Meet the CBC’s crack team of reporters! Your tax dollars at “work:”
A reader on the scene emails:
I went down to the hearing this morning to get a seat, arriving about 20 min before proceedings began, and was, like much of the media, too late. Very small venue courtroom 105. I sat beside a couple of the CBC journalists who did not make it in and made some small talk, asking if they were national or local. Both were with CBC radio, one was national one was local. Both were upset that they could not get access, but seemed relieved that “Milewski was in”.
Media continued to show up (now late) and were denied access. All were demonstratable outraged that they, the media, could not get access.
CBC journos asked me who I was with. Just an interested observer I replied.
Who is this Steyn guy they asked. Is he a journalist? Who does he write for? He’s right wing isn’t he?Surprised at their lack of knowledge, I gave them a bit of a background on Steyn, – oh yes he sounded a bit familiar now.
I asked them what they thought about the case.
Well they didn’t really know too much (anything) about it.
Did they know who Elmasery was? No.
They asked if I had a picture of Steyn. Since I don’t generally carry pictures of Mr. Steyn with me, it was fortunate I had my copy of America Alone which has a small picture of him on the inside jacket.
I explained a bit of the background and that part of the grounds for the complaint was that Steyn had quoted some Islamic leaders statements in his book, and that MacLeans had excerpted portions of his book. I offered to find the ” number of muslims expanding like mosquitoes” quote by Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar for them in Steyn’s book. (which I did).
I was astonished by their absolute lack of any background on the story they were sent to cover.
More astonished that a journalist would not know who Mark Steyn was, or that, depending on its outcome, the case they were covering could have very real ramifications on their ability to practice their trade in the future, and impact the right to free speech for all Canadians.
They knew nothing about the AHRC case against Ezra.
They did know about the Western Standard but were unaware that it was no longer being published.
They knew nothing about the Richard Warman Vs Levant, Shaidle, McMillan, Kay and Free Dominion. In fact, they had never heard of Mr. Sec. 13 Richard Warman.
They were aware that a similar charge agianst Steyn had been thrown out by the OHRC, but nothing beyond that.
I tried to provide some background on each of these cases but could see that there was not a lot of interest.
I wonder what kind of reports will be filed by each of these journalists for CBC radio? I also wonder how many other journalists sent to cover this remarkably important case, are so poorly informed.
