Wednesday 1 October 2008

Is CBC a nest of left-wing vipers?

[Update2: Oct 2 - CBC said it will meeting a reporter - Isabelle Guilbeault, who reports on arts for the morning radio show in Quebec City - for recorded a 30-second filmed spot for a campaign called "Unite our voices" to protest Conservative cuts in culture subsidies and prevent the party's re-election.]

I am beginning to think that anyone who works for the Federal Government should be dis-enfranchised (not permitted to vote in Federal elections) due to the the conflict of interest they find themselves. Honest! Liberals and NDP mostly all work for the Government. If they really has to earn an honest day's wage they couldn't cut it.

[Update1: Sept 30 - CBC accepts the blog has generated substantial criticism and has "pulled the piece".
Head of News - John Cruickshank states the problem lies not with the piece but editorial control and lack of diversity in viewpoint. ]

This blog by CBC Journalist Heather MALLICK raised a stink at the National Post. Johnathon KAY also logged in on basically the same topic. When she was at the Globe & Mail I rarely gave Ms. MALLICK much attention.



I do think that such unadulterated smears demean any news organization that allows them, but that is for the to CBC to decide. Sometimes news organizations hear from their readers via letter campaigns, from subjects in defamation and libel lawsuits, customers "voting with their feet" and even shareholders.

However the CBC is a different news organization than Canwest Global, the CTV/Globe & Mail or Torstar in as much as it is taxpayer funded. So I think the point made is "should our tax dollars be used against us?".

The breadth and power of the state to abuse should not be overlooked, under-estimated or unappreciated. I merely point to the antic's of the many HRC's across the country - which have allowed an instrument of the state to trammel unhindered over many innocent lives with little or no recourse to stop any abuse of individuals rights. We can see the same circumstances in Education, Law Courts and Healthcare - where rights of the majority have been subjugated to attack by various vocal minorities.
  • Incorrect testing by a lab at a Newfoundland Healthcare Region for 6 years led to 386 cancer patients receiving an improper diagnosis of their cancer illness. Clearly, bureaucratic procedures and attitudes protected the bureaucrats and inhibited discovery of errors that led to many untimely deaths. (It is very difficult to conclusively untangle exactly how many premature deaths occured from mis-diagnosis - or how much it may have directly reduced their lifespan and ending quality of life - versus what may have happened if the cancers were properly treated.) 3, 4
These are examples of government departments using rules and regulation created by other government departments to abuse it's own citizen's. Intervention in any of these situations is a Kafkaesque experience and practically impossible to effect except through a Supreme Court challenge. Personal accountability is removed from bureaucrats as they are merely following "the law". If they zealously "over-interpret the law" it is not possible for mere individual citizens to easily correct them until they have destroyed a vast number of people with their injustice. Such is the power of the state.

How are these issue relevant to the CBC? Many will defend the CBC as a top tier news organization, and I would not disagree. I depend on it mightily and I can usually count on them getting the facts right and eventually they get the context or interpretation right as well. Still others - supporters from left and right - will defend the CBC as being representative of many left and right-wing viewpoints. That would at least be fair. Sort of like the deary "free time political broadcasts" that used to clutter the airwaves just before the signed-off for the night. The full spectrum of political viewpoints should be represented at the CBC because it is a state run organization. Canada should not emulate Russia 's media control.

Unfortunately I believe the ranks of the CBC are filled with nothing BUT left-wing and liberal supporters - much like many other federal government departments. If they could be trusted to bring even-handed and balanced viewpoints to the table they would not be accused of political bias, but they don't and they haven't. There is no pressure to advocate for right-wing, conservative viewpoints at the CBC, just the need to sing along with their comrade brothers and sisters. They are subject to group-think of the worst kind. This is because they are - like the examples above - organized as instruments of the state and lack the controls that govern private behaviour and organizations.

Therefore, surgery is required at the CBC.

reference - http://www.heathermallick.ca/home/

Footnotes:
1) National Post Sept 2, 2008 "When Jill wants to be a Jack". According to Statscan "Gay Pride: by the numbers" 1.5% of the adult population +18 self identify as Homosexual (Gay or Lesbian). How is it that 98.5% of the population must bow to the apparent wishes of 1.5%?

2) National Post Oct 1, 2008 "Charles Smith Inquiry" 20 of 45 criminally suspicious deaths he investigated between 1991 and 2001 were found to be in error in reviews by other pathologists. Among these cases lie the wreckage of families destroyed by convictions of "shaken baby syndrome" where parents were sent to jail.

3)
It is unknowable how many succumbed to the cancer due to improper treatment at an early stage, but one can assume it was - eventually - all of them (or whatever the incidence of untreated cancer is). Nurse tells Inquiry of painful calls to widowers - CBC News Sept 23, 2008

4) There must be some kind of "secret bee dance" among bureaucratic organizations that drives them to "play nice" with each other and adopt common legal barriers amongst themselves. To wit how the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons were on the brink of changing their Standards of Practice to prohibit Doctors from exercising their right of personal conscience in advising treatment for client's to avoid potential HRC prosecutions this summer. Opposition from members and the national organization led to the amendment being withdrawn.

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