Sheila Gunn-Reid and Mike Fagelman of Honest Reporting Canada (founded 2003) accuse CBC of systemic anti-Israel bias, citing a 5:1 source ratio and labeling extremist groups as "human rights" entities. Fagelman warns media framing fuels anti-Semitism, while Gunn-Reid critiques Mark Carney’s carbon tax as a cost-shifting ploy, comparing his leadership to Michael Ignatieff’s self-serving exit in 2006. Both segments highlight perceived media and political failures to reflect diverse perspectives or address public skepticism transparently. [Automatically generated summary]
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Does CBC have a chronic anti-Semitism problem?
And if so, what should become of the state broadcaster for it?
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
When was the last time you saw a pro-Israel voice amplified on the mainstream media?
I watched the mainstream media in the course of my job, you know, to hold them to account.
And frankly, I can't remember.
Well, there's an organization that points out that anti-Israel bias in the mainstream media and then acts to change it.
It's Honest Reporting Canada.
And joining me today is their executive director, Mike Fagelman, to talk about Honest Reporting Canada's work to hold the mainstream media to account and what they would like to see happen with regard to the CBC's pernicious anti-Israel bias.
Take a listen.
Joining me now is Mike Fagelman from Honest Reporting Canada.
Mike, I've never had you on the show.
That is to my great regret because I am such a follower of the important accountability journalism that Honest Reporting Canada does to hold people to account for not telling the full story.
Mike, tell us a little bit about what Honest Reporting Canada does.
Sure.
Well, thank you, Sheila, for having me on the program.
Honest Reporting Canada was conceived in 2003, and we do one thing and we do it really well.
We ensure fair and accurate Canadian media coverage of Israel.
We monitor all of Canada's news outlets, whether print, broadcast, electronic, academic, alternative, French, English, Arabic, trying to make sure that journalists are telling the truth.
They're not disguising their opinion as news, that they are doing what they are tasked to do, to be objective, to be neutral, and to provide real journalism of what's transpiring.
And it sounds like you have a very big job on your hands because it is really one-sided coverage.
And look, I'm the first person who will say I'm biased, but I'm not making anybody pay for it.
And I'm honest about that.
And I think the mainstream media frequently presents itself as completely unbiased, middle of the road, and then their coverage is anything but.
And then there's this extra layer of government funding added on the top of it, particularly with CBC.
But now, I guess, with the vast majority of media in this country, and I think if you're going to take government money and then simultaneously claim to be completely neutral on the issue, I think you have a real responsibility to at least try to present yourself that way.
Yeah, I mean, look, everybody has a bias.
It's impossible to deny that.
But a professional journalist is tasked to set those personal views aside.
And, you know, as it relates specifically to the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, which is, I think, if my numbers are correct, 1.4 billion annual funding of taxpayer dollars, the journalism, by and large, is tunnel vision of one-sided anti-Israel coverage, where there's a jaundiced view and a lack of a marketplace of ideas, certainly about Israel and the Middle East, where you have journalists who are effectively putting a magnifying glass on Israel.
Anything it does or does not do is under scrutiny.
And look, criticism is healthy.
It's part of a vibrant democracy.
But when that criticism singles out Israel for opprobrium and exclusive censure, that it demonizes the Jewish state, it holds it to an unfair double, even a triple standard, and it delegitimizes its very existence.
What that actually translates to is its complicity in the fanning of flames of hatred against the Jewish people and the nation state of the Jewish people.
So the stakes are very high.
And it's not a surprise to any of your viewers about what domestic Jewish community and worldwide Jewish community is experiencing, which is, quite frankly, it's not even a tidal wave of anti-Semitic Jew hatred.
It's a tsunami that is, quite frankly, become ubiquitous, where there's this normalization.
I might even say weaponization of toxic hatred against the Jewish people.
So I guess I'll ask you, what role do you think this one-sided journalistic coverage of Israel from, by and large, the mainstream media?
