CBC Television abruptly cancelled a featured documentary just hours before it was to air on Tuesday night, prompting complaints that the network bowed to pressure from American government officials.
“I was actually contacted myself by a gentleman who is a cultural consultant with the Bush Whitehouse,” Mr. Keay said. “He was very polite.” CBC will run a new version of the documentary “sooner rather than later,” the spokesman added, but couldn’t say precisely when.
[…]
The American director says he has no intention of re-editing a piece that he spent three years working on. “We have to quote-unquote give balance,” veteran filmmaker Michael Moore said in an interview.
Read the G&M article not 2 hours ago.
Couple of additional things come to mind:
1) This is *precisely* why we need to privatize CBC.
2) Money talks (think coverage of Olympics).
3) Since when can a Chinese commie operative in Canada dictate what comes down the pipe to my house?
Maybe once PM Harper is done with the Senate he’ll turn the big guns on the CBC…
There is always hope.
When Maurice Strong says so.
3) Since when can a Chinese commie operative in Canada dictate what comes down the pipe to my house?
since Trudeau screwed the country up
Heh….got me all excited that the CBC would ever do something that wasn’t anti-american…before I read the links. Just wow.
Good one, and especially ironic read in light of Jay Nordlinger’s recent comment in NRO:
I will give you my favorite piece of information about Bush, imparted by this book [by former UN Ambassador John Bolton]: In New York, in his limo, on the way to the U.N. — he waved at Falun Gong protesters.
Would the next president do even so little? Would the former have?
http://tinyurl.com/yvy2bb
In other not (totally) unrelated news, CBN is reporting that China is considering banning the Bible from the Olympic village in 2008:
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/264115.aspx
A Trudeaupian bow to the land of Mao.
Evidence of the spineless invertebrates running the CBC.
Why do I feel so certain that the CBC didn’t get told to “play nice with the Chicoms” by the PM’s office? Because if that had happened it would be wall to wall on CBC Snooze World, that’s why.
Hell, the Chicom embassy guy probably didn’t even threaten them. Bet you he said it was for the good of the revolution and they fell all over themselves agreeing.
We don’t call it the Communist Broadcasting Corporation for nothing, eh?
“I was actually contacted myself by a gentleman who is a cultural consultant with the Bush Whitehouse,” Mr. Keay said. “He was very polite.” CBC will run a new version of the documentary “sooner rather than later,” the spokesman added, but couldn’t say precisely when.
“I was actually contacted myself by a gentleman who is a cultural consultant with the Chinese embassy,” Mr. Keay said. “He was very polite.” CBC will run a new version of the documentary “sooner rather than later,” the spokesman added, but couldn’t say precisely when.
which is it? bush whitehouse or chinese embassy?
Artistic licence Xena. If an official from the Bush White House called that CBC guy up, do you think they would have pulled it? How ’bout the PMO?
Now, if Buzz Hargrove called ’em, that’d be different!
The American director says he has no intention of re-editing a piece that he spent three years working on. “We have to quote-unquote give balance,” veteran filmmaker Michael Moore said in an interview.
The Canadian director of Beyond The Red Wall says he has no intention of re-editing a piece that he spent three years working on. “We have to quote-unquote give balance,” veteran filmmaker Peter Rowe said in an interview. “… I’ve never experienced anything like these kinds of demands.”
what’s your explanation for this one?
The howling and wailing outrage would be heard across the land for weeks if a US embassy employee did so much as suggest the CBC not air rabidly anti-American propaganda. But a communist Chinese government official can direct CBC programming. Disgusting and pathetic. That’s what we pay them for…
China does not persecute Falun Gong practioners world wide. In Toronto, outside the Chinese consulate, every day, every week, there is a line of Falun Gong protesters – protesting FOR and on behalf of, Falun Gong. They’ve been there for years. No-one from the Consulate harasses them.
