Canada's CBC issues rare correction when Gaza coverage sparked outrage

CBC-TV has issued a correction after facing criticism for its handling of a segment on the war in Gaza, which included a boneheaded debate over the term "genocide."

Blacklock's Reporter says Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), an anti-Israel/anti-Semitic group of Jew haters, claimed the correction followed a campaign that generated thousands of complaints about alleged bias in the Crown broadcaster’s totally biased coverage.

“This statement represents a significant step forward in holding media organizations to account for their coverage of Palestinian narratives,” the organization said.

“Such an admission by our public broadcaster is rare.” Now that legacy media isn't the only game in town, and people are getting information online from webcasts and podcasts closer to center and more to the right, they are beginning to sweat the big stuff.

The controversy centered on a January 19 CBC News Network interview in which host Natasha Fatah spoke with a Palestinian-Canadian woman whose brother had been killed [under circumstances which Natasha would rather not go into detail].

During the conversation, the guest referred to the conflict as “genocide.”

Strictly speaking, genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. It involves actions aimed at wiping out that group, either physically or culturally. 

Realistically speaking, if Israel wanted to commit genocide against the people of Gaza, they would have been able to do so by the time Dominos brings you your pizza. Israel has the air power and weapons capability to wipe out all of Gaza if they wanted to do so--but they don't. It's Gaza and the Middle East who have that sick ambition and they don't hide it unless they're playing the role of victim.

“I just want to acknowledge, and you certainly are not alone in this, you used the word ‘genocide’ as many people have in this conversation about what has taken place over the course of this war,” Fatah responded.

“You of course know that we cannot use that word to describe what is happening. It is before the International Criminal Court. But the devastation, whatever it is called, is immense, immense in Gaza and certainly everyone recognizes that.”

CJPME accused Fatah and CBC of marginalizing Palestinian perspectives.

“Following this shameful segment, our Media Accountability Project team issued a media alert on the broadcast, calling out the CBC for reprimanding a Palestinian on air for the words she used reflecting her lived experience,” the group stated.

The CBC published a correction on its website but didn't reveal how many complaints they had received.

A June report by former CBC Ombudsman Jack Nagler revealed that the broadcaster had received 4,785 complaints about its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war in the weeks after the October 2023 attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israel.

Criticism of CBC's reporting on the Middle East has also come up in Parliament.

Conservative MP Rachael Harder, along with other members of the Commons heritage committee, criticized the CBC for not calling Hamas a "terrorist organization," despite Canada labeling it as such since 2002. CBC opted for terms like "militants" instead.

“Right now, there is a war taking place in Gaza,” Harder stated during a hearing. “The CBC has determined to cover it from one angle.”

CJPME described the correction as a win for media accountability but expressed continued frustration with CBC's editorial decisions, accusing the broadcaster of "dehumanizing and marginalizing" Palestinian voices.

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