What do you think that role, what is the role in really exacerbating that, I'll be frank, the Jew hate we see on the streets of Canada's major municipalities?
I mean, it is like in Jewish communities, it's not just, you know, an anti-Semitic march, you know, through town.
It's now targeting Jewish communities.
And so I guess, what is the role of the one-sided media coverage of this?
Sure.
Well, look, if you look at what anti-Semitism is, it is an irrational hatred of Jews.
It is not that Jews did something or didn't do something that has caused this, but what the media coverage does is it provides fuel to the fire.
When Canadians are told that Israel is not a people who were on the receiving end of a genocide, but were the actual ones committing it, when they are told that they are inflicting upon the innocent Gazan population a famine that's permitting war crimes and ethnic cleansing, every possible buzzword without looking at the context, without actually doing its due diligence and providing the truth.
It's not a surprise that some of the media coverage ends up being a bit of a dog whistle to people that serves them with not just an incentive, but a rationale for them to specifically target the Jewish people.
And, you know, this in a climate where there's far too much of an allowance of passing a buck of responsibility for regular stakeholders, whether political or police, to actually try to rein on the hatred that is in our midst.
Yeah, I think it sort of legitimizes for people who hold this irrational Jew hate.
When they can point to the CBC and say, see, they said it on the CBC, it sort of justifies the way they feel.
And it is completely grounded in nothing.
I love how you said that.
It creates a veneer of legitimacy.
I mean, look, I'll tell you, Canadian journalists, by and large, my experience, sometimes feel like they're immune to criticism, which is, you know, not a surprise, but certainly not healthy.
And there's this lack of acknowledgement of their own fallibility, a lack of just a simple need to atone for their journalistic shortcomings.
I mean, I'll give you an example.
When we had CBC just a week or two weeks ago, who produced an article that depicted an organization that glorifies Hamas terrorism as being in parentheses, I quote, a human rights group.
This is not just a gross sanitization of real extremists in society.
This grants them that kind of a legitimacy.
So it's not a surprise that in a world of misinformation and disinformation, that it's so difficult to discern fact and fiction that our media are really complicit into misleading Canadians.
You know, I'm glad you brought that up because I was sort of thinking about how this all happens.
And there's a real playbook in a lot of these mainstream media organizations, CBC, Toronto Star, and some of the other ones.
And it is exactly what you pointed out, where they are not presenting the fulsome view of the person that they're talking to.
It's the catch-all phrase of a human rights activist.
Well, I believe I am that too, but I'm a lot of other things too.
And so they don't, you know, they say this is an anti-war activist or a human rights activist or an anti-Islamophobia activist, but they don't drill out and say, and they said these crazy things about the Jews and October 7th.
And again, it's dishonest at the end of the day.
It is.
And I would even argue that what you're pointing to, which is typically regarded as the most egregious form of media bias, which is bias by omission, is the most troublesome.
An example that's happened recurringly with CBC is they've platformed a Gaza-based quote-unquote, they say freelance journalist who is openly linked to the Iranian regime, works for Press TV, which is Iran's propaganda organ.
And if you go to his social media handle on Twitter or any of his other platforms, it's just open anti-Israel hate, pro-Hamas sympathies, talks about them having virtues of morality.
You know, this is somebody that CBC platforms who is, we believe, paid by the Iranian regime.
CBC doesn't disclose that this is somebody who is working for press TV and doesn't mention that the Canadian government in 2022 sanctioned press TV as an outlawed organization.
So the kind of concealing of this information, it serves to mislead Canadians who, you know, they should have a trust in their public broadcaster, but it's not a surprise that they don't.
So I guess talking about just the level of bias, what do you, and I'm going to ask you to just give your anecdotal assessment, unless you do have some scientific analysis of this, but what do you think the balance is of airtime given to these anti-Israel, anti-Semitic human rights activists versus, you know, Pro-Israel community members, organization, Sija, yours.