Falun Gong is a CULT. Its founder, Li, considers himself an alien, provided with supernatural powers (eg, levitation, invisibility). Compare with the Raelian cult in Quebec…also based around aliens.
It is based around the abandonment of reason, factual and empirical observation and hero worship of its founder. What is there to praise about it? The Chinese ancients, ie, Lao-tze, Kung Fu-tze, Chuang-tze, Ming-tze, Mo-tze – have far greater spiritual and moralistic offerings than this cult.
Xena,
The article was changed to highlight the double standard the CBC has when dealing with the US vs Thug states like China.
If it was an anti-bush/anti-american documentary and the white house complained, do you think that the CBC would pull it? You don’t have to even think (clearly you don’t before you comment) as the CBC has aired F9/11 repeatedly.
Let xena figure it out for woofself.
When are Maude Barlow and the other fellow travellers coming to Canada’s defence against the Chicoms?
We should abolish the CBC. Why do we need a taxpayer funded network in the first place? Especially one which seems to think its duty is to ram a particular view of the country down our throats. We’ve already got two perfectly good private, national networks and a host of national cable channels.
Ha — I just wonder how the Chinese will handle this problem. Let me guess ! A number of people will be arrested and the next day put on trial. The day after that they will commit suicide or be executed. End of problem. On with the Olympics!
i said my disgust at this under readers tips below, Communist Brodcasting Channel needs to be Reformed or Abolished, forget the Senate for the time being besides that would take too long. Time for a shakeup top to bottom at the Publicly funded CBC(just don’t touch coach’s corner or coronation st.)
I agree with getting rid of the CBC, which functions as a propaganda site for its ‘gang’ of journalists/newspeople all dedicated to a Liberal/NDP socialist welfare state. Just like the Toronto Star, G&M and –Canada Press.
CTV is just as bad – and it isn’t public. The problem isn’t that the CBC is publicly funded. The problem is that Canadian journalism and television are run by a small coterie of people, all of them linked by friendship, marriage, family ties; all of them with a mindset sealed shut in the same socialist leftist perspective. That’s the problem – and we see it in all of our television and newspapers.
I’m against Falun Gong, as I said, because it’s a cult. No different than Raelianism. The stories about ‘organ harvesting’ are unproven allegations.
The Epoch Times, which promotes the film, and promotes Falun Gong (and the organ tales), is run by a rabid anti-communist guy, D.J. McGuire, who is stuck in the 1960’s era of anti-communism and anti-China.
But regardless of this, our problem in Canada, with our media system, is that incestuous gang of journalists/TV media people who run our media system. They control it; they won’t let objective, non-leftist perspectives get anywhere. Ezra Levant tried to deal with this with his Western Standard.
I think blogs are the answer to our media problems. We, as a population, don’t have the money to mount a realistic and non-utopian TV system. Blogs are vital.
Speaking of the CBC, Greg Weston’s column today indicated 17 ways to better spend the $6B saved by Canadians with the 1% reduction in the GST. Perhaps he could write a column how to better spend the $1B annual subsidy the CBC receives from the Canadian taxpayer.
for the CBCs 4% watchership(sp? word?) the over $1 billion is a real embarrassment.
ET:
The subject matter of the CBC show is not the issue (ie Falun Gong).
Just imagine some Canadian government official telling the Chinese media like Xinhua that they shouldn’t have a program critical of Canadians.
That would go over swimmingly no doubt.
The notion that we have a free and unfettered press is a great idea, but praxis is another story.
Agreed blogs are critical to freedom of thought, opinion, belief and expression.
So now the Chi-coms are dictating what Canadians see?
Could we be any further down the PC rabbit hole?
