CRTC Closes Case On CBC National Report Regarding #GamerGate
Posted on December 29, 2015, 7:13 pm By
CBC GamerGate

For those of you looking for a happy ending in the long and drawn out case involving the bureaucratic measures to hold the CBC accountable for some of the misinformation they’ve been spreading, well part of that chapter has closed and it doesn’t have a happy ending.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission closed case 6932354 regarding the airing of a segment on CBC television’s The National, back on November 13th, 2014. The was a story about the segment that was posted here on One Angry Gamer on November 14th, 2014, detailing the ethical violations the CBC committed in running the story without fact-checking or adhering to their own ethical policies.

Various Canadians complained to the CBC about the segment that resulted in a hand-wave from the CBC Ombudsman, Esther Enkin. However, The National’s own executive producer Mark Harrison responded to complaints about the inaccuracy of some of the information in the report that aired on CBC television, acknowledging that there has been a slant against #GamerGate by the media.

Despite admissions from Harrison about this issue, the CRTC sided with CBC Ombudsman Esther Enkin, responding in an e-mail to Lunar Archivist with the following statement from the director of social and consumer policy, Nanao Kachi…

“In a letter sent on 17 September 2015, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) staff noted that they understood your concern, but that the matters raised your complaint regarding the 13 November 2014 episode of The National on CBC did not violate the existing regulatory policy framework.

 

“Accordingly, case number 693254 will now be closed.”

They also mention in the letter that the CBC Ombudsman was asked how a response would be formulated in reply to the issues raised, and CBC Ombudsman Esther Enkin noted that there are blog posts on the CBC website publicly displaying the reviews of each case and the verdict of whether or not the CBC breached their ethics policy in the post.

There is, however, an upside to this news. Despite it seeming like this is nothing more than a shot to the heart and a break to the back, the letter from the CRTC further states that the additional information that was sent to them regarding the CBC will be forwarded to the CBC Ombudsman to have those issues addressed, with Kachi writing…

“The additional information you submitted to CRTC Client Services in response to CRTC staff’s letter will now be forwarded to the CBC Ombudsman so that they may address it.

 

“CRTC staff asks that the CBC retain the logger tapes of the episodes mentioned in that documentation”

This is just one of several cases filed against the CBC with the CRTC. Again, the upside was that the segment that aired on The National was likely the weakest case that #GamerGate would have against the CBC. Nevertheless, there are still a few other complaints that were filed with the CRTC, so we’ll see if they’ll address those other issues as well, including some of the segments that were broadcast on terrestrial radio.

One comment in particular that stood out occurred during a radio broadcast on CBC hosted by Stephen Quinn from the show On The Coast. The host stated that #GamerGate was an event where players “threatened to rape and murder female game developers”, a grossly unfounded accusation rooted in a lack of proper sourcing or facts. What made that particular segment so bad was that the CBC Radio director, Lorna Haeber, actually defended Quinn’s summation of the event, which actually resulted in the CBC Ombudsman, Esther Enkin, having to publicly admonish them for those comments since those statements have no sourcing or facts to back them up.

Let’s hope that CBC’s purposed spread of misinformation about #GamerGate will at least receive some kind of formal reproach from an organization designed to protect consumers from unethical breaches made by journalists.

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Billy has been rustling Jimmies for years. The GJP cried and their tears became his milkshake.

20 comments Categories: Industry, News Tags: , ,
  • Trevor

    I guess when you’re a media company with a billion dollars of government funding every year, you aren’t going to be too concerned about being accurate or fair.

    • Audie Bakerson

      That people still insist something will be better when they can’t stop paying for it just shows how well government education has worked and that everything Gato wrote is correct.

    • C G Saturation

      I forget where I heard it now, but mainstream media is apparently not legally obligated to report the facts. So don’t expect them to, because they obviously don’t.

      • Trevor

        I don’t think they’ll ever be obligated so long as getting it wrong remains much more profitable. Rolling stone proved this when they didn’t pull the UVA rape hoax story even after it had be widely discredited; it only came down after the Columbia school of journalism scolded them in their review.

      • http://g.e-hentai.org GamesGoodMeGood

        That was truly disgusting. The only thing the Rolling Stone is sorry about is getting caught.

        They should be burned to the ground for ruining lives.

      • utera

        CBC has a government mandate and a governing board, its different. If they fail, you can reveal their hypocrisy.

      • LunarArchivist

        “I forget where I heard it now, but mainstream media is apparently not legally obligated to report the facts.”

