Thread by @harrisonlowman on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "THREAD: When you make complaints about patterns of bias or skewed reporting on the CBC, you are often met by CBC supporters who proceed to demand a list of examples. When they don’t receive it immediately from you, they proceed to tell you you’re the biased one, …. that “it’s in your head.” It feels like a bit of gaslighting to be honest. So let me, as someone who has worked at the CBC, provide you a prime example of CBC coverage I think is glaringly biased and you can tell me what you think:
Earlier this summer, the CBC published this radio/TV story. The webpage version is headlined “Supervised drug site at Kingston prison has only had one visitor despite being open since 2023” The story details a trial project where prisoners at a Kingston-area prison have been given the ability to inject, snort, or swallow the drugs they’ve smuggled into their cells under the supervision of a nurse. The news hook is that only ONE inmate has visited the site since its inception more than a YEAR ago. The CBC journalist then proceeds to interview three people: 1. someone running the program, 2. a retired academic expert sympathetic to the program wanting it expanded, and 3. a former inmate who was not in jail when the program started. All sources appear generally in approval of the pilot program.
In the story:
- At no time does the journalist speak to someone who sees this pilot program as the wrong approach. Keep in mind a recent Abacus poll shows a mere 19% of Canadians support expanding safe injection sites. (You’re literally ignoring the vast majority of the population here.)
- At no time does the journalist reveal the cost of said program: a whopping $517,000 taxpayer dollars so that a SINGLE inmate could get high.
- Nor do they speak to someone who says (as many in the public would rightly ask) if given the cost and almost non-existent use, whether it’s worth continuing the program, or whether there’s a better way to spend this money within the corrections system- rehabilitation etc.
Instead the CBC journalist exclusively focusses on the “barriers” to using the jail drug program, implying this all that can change- ie. look at making it easier for the inmates to use drugs.
The coverage, highlighting barriers:
- implies that they should operate at night, because it’s current hours “don’t line up with when inmates want to get high.”;
-In the written version of the article: source: “They'd prefer to take drugs during their free time after supper.”
- That prisoners need to be allowed to smoke crystal meth as part of the program.
- That prisons need to make it so using the program won’t mean users getting unwanted attention from fellow inmates, officers…etc.
Last week, CBC News’ general manager and editor in chief Brodie Fenlon (@brodiefenlon) said: “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.” “…We don't shy away from contrarian views or perspectives that challenge orthodoxy.” “The best journalism often involves facts and viewpoints that challenge our own worldview.”
In what world is this a 360 degree view of this story? In what world is this a story that challenges orthodoxy? Instead, this coverage appears to tell viewers the CBC approves of safe injection sites…for criminals, and doesn’t prioritize taxpayer $ waste in its coverage. With this story, CBC is just clearly not meeting their own journalistic standards, and are failing to adequately inform the public. There’s your example. Tell me I’m wrong. The CBC must do better. I plan to launch a complaint with the CBC ombudsman. It won’t be my first."
CBC media bias is a far right myth
Harrison Lowman: Why conservatives despise the CBC, why they can’t wait to tear it to shreds, and why they have a point - "I was once a CBC employee. For about six months in 2016-2017, I worked as a producer on the flagship business show On the Money in Toronto. While it was clear the building leaned Left, with a colleague once asking me why I was reading the late great National Post journalist Christie Blatchford because she was “batshit,” the staff I worked with in the business newsroom were kind and professional. Many who worked there and still work there are trying to serve the public by keeping the country informed... But over the past decade or so, the national broadcaster has failed to mirror large swaths of the country back at itself. By speaking to an increasingly smaller segment of the population—the progressive, educated, urban elite—it is overlooking religious, right-of-centre, rural, working class, younger male, and less-educated Canadians, to name a few. “The CBC is not contributing to consensus reality. It is an ideologically captured institution that is listened to by an increasingly fewer number of people exactly because it does not reflect Canadian reality,” said Canadian writer Stephen Marche, on the podcast Canadaland this year. “I hear Stephen’s complaint from a substantial number of the CBC employees I know,” admitted veteran political journalist Paul Wells... What I tried to express to Elamin on air is that he and his CBC colleagues often have a tone problem. It’s been described to me as a “preachy” “patronizing” “we know best” “talking down to you” way of speaking on air. “The tone” was on full display during the broadcaster’s recent interview with John Rustad, in which a CBC radio host accused the BC Conservative leader of efforts to “scare people” because his recent election campaign (in which his party received 43.3 percent of the popular vote) focused on drugs, crime, and gender identity in schools. He said Rustad, “saw the world…in a way that’s a dangerous awful place.” This