Brodie Fenlon, the editor in chief for CBC News, in a March 2021 article quoted a recent survey which found 49 per cent of Canadians think journalists are purposely trying to mislead the public. He also quotes a second survey that 52 per cent of Canadians agree that news organizations are more concerned with ideology and political positions than informing the public.
Raymond de Souza in a recent National Post article entitled: "CBC bias on full display in coverage of Freedom Convoy, Coastal GasLink protests "underscores how the CBC plays a significant ideological role in presenting the gas pipeline violence narrative.
De Souza writes "after three weeks of examining how the media covered people it did not agree with and did not like, someone calculated that it would be a good time to get violent at the pipeline site. Sympathetic to the cause if not the tactics, the CBC and others would see that it would not become too hot of an issue." De Souza then lays out the CBC's minimal reporting on this shocking violent attack which has significant local, national and international significance.
CBC Daybreak North has played a coy role in presenting Wet'suwet'en opposition to the construction of the pipeline. They have strategically given broad recognition to the hereditary chiefs while giving scant coverage to the elected chiefs. They have downplayed that all of the bands along the pipeline route have approved construction. The CBC has developed a sympathetic narrative for the protesters who were arrested in November 2021 for breach of a BC Supreme Court injunction preventing obstruction of work on the Coastal GasLink pipeline. The CBC does not seem to recognize all of the environmental assessment work which has been conducted. Further, the CBC uses every opportunity to profile the radical leadership among the protesters.
The CBC is clearly complicit in the Coastal GasLink pipeline violence.
Rolf van Driesum
Prince George