Hans, I agree — the nature of Falun Gong is not the issue. Having said that, if what ET says is correct, then it would be valuable to become more informed about FG via the documentary and cancellation seems short sited. I do find it mighty peculiar that the CBC suddenly halts the planned broadcast to review the documentary. For anyone following Tim Ball’s issues with the CBC and the degree to which the 5th Estate has violated the concept of accuracy and objectivity in journalism, this cancellation become very suspect. I would not doubt for a minute that Mo Strong and the Liberal oligarchy are not somehow involved. I would not be nearly so suspicious if the CBC had not so cavalierly dismissed Ball’s concerns. Either you are concerned about accurate and honest journalism or you are not. Here is part 4 or his report on this: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/551
ET:
“The problem is that Canadian journalism and television are run by a small coterie of people, all of them linked by friendship, marriage, family ties; all of them with a mindset sealed shut in the same socialist leftist perspective. That’s the problem – and we see it in all of our television and newspapers. […]
[O]ur problem in Canada, with our media system, is that incestuous gang of journalists/TV media people who run our media system. They control it; they won’t let objective, non-leftist perspectives get anywhere.”
———–
What silly, overly hyperbolic, hyperventilating nonsense. I mean, even if you imagine there is bias in “The Media”, this is the worst case of Vast Leftwing Media Conspiracy tin foil hat-itis I’ve ever come across.
(Almost as silly as saying Maurice Strong controls everything in Canada and no one does any business here that is not controlled by him.)
I’m all for dumping – and dumping very very hard -on the CBC here for this apparently cowardly capitulation to outside influence over its reporting. Especially since they had the courage to broadcast the same documentary earlier.
But does anyone here really truly believe a private network, with millions or billions of dollars at stake with the Olympics, wouldn’t do exactly the same thing?
‘Course they would Ted… unless it was the Americans asking.
That being the POINT.
Money talks in many languages, Phantom, including American. That’s my point. I don’t know how much of this is the Chinese, CBC sympathy for the communism as claimed here, or the Olympics money.
Given that CBC aired the same documentary earlier, I’m thinking if anything it is not out of sympathy for communism.
Ted the issue once again is not the actions of a private company rather it is the actions of a public company. A Canadian Crown Corporation gave way to the wishes of foreign nation. That foreign nation has dictatorial tendencies as shown in the documentary it is now blocking is thus dictating what a Canadian crown corporation is going to produce. If we as a nation hold the practice of religion and free speach as basic human rights then we as a nation have the right to expose the oppression of any religion in any nation on earth. “A private company would have done the same” are weasel words and beneath contempt.
Joe:
What part of “I’m all for dumping – and dumping very very hard -on the CBC here for this apparently cowardly capitulation to outside influence over its reporting. Especially since they had the courage to broadcast the same documentary earlier.” don’t you understand?
Ted I agreed with you up to that point. However you attempted to excuse their action by saying a private company would do the same. My point is this: The CBC is a Canadian Crown Corporation there is no equivalence here.
If UPS decided not to deliver a package to a Falon Gong practitioner because China said so then shame on UPS. If Canada Post did the same, there would need to be a major overhaul of Canada Post’s management. Canadian Crown Corporations answer to Canadians not foreign nations.
Joe: Given what I said, how can you charactize what followed as excusing it? I don’t. What I am pointing out is that the CBC, like other broadcasters, is as motivated by access and power and money. I.e. the journalistic problem is not that they buried this documentary because they are communist sympathizers as claimed by many here, but that they are as vulnerable to influence by power and access and money as any other private network.
That’s not an excuse but as a warning to media observers about all media, not just CBC.
If you want a bone, I will agree with you that it is worse here in that one of the biggest arguments in favour of public broadcasting is to avoid or minimize the influence of outside power and money (like advertisers) on news. If they are public and still capitulate, what’s the point of having a public broadcaster?
The Chinese ran the following story. However, the CBC has not and I suspect, will not. The CBC won’t because they don’t want Canadians to think outside of the prescribed narrative. The Chinese, however, would like people to believe otherwise. That is that Canada is essentially bigoted and unaccommodating.
Given Canada’s large intake of Chinese immigrants, we might start understanding the PR spin.