tone gives listeners the sense that to not agree with the progressive worldview doesn’t just mean you are wrong, but that you are a bad person. I also told Elamin the CBC has a coverage problem. Social justice issues, of course, deserve to be a slice of the stories the broadcaster covers. But as a daily CBC listener, they currently make up a massive piece of their coverage pie. I encourage readers to randomly turn on CBC at any point in the day and see how long it takes before you hear a story about racial discrimination, gender equity, or Indigenous justice. I also often find myself anxiously waiting at the end of news reports for another side of the story I know exists—whether it’s about MAID, opioid drug policy, or immigration levels. Instead, the report often just fades to black. In 2020, when the Newfoundland government eliminated its Discovery Day, which for nearly 60 years marked Italian explorer John Cabot’s European discovery of the province, it was interesting that CBC reporters could not find a single person in the province to interview who opposed the change. This year, when the landmark and nuanced Cass Report on gender identity services for young people was released, the CBC devoted one article to it, which failed to feature a single proponent of the study. Instead, it quoted three doctors who opposed it. This came after they quoted critics of the Saskatchewan government’s pronoun policy five times more than supporters, even though critics make up just 14 percent of the population. Some views just don’t seem worthy of being recorded by the CBC, even if they are views held by sizable portions of the Canadian public... Nearly 45 percent of Canadians now say they will vote Conservative in the next election. But when these Canadians turn on the broadcaster they pay for and can’t hear their mainstream views expressed, it’s enough for them to switch off... The CBC’s precarious position has been made even worse by the fact that their current CEO Catherine Tait has squandered six years of runway that could have been used to address these mistakes—giving these Canadians a real sense that their public broadcaster is listening and self-reflective, accepting some blame, and making changes. To do so would have required a full-scale top-down remaking of the way it approaches journalism, similar to the realignment The New York Times is attempting, having realized it also abandoned its right-leaning readers. Instead, Tait adopted the same “holier than thou” defiant tone of our increasingly loathed Liberal prime minister. She tripled down on prioritizing DEI hiring (86.8 percent of new recruits are “racialized, Indigenous, or persons with disabilities”) over bringing on people who think differently. She is unable to name a single CBC conservative commentator. When challenged, she told critics they were mistaken because the CBC is actually a “beacon of truth in a sea of fake news.”... CBC journalists I speak to despise her for this. My Conservative source says she has directly contributed to the CBC’s forthcoming demise. Others joke that she is a right-wing Manchurian candidate whose mission is to take down the broadcaster from the inside... No less than six CBCers, including a few of its most well-known hosts, have privately messaged me to tell me the criticisms I made above were valid. It’s frustrating to receive this feedback because it means that even big names inside the building are aware the organization is failing many Canadians, but feel they are unable to seriously change things from within."
Clearly he has no idea what he's talking about and is just an ignorant conservative
Hamit Coskun fined after burning a copy of the Quran in London - "A man who burned a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London has been found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence. Hamit Coskun, 50, shouted abusive comments about Islam as he held the flaming book aloft in Rutland Gardens in Knightsbridge on 13 February. On Monday he was found guilty at Westminster Magistrates Court of the offence and of using disorderly behaviour, and fined £240 with a statutory surcharge of £96. District Judge John McGarva said Coskun's conduct was "provocative and taunting" and told him "you have a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers"... The judge said Coskun's hatred of Islam had stemmed from his experiences in Turkey "and the experiences of your family"... Judge McGarva said he "did not accept" Coskun's claim that his criticism was of Islam in general and not its adherents. Coskun had posted on social media that he was protesting against the "Islamist government" of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who the defendant allegedly said had "made Turkey a base for radical Islamists and is trying to establish a Sharia regime", prosecutors said. Coskun said in a statement that his conviction was "an assault on free speech and will deter others from exercising their democratic rights". A Humanists UK spokesperson has said the case does "raise concerns" and the bar for prosecutions is too low. They said: "When blasphemy laws were repealed in 2008, it was a victory for freedom of expression. "We must make sure that public order legislation is not used to disproportionately target speech – even offensive speech – on religious matters, thereby chilling legitimate criticism and expression." Judge McGarva said he did not view the case as an attempt to expand blasphemy laws. He said that burning a religious book, although offensive to some, was not necessarily disorderly, but that other factors (including Islamophobic comments made in police interviews) made it so on this occasion."
