Ombudsman Rebukes CBC Radio-Canada’s Mideast Reporting
February 20, 2012 10:21 by Simon PloskerThis article is republished courtesy of HonestReporting Canada. We are proud to share this success of our Canadian affiliate with our readership.
In a pointed rebuke of Canadian public broadcaster CBC Radio-Canada and its Mideast correspondent Ginette Lamarche’s recent reporting on Israel, Radio-Canada’s Ombudsman, Pierre Tourangeau, this week upheld a series of five complaints filed by HonestReporting Canada about the network’s Mideast coverage.
Ginnette Lamarche
In the Ombudsman’s 12-page review of reports that aired between December 19- 23, 2011, Tourangeau concluded that Lamarche’s reports violated Radio-Canada’s standards for balance, impartiality and accuracy (one of these reports was corrected by Radio-Canada prior to the Ombudsman’s review). Significantly, Tourangeau found a lack of “diversity of opinion” as required for news coverage of controversial subjects, use of unverified facts and failure to challenge claims which led to “at least an appearance of bias”. Tourangeau recommended, given the scope of the review, that the management of Radio-Canada engage in substantive discussions over its methodology.
HonestReporting Canada objected to a December 19 radio report where journalist Lamarche interviewed two recently released Palestinian youths, one of whom claimed to have spent three years in jail for throwing stones. In this report, Lamarche reported that “many Palestinians spend a good part of their youth in jail for participating in a demonstration or throwing stones” without corroborating this information with a credible source. HRC obtained the list of released Palestinian prisoners which revealed that no ‘youths’ (Palestinians under 24 years of age) had been incarcerated for three years solely for throwing stones. Rather, convicted stone throwers were incarcerated for an average of seven months, the longest sentence consisting of 15 months. HRC asserted that this did not constitute “a good part of one’s youth”. HRC also objected to the suggestion that the act of participating in peaceful demonstrations leads to incarceration. The Ombudsman concluded that this report was inaccurate as the journalist should have corroborated the length of stay in prison with official sources, brought an Israeli perspective into the story, and attributed the claims to the interviewees.
HRC also objected to a December 20 radio report about the arrests of Palestinians following the Shalit exchange. In this report, the narrator declared: “Since the exchange of prisoners following the release of Gilad Shalit in October, Israel imprisoned practically the same number of people it released”. HRC disputed this claim which was unverified by the reporter and has been denied by a spokesperson for the Israel Prison Authority. As well, HRC objected to Radio-Canada’s reliance on the statistics of Adameer (or Al-Dameer), a well-known pro-Palestinian NGO which has been accused of anti-Israel demonization. The Ombudsman agreed that this report breached Radio-Canada’s guidelines for accuracy as the statement was not attributed to Adameer, that this reporter did not properly describe this group as an NGO, a pro-Palestinian group or a Palestinian organization and, in reporting that Adameer “condemns the brutal and arbitrary arrests”, the reporter failed to attribute these statements to Adameer, instead leading the listener to assume these statements were necessarily correct.
Dusan Milutinovic
8:34 pm
Feb 20, 2012
Yet, following the ombudsman’s report, what has Radio-Canada done publicly to counter these allegations by the biased newsperson? How will redress be done? Another report declaring the previous report’s unacceptability on air? Or is this it? Damage done and then privately, “Oops!” and carry on from there?
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jacob mandelblum
11:02 pm
Feb 20, 2012
It shouldn’t surprise anybody to see that the Canadian BBC follows in the steps of its
mentors in the UK’s, limping of the same Judeophobic foot…
Perhaps this woman reporter, if not an outright Judeophobe which many Quebecois are
known to be for reasons of their own, was fed this “information” for publishing as an
“offer she couldn’t refuse”, as admitted to Israel’s Information Minister by a foreign
correspondent, that they were given the score by the PA and warned that it was either
that way or no way…
Does anybody remember JENIN’s “massacre” ????
The PA claimed 5,000 Palis were killed but the count started diminishing, until it came
down to just 26 gunmen and a miraculous “ressuccitation” at a Pali’s funeral in front of
the UN inspection commission when shots were fired close to the procession and the
“corpse” and pallbearers took off at all the speed their legs allowed them….but nobody
reported the death of 23 Israeli reserve soldiers killed protecting PA “innocent: civilians
like such a specimen does actually exist….
So much for “impartiality” of foreign correspondents….
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Brent Pudsey
2:14 pm
Feb 21, 2012
As a Canadian citizen I am ashamed of the shoddy coverage of CBC Radio Canada. It bothers me that low quality journalism is allowed which does not look into all the facts behind the headlines. In doing so it portrays a good guy bad guy sterotype in which Israel is constantly the evil bad guy.
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SM ISAC
11:17 pm
Feb 21, 2012
My simple mind begs the question: How and why has she kept her job? Oh yeah I forgot. It’s tax funded CBC with zero accountability for the standard or journalistic integrity to Canadian taxpayers.
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Ombudsman Rebukes CBC Radio-Canada’s Mideast Reporting | The Conservative Papers
8:52 am
Feb 28, 2012
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