Like, what do you think is the weight between the two groups when you're watching broadcast or written publications?
Right.
I like how you framed it in terms of weighting, because what anybody wants on any issue, whether it's global international relations or local domestic politics, you want a balanced, equitable marketplace of ideas on an issue so that we can form our own answers and make our own judgment.
But as it relates to the CBCs and me making quite jaundice coverage of Israel in the Middle East, I would say you've got probably a five to one ratio in terms of sources that are anti-Israel versus pro-Israel.
And you have wall-to-wall different CBC programs, whether it's on radio or TV or the website, which are giving platforms to individuals who, whether they're NGOs or politicians or just extremists, to voice their concerns about anything Israel does or doesn't do, while very rarely giving an Israeli or pro-Israel commentator the opportunity to speak.
I cannot recall the last time I saw or heard a CBC radio or TV program that interviewed a pro-Israel spokesperson to speak about the issues of the day.
And you would think that, you know, both sides of the coin, but it's just not happening.
And even under scrutiny, CBC will argue: well, look, you have to look at things as if they're going to balance out over time.
You can't look at things in isolation.
And we'll say to them, look, if you go to our website, we flag in detail chapter and verse all of your reports.
And we do a quantitative and a qualitative analysis and we are proving that you are not providing balanced journalism, that this is a systemic issue.
And even the CBC's ombudsman in her recent reviews has said and has gone on record in saying that CBC has not proven that they are procuring balance in their reporting of Israel.
So, and I don't think that they care.
Again, I mentioned that the term immunity to criticism.
I think perhaps this is a badge of honor for them.
They have no shame, but the ramifications are very serious.
You know, what's reported today becomes domestic and even international policy.
Right.
What's reported today gives legitimacy to the guy on Shepard cause playing as Yahya Sinoir at the end of the day?
It does.
And look, you know, I'm a firm believer that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
And, you know, for Sheila, you're in Alberta, but I'm in Toronto.
There's this every, I believe it's every Friday, there's this rally where the antagonist, the anti-Israel community comes together.
You have a values cause playing as Sinoir.
And I would like to think that, you know, whether a news outlet would choose to cover it or not, I mean, Canadians need to know that there are people in society who extol the virtues that raping and murdering and mutilating, holding innocents hostage, that they believe that to be virtuous.
Independent Commission Feedback00:12:24
You know, this is the hate that is in our midst.
We have to name and shame this and expose it.
Now, I want to ask you about the ways that you do hold these media outlets to account.
And you've got a lot of different ways, but go through some of that because you do actually get corrections and changes sometimes to the reporting.
So it is all not just exposure.
I think when you measure something, you change it.
And I think you're doing some of that.
Thank you.
Well, look, actions are good.
Results are better.
And that's what matters more than anything.
You don't want to have to name and shame.
Oftentimes you are forced to do so when you have uncooperative leverage points at different media outlets.
But more often than not, we're able to bring our grievances to the attention of different leverage points at different media outlets to point out the facts that what they had said is just either historically inaccurate, it lacks attribution, it lacks balance.
Sometimes, you know, we'll say, look, we don't believe that you have an intent to malign Israel or the Jewish people, but that is the resultant outcome of the poor reporting.
You know, I don't think necessarily some journalists wake up every single day saying, I hate the Jews and I hate Israel.
I'm going to write something really negative.
There certainly are some of those, but there is no shortage of ignorance and naivete.
But what is really more troubling than anything is we're seeing a fundamental erosion of journalistic standards where you have, and I'll give an example, specifically as it relates to the CBC.
You have CBC journalists who write on Israel on a weekly basis, who in 2021 signed an open letter that encouraged, like a petition, encouraged more anti-Israel coverage.
And these are the people who are tasked to be so-called politically neutral journalists.
Some CBC employees have gone on social media and referred to supporters of Israel as being vile, right?
Like this is, you know, they're not shy and shielding their own personal views and animus about Israel.
And yet they're tasked and allowed to cover these issues.