He should just have burnt a Torah and said he was protesting against Zionism and Israel
Britain is no longer the country we Americans thought it was - "I expect the British Left to be as indignant and in denial as the establishment in Washington DC is about crime. Now Donald Trump has temporarily taken over local law enforcement in the city, the Leftist establishment and the national media are claiming that violent crime is lower than in recent years. This ignores some inconvenient realities. First, unreliable numbers. The city has reportedly just settled a lawsuit from a whistleblowing police officer who had alleged that her supervisors were re-classifying serious crimes as lesser offences, to flatter the city’s crime statistics. Second, even the supposedly lower murder rate puts Washington among the most dangerous cities in the nation... The Left likes to pretend that the real villains in the fight for free speech are people like Kathleen Stock, Maya Forstater, and JK Rowling, who courageously state objective truth, rather than the gender ideologues trying to force women to accept men in their changing rooms, prisons, and shelters. George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and other writers of the early 20th century predicted a future where the populace was dumbed down, repressed, and fed information by an authoritarian state. In the dystopian futures they imagined in 1984 and Brave New World, independent, critical thinking was banned and speech violators were punished. That sounds like the logical destiny of Britain if it maintains its present course. There is already a semi-official dogma on gender ideology, immigration, and crime which it is costly to challenge. Censorship and group-think get worse if not disrupted. Instead of rejecting America’s criticism in high dudgeon, I hope Britain will heed the warning of its Atlantic cousins and return to the people their right to speak their minds. For the land of Magna Carta to slowly sink into repression and state control would be a great injustice to Britain’s present inhabitants, and an insult to our ancestors’ work of centuries."
Britain is now ruled by the unelected and the unaccountable - "When they’re not tearing down St George’s flags and Union Jacks or cancelling firework displays for fear of killing pandas, they’re busy enforcing diversity and inclusion nonsense that no one asked for. Similarly, we had no say whatsoever in Britain’s leading institutions taking the knee for Black Lives Matter, a movement that advocates defunding the police. It was foisted on an unsuspecting nation in the name of “equality”, despite there being nothing remotely democratic about the dictatorial nature of shouting “racist!” at anyone who refused to sign up to its divisive theatrics. Political activism used to be the preserve of the politically active. If you didn’t want to get involved, you weren’t cancelled; you weren’t threatened with violence or forced into hiding simply for expressing a contrary opinion. We used to agree to disagree. But a cult of the unelected has infected public life. Take, for instance, the ironically named Muslim Vote brigade, which no one has actually voted for. The organisation’s own website states: “Is this a political party? No, we are a loose collective.” And yet this sectarian bunch of rabble rousers endorsed pro-Gaza candidates tactically at the last general election without having to conform to the requirements of being a political party. Its unelected and unaccountable activists are among those now pushing for an Islamophobia definition that threatens to kill free speech and embolden extremists in this country. Such is the lack of transparency, that even elected ministers seem unwilling to say exactly who has been invited to take part in what appears to be a rigged consultation. Again, I ask, who voted for this? There was no mention of redefining Islamophobia in the 2024 Labour party manifesto. Similarly, I don’t recall there ever being a mass public clamour for institutions like the National Trust to diverge from its core mission of conservation to carry out lengthy investigations into colonialism and slavery. The push for Britain to start apologising for its past has come from the unelected and unaccountable, not voters... Little wonder they are in revolt. Epping’s court victory in closing The Bell migrant hotel shows what is possible when elected representatives actually respond to local concerns and needs. People in other areas blighted by illegal immigration will rightly demand similar justice. This week we learnt that unelected and unaccountable Home Office civil servants have been housing migrants in Portsmouth – without even telling the council, let alone its constituents. As in Epping, the council is on its taxpayers’ side, but that’s often not the case. Reform councillors are fast discovering that there is an imbalance in local authorities across the UK which has seen unelected chief executives, seemingly drunk on delegated powers, run roughshod over the elected representatives in their midst. In Warwickshire, Reform’s 19-year-old council leader George Finch remains at war with county council boss Monica Fogarty, following the removal of the Pride flag from the council’s HQ. Attempts to scrap a costly net zero scheme in nearly bankrupt Kent has also been met with opposition by unelected and unaccountable council bods while in County Durham, council officials are trying to block Reform councillors’ attempts to stop a multi-million-pound waste contract they claim isn’t fit for purpose. Despite being cash strapped and less productive, a number of councils are now considering introducing a four-day week for staff. Again, this is not because their constituents have called for it, but as a result of the campaigning by yet another unelected, unaccountable body called The Four Day Week Foundation. It calls itself an “independent, non-partisan” movement, despite the distinctly socialist nature of its demand for a 32-hour working week with no loss of pay for workers. Five councils including South Cambridgeshire, Glasgow and Belfast have publicly expressed interest in the overhaul, which would see council employees get full pay while working only 80 per cent of their usual hours, despite council tax rises of between 3 per cent and 8 per cent being forced on residents last year. This activism masquerading as democracy isn’t just dishonest. It’s undermining the very people it purports to serve."
