Canada's National broadcaster is inept
They are not practising journalism, and they do not pursue an agenda that currently has purpose in our society. If they don't change, they are not long for this world.
I am affronted, appalled, dismayed, and disgusted by the CBC today.
The CBC is supposed to be a resource and support average people. It’s a network of information that Canadians can use to know what’s happening across our vast country into the places that no one else can go.
They are supposed to be independent, and generally I think they are. That being said, they’re Liberal party coded. In part this is because the Conservatives want to defund them, and in part because they play into this absolute centrism both sideseyness that places like CTV and the New York Times and whomever else play into.
They don’t generally do journalism, they’re the commentators at a sports match. “He did this. She did this.” Often they write an article saying, “Johnny killed 12 people. Here’s what Johnny had to say about that.” They then proceed to quote the murderer and talk about his feelings.
Or they write headlines like “Trans people want to live their lives. Here’s why Adam thinks they don’t deserve to.”
I want to be clear that I want the CBC & Radio-Canada to be well funded, robust institutions. I think they’re necessary for Canadian democracy. They maintain an important information network for Canadians, particularly in remote locations such as the territories, indigenous land, and rural regions. Without them, who will cover the annual wildfires?
The article that stood out today?
As U.S. escalates threats on Maduro, some Venezuelans welcome regime change
So why is this headline supporting US Imperialism? What is the point of this article?
If you read the article (don’t.) it goes on to expound on why a bunch of random people want a regime change. It doesn’t address the severe violence that this will entail. It doesn’t discuss the infrastructural destruction, the moral implications, or the history of regime change. No, instead it details how Trump can find the legal justification for an invasion.
The US has been air striking fishing boats in Venezuela, claiming they’re members of a drug cartel. Reports have come out that they are not– the families of those being murdered have attested to it being just random fishermen.
Instead of the CBC highlighting the plight of victims they support the USA in their regime change goals. We can certainly assume that some Venezuelans would want a regime change– that makes sense.
Hell, I want a regime change in Canada as well, I’m tired of a centrist neo-liberal government.
But this is supporting a violent imperialist country overthrowing the leader of a sovereign nation.
Did the CBC just decide to forget one hundred years of context? For a media that claims to follow facts and always give context they sure didn’t do it here. In an article written by the editorial staff (I won’t be saying his name, because people are insane on the internet) the CBC said,
“...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… The job of a CBC News journalist is to report facts, to proportionately surface the variety of viewpoints that exist about those facts, to provide context and counter narratives where they exist, and to ensure credible analysis is in the mix. The goal is to give you a 360-degree view of a story so you can draw your own conclusions.”
These people don’t know what journalism is.
Fundamentally journalism has a few principles that have been historically accepted until somewhere around the invention of the Trump presidency. Journalism has a couple basic functions that are necessary for democracy.
Watchdog– to keep power accountable.
Fact checking– do not publish false facts, and if falsities are quoted, explain why it’s wrong.
Reporting on “what’s happening.” The Canadian Press does this in Canada. AP and Reuters do it in the States. When you read the Canadian press, it’s five sentences that only say facts and nothing else. That’s how you do this.
Context and meaning to world events
Analysis and Civil discourse like what I’m doing in this article. Op eds are only useful if they’re analytical in nature. People like Matthieu Bock Cote and Richard Martineau are braindead, and have no place in legitimate journals.
Where is any of this in an article that approves of the invasion of a south american country by an imperialist country?
But don’t worry, Radio Canada gifted us with another disastrous article today.
Des propriétaires peinent de plus en plus à trouver des locataires à Montréal (Landlords are struggling more and more to find renters in Montreal.)
Once again, the focus is on the people with power. If you are a landlord, you have power over people’s lives. Landlords are controlling the livelihood and ability to survive of those who are often poor and working class. They hold an enormous power over renters, and can do more or less whatever they want. Our system is built for landowners, it always has been. So why is the CBC supporting the status quo? They can produce amazing reports on fascist fitness clubs, and break open government failures around the opioid crisis, but then they can’t hold landlords accountable?
I don’t want to minimize real struggle here– owning a house is tough in 2025. Renovation costs have more than doubled, and houseowners have it tough. Yet there aren’t endless articles about how tough renters have it. There’s hardly any reporting from the national broadcasters about the abhorrent living conditions of renters, and the abuses of landlords, and illegal evictions that happen constantly.
There’s hardly reporting about people who live in conditions that are against Canadian law.
The CBC/Radio Canada is mostly failing at its one job. It’s easy to nit pick and go over texts with a fine toothed comb in order to critique and pull out things that are not great about writing and opinions– you could easily do it to me.
The problem is that it doesn’t take a fine toothed comb to pick out the disastrous state of most CBC journalism.
A journalist from Radio-Canada, Gil Courtemanche, said in a 2001 interview, “Objectivity is nonsense. It’s complicity. You have to choose your side. You have to choose the side of the victim.”
25 years ago, these journalists were the ones at the heart of our national broadcaster. Today, those who are in the institution worship at the altar of “objectivity” without any purpose, they reject any other approach.
They stand for nothing. They fight for nothing. And they will change nothing.
It’s this failure to be an institution that defends the principles of journalism that makes people dismiss it as a bourgeois, liberal coded institution.
It’s because in its current form, it’s exactly those things.