“Multiculturalism loosing ground in Canada.”
http://www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-08 02:45:29
OTTAWA, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) — As one of the world’s major immigrant-receiving societies, Canada has taken pride on being a cultural mosaic where different ethnic cultures co-exist.
However, a recent poll finds most Canadians are no longer fond of the concept of ethnic diversity.
The poll conducted by SES Research showed as many as 53 percent Canadians believed immigrants should “adapt fully” to Canadian culture. Just 18 percent agreed with the statement “it is reasonable to accommodate religious and cultural minorities.”
As for accommodating religious and cultural minorities in public places, such as schools, hospitals and government buildings,37 percent thought there should be no accommodation at all. Only 6 percent are in favor of full accommodation. As for accommodation in the workplace, 45 percent said there should be none, with 4 percent agreeing to full accommodation.
The poll’s analysis reads: “By significant majorities in Canada as a whole, and by overwhelming majorities in Quebec, Canadians and Quebecers declare limits to reasonable accommodation.”
The CBC will beome a propaganda outlet for Harper’s gov’t.
Sure the CBC “aired the same documentary earlier”
but when –
“In fact, he said, the documentary was aired at 4 a.m. last March, before the end of the fiscal year so it could be written off last year.”
ted – I’ll repeat my view. The media in Canada is controlled by and run within a leftist socialist perspective. That’s factual. Just read or listen to the pundits and their opinions in the Star, G&M, Canada Press, CBC, CTV.
For you to conclude that IF one says that our Canadian media has an observable leftist bias, THEN, this is not valid but is a ‘conspiracy’ is nonsense.
The facts are there for you to read/listen to. Plus, in Canada, we have a small ‘nest’ of journalists/news hawks; they all know each other; are friends of/married to, each other. It’s a small incestuous world.
Try, Ted, to provide FACTS to rebut my points. And don’t do your usual slithering. What you are doing now, is trying to divert attention from the valid facts of my view, by focusing only on the term ALL. Ahh, Ted, replace it with 95%, and the conclusion will be valid. But, don’t slither. My point is valid – Canadian journalism is predominantly leftist, operating in an incestuous groupism that rejects objective facticity.
Linda L, I agree, the nature of Falun Gong is not the issue here. But, my concern is that the CBC was not presenting a documentary, but a biased perspective on Falun Gong. Many in the West are quite ignorant of the Falun Gong and their support and focus on it is merely to ‘bash’ the Chinese. That’s simplistic.
Ted that is exactly my point. If the programming of the Crown Corp is being dictated by a foreign nation then it is time that the Corp lose its Crown status. If it behaves like a private corp then make it a private corp.
“The CBC will beome a propaganda outlet for Harper’s gov’t.”
ok4u,
In all of your comments, apparently you are able to come up with one good idea. Bravo!
Although, Harper would have to gut it first.
And then there’s the problem of finding honest reporters, journalists and producers to staff the news department.
Then there’s the problem of the entertainment department. It needs people that can actually create programs that will attract an audience.
Better to sell it to Fox.
CBC is not neutral anymore.
ok4ua – that’s our whole point. No-one has ever said the CBC was neutral. It’s a Liberal propaganda mouthpiece.
By the way, I’m going to suggest that the whole Schreiber – Mulroney feather-ruffling taking place now, is a deliberate set-up by the Liberal backroom boys. Remember, the Liberals are corrupt; their only agenda is power. I’m suggesting that Schreiber is being advised and led by the Liberals to make his allegations against Mulroney – and the latest is that the whole money transfer might have been done when Mulroney was in office.
Why did Schreiber make this allegation today? Was it because various people had been rebutting the Liberal demands for a ‘parliamentary investigation’ by saying that the money transfers, IF there were any, took place when Mulroney was a private citizen. Such transactions are therefore, outside of parliament and a matter for the RCMP.