Brother Rachid الأخ رشيد on X - "Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi—president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, longtime Al Jazeera sheikh, and Qatari citizen—openly permitted suicide bombings in 2001, just months before 9/11. He declared: ‘Muslims blowing themselves up against occupiers is legitimate resistance, and among the greatest forms of jihad in the path of Allah.’"
Gad Saad on X - "Yes but as I explained in The Parasitic Mind, al-Qaradawi, the leading Sunni Islamic scholar of the time, simply does not understand True Islam. My friend Ahmed who is gay, eats pork, and is married to a Jewish man is the true representation of Islam."
Weird. We're told that Islam is very clear that suicide is not allowed, so suicide bombing is against Islam
Meme - Felix Rex @navyhato: "White girl visits Uganda to prove she isn't racist
Goes missing, her clothes/other items are hung high on tree branches
No damage to items, no blood found anywhere
Redditors: This is a mystery? Must have been a wild animal!
Why are cognitive backflips so easy for some?"
"r/mystery
Sophia Koetsier, a 21-year-old Dutch medical student, vanished in Uganda's Murchison Falls National Park in October 2015. Her belongings were strangely arranged her underwear hung five meters high in a tree, and her purse and shoes left neatly in place yet authorities wrote off as wild animal attack"
Sophia Koetsier: New Clues Could Solve Case of Dutch Girl Lost in Africa
Meme - "QURAN BURNING *Upset left wing woman with keffiyeh and Muslim man*
YAZIDI GIRLS BURNING *Left wing woman with keffiyeh and Muslim man look the other way*"
Sam Brook on X - "The English working class has been so brainwashed by the right-wing media for more than four decades that it completely lacks the critical skills to identify propaganda and imagine a better future. Any mention of a fairer society immediately gets labelled as "communist"."
Collingwood 🇬🇧 on X - "What's fascinating about this is that if you actually interact with 'the English working class' on a regular basis* you will find they are far more heterodox (and thus far less prone to groupthink), have far more accurate gut checks on ideas/theories/political arguments, and are far less prone to swallowing propaganda and narratives than the professional managerial class/metropolitan liberals are. It is quite marked now. In fact, the latter group have become so solipsistic and cocooned in their own world that they actually think of themselves as hugely cultured, cosmopolitan and intelligent, when in fact they are often ignorant of culture, almost always parochial and are on the whole deeply intellectually unimpressive (and you can hear that contrast between self-image and reality almost every time they open their mouths). My argument here should itself make instinctive sense to any sharply sentient being, given it is highly unlikely a governing class as dreadful as ours could spring from an elite that was intelligent, experienced in the way of the world and which had read the books that kings ought to know. Yet, right now, members of the lanyard herd are reading these words and thinking "what a load of cobblers!" Draw your own conclusions.
*If you are a member of the professional managerial class, and would like to test my theory, but the thought of 'interacting' with the English working class fills you with horror, you could always try pressing a pomander or perfumed kerchief to your nose."
The left claim to speak for the working class, but really have great contempt for them
Meme - RAW EGG NATIONALIST @Babygravy9: "The writing was on the wall for these new genetic studies the moment David Reich at Harvard discovered that a) the Indo-European "invasions" really happened and b) that Europeans, north, south, east and west, all share the same basic genetic admixture, making them a distinct people at the biological level. It's been a desperate rearguard action by activist academics, especially in absurdly colonised disciplines like archaeology, but the providers of access to genetic material and samples are now also doing their best to restrict access to the basic materials themselves, citing worries about "misuse" and "feeding into far-right narratives." It's pathetic, but it's also extremely pernicious, and the intention is very deliberately one of cultural and historical erasure."
Emil Kirkegaard @KirkegaardEmil: "Can't have open genomes because something something far-right."
"In 2025, we are also seeing a global rise of authoritarian and far-right governments that are attacking not only free culture but that are also replacing scientific reasoning itself with pseudoscience."
Meme - dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ @DahliaKurtz: "Canada's "intelligence" agency, CSIS, prioritizes combating Islamophobia. And Pride — two months after Pride month. Also — purely coincidentally, I'm sure — Canada has become a tеrrorist haven."