In any other issue, whether it was about liberals or conservatives and NDP, imagine you had one side who was openly campaigning, advocating and championing one versus the other.
They would not be allowed to report.
But for Israel, it's again a unique, singular, triple, double standard that's really taking place.
So how frequently, if you complain to the ombudsman, how frequently does that affect change?
So the ombudsman, well, there's a new ombudsman at the CBC.
Ombudsman, I believe it's called now.
Ombud.
Yeah, we got to be politically correct.
So, you know, we'll judge favorably because it's, I think she's only within a couple of weeks in the new role.
So it's an unknown at this point.
But more often than not, we have a, we average about a 70% success ratio in terms of bringing our concerns to a media outlet's attention and securing some kind of a remedy.
That might be a correction.
That might be an internal acknowledgement of shortcomings.
It might be a journalist who is reprimanded or re-signed.
It might be future coverage about an issue that will provide more balance.
It's something.
Well, like it's something that you can push these people in the right direction because you are really pushing uphill, quite frankly.
There's no question it's an uphill battle, but it's education and trying to sensitize journalists about these very issues.
It's a long play.
There's no question.
Well, and I think, too, we don't know the psychological impact of knowing how having somebody watching you constantly might color your work next time around, too.
Well, we hope that that, let's call it vigilance. that we provide will cause a course correction for journalists that before they're actually going to do a news article, knowing that we are watching everything they say and do, perhaps they're going to ensure that there's a pro-Israel source quoted in their report or they'll be more careful with the language that they use.
And on top of just being an organization, we have a grassroots subscriber membership of about 60,000 Canadians.
So they are very much so our eyes and ears.
They're also more often than not the consumers of the news that these news outlets are providing.
So, and I should also say, you know, Israel makes mistakes.
We're not flanking apologists for Israel.
Of course.
It's deserving of criticism.
And I think they're mindful of that.
I think journalists worth their salt, who appreciate and understand that, will take that into account.
Now, I want to ask you specifically about CBC, because Honest Reporting Canada is calling for an independent commission to investigate CBC's anti-Israel bias.
Why do you think this warrants an independent commission?
It does.
It does because what we are experiencing, the kind of culture of immunity, when complaints are filed by us or Canadians as it relates to coverage of Israel and matters affecting Jewish community with respect to the CBC, the responses by and large are overwhelmingly evasive.
A refusal to cause a course correction, a refusal to really atone for the fundamental misrepresentation of the issues.
So if CBC is not going to make any changes, there really just has to be an independent commission that will really do a deep dive, independent investigation.
At this point, we are not optimistic that internally that the powers that be will take any kind of change.
And effectively, what we're experiencing is the kind of pass-the-buck mentality of responsibility.
So the stakes are really high.
We believe very much so that the kind of poor and biased journalism that the CBC is producing is causing a lot of the anti-Semitism that is in our midst.
Now, let's say an independent commission finds CBC has a systemic racism problem.
What consequences would you be seeking or hoping for if that were the case?
That's an interesting theoretical, right?
I mean, internally, you would like to think that if there is an independent arm's length investigation that proves with veracity and credibility that there's a systemic problem, you'd like to think that that is there's going to have to be changes within the journalistic standards and practices, which is the sort of editorial code of conduct that CBC has, but also in the sense that they have to actually do some due diligence in making sure that they're providing balanced coverage.
And that's not just a statement, but it has to be an effort towards some kind of achievement of a ratio.
The other is I think there will have to be a cultural change from within the ranks of the CBC.
I don't think it's a surprise for any of your viewers to hear that there is, I think pretty systemically a very strident left view at the CBC, kind of a herd mentality as it relates to how they view different issues and the kind of reporting.
And again, we're talking hundreds, perhaps thousands of plays.
I'm not entirely sure.
