissions into the air, and laid on their horns 24/7 to make local residents lives a living hell. People involved in the hijacking of the downtown core flew Nazi and Gadsden flags, assaulted people for wearing face masks, attempted to light an apartment on fire, smashed the windows of businesses, urinated on historic sites, attempted to forcibly overthrow a democratically elected government, threw beer cans at reporters heads, threatened residents, obstructed ambulances, stockpiled weapons and body armour with apparent intent to harm police (Coutts, Alberta), openly obstructed police operations (Jerry cans with water), and intimidated journalists to the point where journalists had to remove decals from their vehicles for fear of their own safety as well as avoiding vandalism of their vehicles.
Yet, despite all of that, the long running narrative at the time on the major media outlets part was that Canada just needs to “understand” them and that they should be allowed to have their say. Court rulings pointing out that honking your horn 24/7 is not protected speech, people lodging complaints, and others who were counter-protesting got little coverage in comparison. As a result, the mainstream media was normalizing a terrorist occupation of a major downtown core, pretending that it’s just a political movement. That same effort wasn’t afforded to other movements such as the Occupy Wallstreet movement, the anti-deforestation protests, the protests against the SPP conference, pipeline protests, or the overall environmental movement. Those other movements were dismissed as incoherent or being little more than a public nuisance where demonstrators probably deserve to get arrested, nothing to see here (as the media switch off their cameras and leave quickly).
In short, this far right ideology was normalized to death by the media and Canadian’s who don’t support the movement were infuriated by such coverage. There are good examples where Canadian’s are rightfully outraged that certain vocal minority voices get normalized and platformed all the time. Yet, the CBC dismisses all of that as nothing more than a case of the audience being too stupid to understand what the role of a journalist actually is:
These complaints suggest to me that we have much more work to do to explain the mechanics of journalism and the principles of fairness, balance and impartiality under which we operate. (Also, that these journalistic principles are being stress-tested in an increasingly polarized world).
Like, holy fuck dude. Just how out of touch can you possibly be? Just look at your viewership. It has been well documented that CBC viewership has been in sharp decline:
However, the CBC’s audience share has drastically declined over the years. In 2018, the network held a 7.6 per cent share of the national prime-time viewing audience, marking a 72 per cent drop in just six years. Critics argue that this steep decline should prompt a reassessment of how the broadcaster operates and whether taxpayer dollars are effectively utilized.
This decline in viewership has been noted by the Globe and Mail and the MLI as well.
We literally have people telling you what the problems are and you are sitting there saying that the audience is just being stupid. This with the obvious intent of not changing a damned thing even as viewership declines. You want an example as to why traditional broadcast news is in decline, well this is an excellent reason why.
The CBC then says this:
As I’ve written before, this approach does not mean that there are two sides to every story. Or that we uncritically regurgitate facts and information, giving equal space to every perspective at all times. While CBC’s journalistic standards and practices mandate our coverage to balance differing points of view, they also acknowledge that balance is not a matter of precise equivalency or that differing points of view are treated equitably.
This is a major reason why I get upset at the mainstream media. Had the mainstream media actually did their damned jobs and reported factually on issues, I wouldn’t even feel compelled to even have a news website in the first place. Yet, I have to fact-check and correct so many stories out there on technology because the media has a tendency of reporting technology stories incorrectly.
One example of this is the TikTok story. The mainstream media was pushing conspiracy theories that the platform was a Chinese government mind controlling device. This while offering absolutely no evidence to back it up outside of a simple hand waving of “security concerns” or “privacy concerns”. You want to talk about “uncritically regurgitate facts and information”, well, throughout the TikTok story, organizations like the CBC did precisely that. The US intelligence community admitted that they have no evidence of what was being alleged, just spit balling theories of what might happen. Independent voices were sounding the alarm about why TikTok getting banned would be a bad idea. The Canadian government bizarrely kicked out TikTok’s physical presence while leaving the app in place. Many pointed out how deeply problematic this was, and the consequences of that decision came home to roost more recently in the form of cultural sponsorship losses.
A much older example was the file-sharing debates. Mainstream media outlets, once again, did the job of “uncritically regurgitate facts and information” when organizations like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and similar organizations pushed out press releases arguing that one download means one lost sale. This while arguing that losses from file-sharing would destroy the entertainment industry. The mainstream media simply regurgitated those talking points as facts and people like myself had to correct the record afterwards when we pointed out how deeply flawed the premise was. These critical mistakes in reporting by the mainstream media actually gave me (and several others) a paying job in the first place. That’s how bad that was.
I could go on with many other examples, but the point is this: the CBC has a LOT of nerve to defend themselves by saying that journalists don’t “uncritically regurgitate facts and information”. This is a journalistic sin that has been made by mainstream media outlets over and over and over again – and this problem is getting worse and worse.
Towards the end of the CBC article, we saw this:
Journalists like to joke that we know we’re doing a good job when no one is happy with us. There’s some truth to that.
But there’s also lots of evidence to suggest that while overall trust in news has declined in recent years, the most trusted news organizations in the world and in Canada are still those that hold fast to principles of balance, fairness and impartiality. That means you will continue to hear a wide variety of perspectives in the stories CBC News covers, including views with which you might strongly disagree.
OK, let me explain something to you. There are different reasons why some outlets receive hate. Sometimes it’s because you don’t pass political purity tests. That’s fine because there are people who wrongly believe you have to report in every way they personally agree with (which is never going to happen). Sometimes, however, it’s because you’re doing something wrong. In this case, it is definitely the latter.
So, ultimately, the CBC’s response to all of this is to say that their reporting is perfect and it’s the audience who is wrong. As a result, they somehow feel the need to explain to their audience how journalism works because they do no wrong and it’s obvious that it’s the audience who is wrong. It’s asinine and patronizing. What’s more, it shows that organizations like the CBC has a general disdain towards their audience. As far a they are concerned, the audience’s job is to mindlessly nod their heads and agree with everything they have to say. I think this is a really stupid attitude to have.
Personally, I take a very different approach. I listen to my audience. If there is an issue with the facts that I publish, I’m happy to look into it – especially if there are resources on this that allow me to objectively learn something new. I care more about the accuracy of my reporting than going on an ego trip and saying that my knowledge is perfect and everyone else must eat out of my hands. It’s a radically different approach, but one that I am proud to have employed.
So, if the CBC’s attitude is that the audience that they have can go fuck themselves if they dare to criticize what they are reporting on, that is their choice. I consider it a really stupid and destructive choice, but that is the choice that they seem to be making with that piece. If the CBC continues to lose audience, I would not be surprised in the least.
Additional fun reading: The responses the CBC got on Bluesky.