Meme - CSIS Canada @csiscanada: "Back in June, CSIS launched its #PrideSeason celebrations with a few guest speakers. 🌈🎉 Thanks to the talented Two-spirit hoop dancer Makhena Ranken Guerin, the hilarious Canadian comedienne Ava Val, and inspirational public servant David Da Silva"
Andrew Kirsch @AS_Kirsch: "CSIS has / needs a workforce that reflects, represents and can build relationships of trust with all Canadians. I believe it’s important to celebrate the org’s diversity and demonstrate this commitment to the communities it serves. This isn’t contrary to the job - it is the job."
Maurice🇬🇧(Hershey) @morris_canada: "What you believe is irrelevant- CSIS Mandate is factual and clear & NOT to ‘communities it serves’ - It is to the Govt of Canada & other agencies approved by Govt of Canada."
"CSIS's mandate is primarily defined by the CSIS Act. The core of its mandate involves:
Investigating Threats: CSIS investigates activities that could be detrimental to Canada's security. This includes both domestic and foreign-influenced activities.
Analyzing Information: CSIS analyzes the information it collects to assess the nature and scope of threats, and to provide intelligence to the government.
Reporting to the Government: CSIS disseminates intelligence products to the Government of Canada, including reports and other forms of intelligence analysis.
Supporting Other Departments: CSIS also supports other government departments and agencies through security screening and foreign intelligence collection.
Reducing Threats: When reasonable grounds exist, CSIS can take measures, within the law and with Ministerial direction, to reduce threats to Canada's security."
Dan Burmawi on X - "Christianity is condemned for the sins of colonial outposts, while Islam is excused for centuries of conquest from Spain to India. Islam enslaved more Africans than the transatlantic trade. It wiped out entire cultures, languages, and religions from North Africa to Persia to the Balkans. But because it is non-Western, it gets a pass. Because its adherents are now often brown-skinned immigrants, it gets a moral exemption."
The enormous cost of Equality Act can no longer be ignored - "It is impossible to calculate the total financial cost of the Equality Act to the taxpayer. The 2010 legislation requires all public sector bodies — as well as any organisation in receipt of public funds or carrying out a public function — to integrate equality and anti-discrimination considerations into their operations. The costs are therefore diffused across budgets in the form, for example, of Diversity Equality and Inclusion (DEI) roles, equality impact assessments and legal costs. Reform UK has claimed that abolishing DEI schemes across Government would save an estimated £7 billion a year, which is about a billion pounds short of our annual budget for national roads. Research carried out by the TaxPayers’ Alliance last year revealed spending on DEI roles in local authorities rose from just over £12m in 2020-21 to almost £23m in 2022-23. It was the Equality Act under which Birmingham City Council was taken to court by its employees claiming unequal pay. The £1.35 billion incurred by the Council as a result has contributed towards its bankruptcy. The financial costs are therefore clearly enormous. But to what end are taxpayers shouldering them? What impact has the legacy of Harriet Harman had on our workplace, and by extension, our society? The Equality Act Isn’t Working is the title of a report launched this month by the campaign group Don’t Divide Us. With the help of a dossier of audited records from over 5,000 Employment Tribunal cases, the report concludes that the Equality Act is, in fact, “not fit for its stated purpose” and “should be reviewed immediately and repealed eventually”. The Act, claim the authors of the report Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert and Dr Anna Loutfi, contains “profound contradictions in respect of the protected characteristic of race that render its provisions largely unworkable in real life.” From authoritarian overreach, effectively awarding “the state carte blanche to regulate all social relationships” in its legally ordained quest for advancing equality or eliminating discrimination to “legitimising principles of racial thinking and segregation”, the Act in practice contradicts principles of equality as commonly understood, that “we stand as equal individuals subject to a universal law”. The report captures the muddled thinking behind the Act in one devastating sentence: “While the Equality Act ostensibly proscribes discrimination on the basis of ethnic group identity, it tacitly prescribes that the law identify us all in terms of ethnic group identity.” This has introduced a specific brand of toxicity into our lives, by causing a “breakdown of informal civility in the workplace” where “discontent and complaints are being increasingly experienced, and presented, as problems of racism”. This is borne out by the findings of the report, which reveal that out of the 5,523 cases which have included race-based discrimination jurisdictions between 2017 and 2024, only 281 or 5 percent of race discrimination claims have been upheld in employment courts. Some of the unsuccessful claims, given the opportunity, may well have been resolved through traditional mediating channels between colleagues, with perhaps a greater chance of salvaging a workplace relationship following a dispute without the stress and the unpleasantness of being embroiled in a lengthy legal process."