        Actually, this isn’t true in Canada as far as I know. Based on my understanding, the CBC is required to adhere to not only adhere to its own journalistic standards and practices, but also to the minimum Canadian broadcasting standards. Of particular interest to GamerGate is Clause 5 of the CAB Code of Ethics:

        “It shall be the responsibility of broadcasters to ensure that news shall be represented with accuracy and without bias. Broadcasters shall satisfy themselves that the arrangements made for obtaining news ensure this result. […] News shall not be selected for the purpose of furthering or hindering either side of any controversial public issue, nor shall it be formulated on the basis of the beliefs, opinions or desires of management, the editor or others engaged in its preparation or delivery.”

        http://www.cbsc.ca/english/codes/cabethics.php

        Given what we’ve already heard from John Bowman and other sources, I’m pretty sure the CBC has not been following these and other rules.

        It’s a long boring read (20 pages) and beyond the scope of Usher’s article, but my analysis of CBC’s journalistic shortcomings (and the allegations that Esther Enkin has been asked by the CBC to respond to) can be found here:

        http://1drv.ms/1Fqla22

      • A Real Libertarian

        I’m getting a “The page you’re looking for doesn’t exist. 404” error on the CAB Code of Ethics link.

        Good thing it’s been archived.

      • http://www.OneAngryGamer.net Billy

        Well ain’t that something.

        Thanks for the heads-up. I noticed it wasn’t at the forefront of the header at the top but I still e-mailed them about it.

      • LunarArchivist

        Thanks for the information. Updated the link so everyone can see it, too. :)

      • A Real Libertarian

        No problem.

  • Mephisto

    This just proves that CBC IS unethical, and nothing but a marxist socialist social engineering project.

    I have not watched that POS station in a couple years now, and they are losing massive viewers, which is why Justin (the money sieve) had to buy them off and inject millions.

    • http://www.OneAngryGamer.net Billy

      Well one of their journalists was fired for corruption (only after it was spread good and well by a competing outlet and with duly irrefutable evidence) while the other is trying to protect his bumhole from prison rape after being labeled as an actual rapist.

      Spinning lies about #GamerGate is kind of the least of their worries, but I would laugh so hard if their undoing was all of the ethical breaches they committed to smear a hashtag calling for ethics in media journalism.

      • A Real Libertarian

        I would laugh so hard if their undoing came from all the ethical
        breaches they committed to smear a hashtag that was about calling for
        ethics in media journalism.

        How many times have we seen that same song & dance play out before?

        Crook is untouchable to the people fighting them, they run into GamerGate, they think GamerGate is weak & powerless so they throw their weight around, GamerGate hits back and brings ruin to all they’ve built.

      • C G Saturation

        The thing is they don’t really care about GamerGate. They care about their narrative, and the people who fund that narrative. I don’t think a few journalists mean much in comparison to that.

        Whatever the case, they’re disgusting lying assholes.

  • Lyndon Perry

    Well, gave it the old college try.

  • scemar

    it’s a good try
    the huge load of people, companies and group that have miss handled the gamergate situation, often deliberately or with full abandon of their required duties to their supposed standards is big and goes far

    and every one of those is a chance to get some justice

    breaking their own codes of ethics, slander, missinforming the public and all that are all punishable things that range from small to actual crimes and there is no reason not to go after all of them

  • GamerGate Developer

    cbc investigated cbc and found that cbc did nothing wrong

  • AscensionStudiosCA

    It makes sense for them to attack GamerGate since GG comes dangerously close to exposing corruption in all forms of media. It’s easy when you’re part of the mainstream media to slander such an entity. It’s all clever politics. The CBC knew exactly what they were doing. As all of these networks do. Try to slander the largest anti-corruption movement that currently exists because they threaten the integrity of these networks.

    • http://www.OneAngryGamer.net Billy

      Well said and very true.

      The narrative is so strong that most aggregators and news — even neutral sites — disallow #GamerGate discussion.

      Worse yet for average people (but much to the delight of major media outlets) a lot of aggregators and news outlets have coupled in the discussion of “corruption” with #GamerGate, thus also disallowing people to bring up journalistic malfeasance in just about any capacity. The excuse is that discussing corruption is #GamerGate, and #GamerGate discussion is banned because it’s about harassing women in the tech industry.

      The double-speak is practically palpable at this point, but the media mostly won in getting the average person to think that #GamerGate is about harassment. It protects the media from being accountable for the corruption they bathe in with unabashed glee.

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