This past while I've been keeping my eyes on the most recent Canadian news kerfluffle: Canada Live: Krista Erickson interviews Margie Gillis. This piece (which was split into two parts on YT) generated so many complaints to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council that they had to release a brief statement that pretty much said "leave us alone already and let us think about it!"
For a quick summary, Erickson's interview with Gillis eventually turned into a mess where neither of the two seemed to be listening to each other, and neither could seem to string together a reasonably coherent argument.
Of course, other news sites couldn't resist giving their own take on what happened, e.g. Heather Mallick, John Doyle, and Peter Worthington. The first two land on the "con" side, delivering comments on "Sun TV’s dirt-cheap studio production" (Mallick), and how "Erickson went full-bore Monty Python" (Doyle). The Grand old man of Canadian news, Worthington was "pro": "As for complaints, there was no name calling, just respectful disagreement."
What do I think? It was just a terrible interview with both talking at cross purposes. It started out nice enough, but when Erickson decides at roughly 5:30 minutes in that modern dance isn't her cup of tea, it all goes...yeah. However, was it so bad that it deserved an investigation? I don't think so, and I can't really find anything in Clause 5 of the CBCS's "CAB Code of Ethics" that clearly shows that this was worth the complaints generated:
Nothing in the foregoing shall be understood as preventing broadcasters from analyzing and elucidating news so long as such analysis or comment is clearly labeled as such and kept distinct from regular news presentations. Broadcasters are also entitled to provide editorial opinion, which shall be clearly labeled as such and kept entirely distinct from regular broadcasts of news or analysis.
Well, despite Sun News' own page that Canada Live: with Krista Erickson features "Hard News headlines and News You Can Use segments", her show isn't really "regular news presentations", but is closer to "editorial opinion".
In any event, I think it was just a terrible interview (and should be presented to up-and-coming student journalists as a lesson in what not to do). What I find interesting is the information given on that YouTube link, which seemingly made it's decision on behalf of all us Canadians and encourages us to file a complaint or two. Something about that seems like manufactured dissent against a network that some see as being "Fox News North." I wonder how many more viewers the network picked up because of all of this.