But if an investigation proves that, and through program after program, there's going to definitely, we would recommend changes as it relates to the kind of story selection that they're going to do, the kind of lexicon that they appropriate, which is oftentimes very misleading, and certain cultural shifts and really an acceptance of having and platforming pro-Israel views to the Canadian audience.
Yeah, like I think their mandate involves reflecting the diversity of Canada, but it seems pretty homogeneous when you watch their broadcast coverage.
I mean, I would be happy if they just had one on your actual conservative, but I can't name one.
I think what passes for one is Andrew Coyne, and that's my criticism of the CBC and not yours.
Sure.
And I like how you focused on their mandate because it is a betrayal of that mandate.
And that's why we have the CRTC to really also investigate what's transpiring because this is bigger than just our organization, even the Jewish community.
This is very much so a Canadian issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would love to see some strings hatched to all of that money that we give them every single year.
Now, I promise you 20 minutes, we're at 22 right now.
I just want to give you an opportunity to invite people, maybe people who are just finding out about Honest Reporting Canada.
And I know a lot of my journalism relies on your original source reporting.
How do people get involved?
How do they support Honest Reporting Canada?
Because from what I can tell here, kind of a mom and pop shop there.
Not a lot of overhead at Honest Reporting Canada, but you're doing a lot of good work.
Yeah, look, as they say, we punch above our weight.
So we're a very lean team.
There's no question about it.
I would encourage any of your viewers to go to our website, www.honestreporting.ca, subscribe to our alerts.
We're 100% free.
Effectively, our goal is to embrace, to educate, and to empower Canadians to really be vigilant media monitors and hold Canadian news organizations, specifically the CBC accountable for their journalism.
We're also here to help in any possible way in terms of helping to draft and craft literally editor outreach to journalists, engage in cooperation with different news outlets and to try to foster change.
Well, Mike, thanks so much for the work that you do to hold the Canadian media landscape to account.
I think that's sort of a little bit of what we do over here at Rebel News.
But I just appreciate you telling the other side of the story of not just Israel, but Canada's Jewish community as well.
It's my absolute pleasure.
Thank you very much.
The last segment of the show is always yours because without you, there's no rebel news.
You hold us to account.
You really do.
And I appreciate that.
If you'd like to send me feedback on the show today, it's Sheila at RebelNews.com.
Let me know what you think.
Do you think there's a pernicious, my word, anti-Israel bias, not just in the mainstream media, but really specifically at the state broadcaster?
I think there is.
Is there any balance in their journalism?
And look, they claim to be balanced.
I do not.
And I don't want you to be forced to pay for my biases.
I think the arc of facts bend toward conservatism.
And if you don't like it, that's okay.
Because I'm not going to make you pay for it.
You can watch me or not.
You can flip me off.
I will be okay because there are people like you at home who support the work that we do out of your desire to have us live on another day.
Now, if you want to send me feedback and you don't want to send me an email, do me a favor.
Send a version of the show.
If you're watching a clip of the show on YouTube or Rumble, send it to your friends.
I want to know what your friends and non-subscribers have to say about our work because ideally, one day I would love to convert them to becoming subscribers.
Mark Carney's Bad Decisions00:06:31
So, you know, if they send me feedback and maybe they want to hear if I read their feedback, they might just have to pick up an eight buck a month subscription to Rebel News.
And you get my show, as you know, Ezra's show and a lot of extras as well.
Now, today's viewer feedback comes to us by way of YouTube on my show with my friend Chris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Last week, we were talking about Mark Carney and the carbon tax and how he really is the architect of the carbon tax as we know it.
Now he's sort of backing away from this version of the carbon tax.
He wants to move it upstream, take it away from the consumer and put it on the upstream producers, which of course will just pass it along to the consumer at the end of the day because that's how cost inputs work.
Some economist, he is.
What he wants to do is make sure that you can't see the carbon tax when you're looking at the cost of your gas bill.
I mean, you already can't see it in your grocery bill, but he wants to make it even less visible to you.
He wants to hide the inflationary nature of his carbon tax from your priful peasant eyes.
