Henley poses the question that many have asked themselves: “What is going on at the CBC?”
Henley continues, “People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive.”
Her experience at the CBC started off well, she describes the public broadcaster as having “produced some of the best journalism in the country” when she first began her career there in 2013.
Henley says that by the time she resigned last month, the public broadcaster “embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media.”
“To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity.” Henley wrote on her Substack.
She says that the politics of the public broadcaster changed “swiftly” and “dramatically”, stating that she used to be the “one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis.”
But now, “I am now easily the most conservative, frequently sparking tension by questioning identity politics.”
Stating that her politics did not change, but rather the atmosphere at the public broadcaster did with the “current climate: of the organization embracing “cognitive dissonance” and abandoning “journalistic integrity.”
It is to sign on, enthusiastically, to a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the United States and spread through American social media platforms that monetize outrage and stoke societal divisions. It is to pretend that the “woke” worldview is near universal — even if it is far from popular with those you know, and speak to, and interview, and read.
“To work at the CBC is to submit to job interviews that are not about qualifications or experience — but instead demand the parroting of orthodoxies, the demonstration of fealty to dogma.” Hanley describes.
Read Tara Henley’s Substack article in full here.
One of the fundamental roles of the media is to act as watchdogs on government actions, however, Hanley describes CBC as having become “less adversarial to government and corporations and more hostile to ordinary people with ideas that Twitter doesn’t like.”
Hanley brings up many of the grief Canadians have with the way in which the CBC reports on issues that affect the daily lives of many Canadians.
“It is to endlessly document microaggressions but pay little attention to evictions; to spotlight company’s political platitudes but have little interest in wages or working conditions. It is to allow sweeping societal changes like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school closures to roll out — with little debate. To see billionaires amass extraordinary wealth and bureaucrats amass enormous power — with little scrutiny. And to watch the most vulnerable among us die of drug overdoses — with little comment.”
Read Tara Henley’s Substack article in full here.