Then, suddenly, today, after all these years, Schreiber says, that it took place when Mulroney was in office. Hmmm. I’m speculating, but I think that Schreiber is hand in glove with the Liberals. Or rather, the Liberals are hand in glove with Schreiber.
Why are the Liberals so interested in Mulroney? Why aren’t they interested in paying back the many millions they stole from the Cdn taxpayer to pay for their election campaigning in Quebec?
Not neutral anymore? Uh, when was it neutral?
Ted, you ignore or hide the fact that Beijing doesn’t get the Olympic money from the CBC, the IOC does. Saying that they are just protecting their assets is false. They are playing nice because they want to, not because their hand is forced in any way.
Oh please please let Moore’s film air in Canada , I first saw it at a discount Theatre
and was shocked haow Morre portrayed Arabs and eveil cut throat savages who are ruining the Planet and will slaughter Civilians just for an Imagine Sex with someone later on .
But keep a very close eye on this itiem , Moore
infers that Bush allowed non-Citizens to legally leave the USA on a private jet with 60 other people Leaving Legally as well.
Did Moore expect Bush to build Camps to house all the Arabs in America and only let them out once they prove they Didn’t have a tie to any of the 19 Hijackers or terrorism itself?
So basically , stop anyone from leaving
the USA ( including obes beareded slobs with ball caps and B.O. ) and round up all the Muslims and Arabs to prove they are innocent first.
Re: Yukon Gold
I don’t believe that you are correct in stating Beijing doesn’t get Olympic money. NYTimes, July 14, 2001 – “NBC is paying $894 million to carry the first Olympics in China….
Forty-nine percent of NBC’s payment will go to Beijing’s Olympic committee and the rest to the I.O.C., to give to international federations and national Olympic committees.”
I don’t believe the system is any different for other networks wanting to cover the games.
I would,nt waste my hard earned dollars on any MICHEAL MOORE peice of filmatic junk since all he makes are all a bunch of lies,fruad and propeganda in the same mold as JOSEPH GOBBELS
Ted, my point earlier was the CBC would have kissed off the money if it was the Americans asking. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear enough.
I also think its interesting that they pulled it after showing it already. Obvious response would have been to tell the Chicoms “too late buddy!” but they pulled it instead. Makes ya go “hmmmm….”
If we sold CBCpravda could we put the razzle-dazzle set in the museum of civilization , the Persephone in the naval museum and Kneel McDonald onto the street?
ok4ua , a little slow from the hangover inebriation from the dipper defeat hasnt realized that CBCpravda has been the mouthpiece of the liberals for so long they consider themselves part of the official opposition.
Yukon Gold: There’s the money CBC has paid/is going to pay China as PGS has stated. But that just gives them the right to film the games. They still have to get Visas for all of their people, rent space, lay down cables, tour the country (for those annoying montages on the host country), move around the cities from event to event, get into the events. Then there is the whole playoff against other networks and who controls the camera and has timely access.
When you pay that kind of money for such an event, you start to grease every squeeky wheel so that you get the most out of it you can and you don’t want any hiccups or difficulties. Especially because, after years of preparation, it is only a two week event and there are only a few key competitions. Get bumped or have problems with one of those and you’ve thrown a ton of money down the drain.
This is the struggle of every network, even within a network as news struggles with entertainment and with sports coverage. The mighty dollar always reigns supreme.
Perhaps as it should in the private networks, or at least with the private networks we can say it’s not our issue, as long as we are aware that corporations trying to make profits are deciding what makes the airwaves.
But as I said that’s the strongest argument for a public network – no outside influence because they are not beholden to profit making for shareholders – so this apparent capitulation is particularly outrageous for that reason.
I suspect we are closer to the same page here, unless you are one who also buys into this nonsense that the CBC will do China’s bidding out of political sympathies.
Whether they would do it for American money is another separate question and I don’t have any doubt that they would. At least if the Olympics were at stake.