So, Wes Spruill5779 says, My carbon tax is already more than the natural gas on my bill.
Yeah, I think that's the experience of a lot of people.
Now, Mark Carney doesn't want you to know that.
He doesn't want you to look at your gas bill and see the outrageousness of paying more in tax than you are for the goods that you're purchasing.
So he wants to hide that upstream.
So you'll just say, oh my goodness, natural gas is outrageously priced without being able to see what portion of that is his carbon tax.
Carney sounds like a funeral director.
Yes, he is a bit of an energy vampire, isn't he?
How did I describe his rallies?
Look like God's waiting room.
Everybody looks sort of disoriented and tired.
And I think some of that comes from listening to someone as uncharismatic as Mark Carney speak.
But I also think it has a lot to do with the demographic he appeals to.
And I think young people are overwhelmingly conservative these days in this country.
And that warms the cockles of my overtaxed heart on this minus 36 Alberta day.
Jody, WO5 VP, says, and everybody thought Trudeau was deadly.
Carney will make him look like a saint.
Yes.
Yeah.
Carney is, I think, it's hard to explain Mark Carney.
He is the headwaters of all the bad WEF ideas that flowed into Trudeau's empty bucket of a brain.
And I think he's trying to lean into his, like, I'm a senior economist boringness without actually being a good senior economist, if you listen to Liz Truss of the UK.
Stephen Harper was an economist and boring, but there was something so, I don't know Mr. Rogersy. about him and his boring Lego hair that you didn't think he was lying to you about what he planned to do.
And I think Canadians feel as though Mark Carney is full of BS.
And of course he is, because as we've seen, he will say one thing about pipelines in English, or at least energy projects, by which he means green energy projects.
In English, he will invoke the emergencies, powers of the government to get those things done.
And then in French, he'll say, actually, we're going to give Quebec a veto over any energy projects that might go through Quebec, which is exactly how we're in this mess in the first place without an East-West pipeline in a country that has the world's third largest oil and gas resources.
Can you imagine?
What a joke of a country we are sometimes.
All right.
And the curse of common sense says, at the WEF summit, Carney said he's European.
Changing the clown doesn't make the circus better.
I've never heard that phrase before, but I think that's really quite prescient.
Yeah, Mark Carney has three passports, says he's a European.
I don't know if he has a primary residence in Canada.
I'm doubtful.
But remember all the trouble, the outrage that we saw from the liberals when they uncovered that Andrew Scheer was a dual citizen because one of his parents was American and they were all like, oh my God, dual allegiances.
Mark Carney's got three.
And like, I don't know if you're old enough to remember the attack ads against liberal leader Michael Ignatiev, but the conservatives ran these very effective attack ads.
And you know how I know they were effective?
Because here I am like almost two decades later and I remember them like they were yesterday.
And it was, he didn't come back for you.
As in, he came back to be in charge.
And if he's not going to get to be in charge, he's going to leave.
So Mark Carney has been making these bad decisions for Canadians from somewhere else because why would he want to live with the consequences of his policies?
Where the rest of us are poor peasants, we can't leave.
We're stuck here with his bad ideas.
And Mark Carney will come and go as quickly.
So if he, let's say he wins the leadership and then runs in the next election and loses, which he definitely will.
Will he stay on as an MP if he runs in a safe riding?
You know, like, will he be the liberal leader and an MP and not in power in the prime minister's office?
Would he settle for that?
Doubtful.
This is my prediction.
He'll Pull a Michael00:00:36
I'll be surprised if I'm wrong.
He'll pull a Michael Ignatiev, come back, try to be in charge of us.
Once the peasants have an uprising and say, no, no, no, he'll just leave and go back to the UK, go back to being a European, I think.
I don't think I'm wrong.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
I'm happy to introduce you to the good folks doing the great work over at Honest Reporting Canada.
As always, if you want to send me an email, sheila at rebelnews.com.
And as always, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much Think.