http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Worthington_Peter/2006/09/14/1837879.html
CBC Suspension Unfair to Reporter
By PETER WORTHINGTON
It seems incredible that the CBC would suspend a TV reporter for writing a letter praising our troops in Afghanistan.
Yet that’s what the CBC has done to Radio-Canada TV reporter Christine St-Pierre for writing an open letter to La Presse saying our soldiers deserve respect and support.
CBC spokesman Marc Pichette said she’s been “relieved of her functions” indefinitely, because she “infringed” on a number of CBC rules which stipulate that employees aren’t allowed to express opinions on controversial issues.
To most people this is nuts. To the CBC it is the essence of objectivity. And it is unmitigated horsefeathers.
The CBC, arguably, is the least “objective” of any news organization in Canada. Listen to CBC Radio’s Cross Canada Checkup for empirical evidence of CBC “objectivity.” For every caller who expresses one view, another caller is chosen to express the opposite view. It is selective balance to appear impartial and inoffensive and leaves the listener stranded.
Objectivity is impossible in journalism. Every reporter has to distill or compress what he or she sees or hears into a television or radio soundbite, or a condensed version in print. The reporter, subjectively, chooses what is newsworthy.
But while objectivity is impossible, fairness is attainable by all. And fairness is precisely what the CBC lacks.
I don’t know anything about Christine St-Pierre, but praise for our troops in no way disqualifies her from fair and honest reporting, and that’s what we should want from journalists.
“We owe you all our respect and our unfailing support,” she wrote of soldiers. “Your tears are not in vain, your tears are brave” (whatever that means). These sentiments don’t necessarily imply approval for the mission in Afghanistan. Jack Layton and the nutty NDP oppose the mission, but insist they respect individual soldiers.
During the invasion of Iraq, the CBC withdrew its staff from Baghdad when bombs were falling and depended on the U.S. networks for coverage. Some objectivity! The CBC refused to allow its reporters to be embedded with attacking American troops because it feared their reports would be slanted in favour of the Americans. How insulting to its own reporters.
In the Kosovo war (wrong and unnecessary in my view), the CBC ran a fabricated documentary about a young woman who supposedly joined the Kosovo resistance because her young sister was killed by Serbs — which turned out to be a lie; the sister wasn’t killed and the woman was with the resistance.
The CBC refuses to run award-winning documentaries by Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard about our troops on hazardous missions, one suspects because they make our soldiers look good.
On 9/11, of all Toronto radio stations that terrible day, only CBC Radio didn’t interrupt scheduled broadcasting to cover what was happening in New York. Shameful.
Even the late Pierre Trudeau bellyached about the separatist slant of the CBC when the terrorist FLQ was in the news. During the Cold War, the CBC was more agitated about possible CIA activity in Canada than KGB subversion. A ranking KGB officer was once a CBC soundman.
Now the CBC punishes a reporter who stands up for Canadian soldiers and her country. Sadly, St-Pierre seems to agree that she’s sacrificed her objectivity. To which I say, Christine, you never had objectivity but you had fairness, which is a reporter’s most precious commodity.
