For months now, I’ve been getting complaints about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where I’ve worked as a TV and radio producer, and occasional on-air columnist, for much of the past decade.
People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive. Or why, exactly, taxpayers should be funding articles that scold Canadians for using words such as “brainstorm” and “lame.”
Everyone asks the same thing: What is going on at the CBC?
Uhm? What’s going on is the courageous voices of the oppressed as manifested through the multibillion dollar state propaganda outlet, you fucking bigot.
When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.
Above is what you get when you click on “top stories,” on the CBC radio website. Parody of student clickbait? I think not. White Supremacists might see “clickbait.” I see courage. I see inspiration. I see us having the difficult yet required conversations on race, new shades of colour, people with weird faces, and inspirational self-help gurus. We do that by shutting down the comments section.
It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I am now easily the most conservative, frequently sparking tension by questioning identity politics. This happened in the span of about 18 months. My own politics did not change.
I need to briefly interject and explain that this woman has Jimmy Dore Syndrome. That means she’s intertwining anti-corporate “left” policies that are completely fake with anti-White/pervert garbage. In the same way that Jimmy Dore does admittedly very good work pointing out how utterly full of shit the Democrat Party in the US is on economic or anti-war issues, she’ll be doing the same for Canada.
It is to sign on, enthusiastically, to a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the United States and spread through American social media platforms that monetize outrage and stoke societal divisions. It is to pretend that the “woke” worldview is near universal — even if it is far from popular with those you know, and speak to, and interview, and read.
To work at the CBC now is to accept the idea that race is the most significant thing about a person, and that some races are more relevant to the public conversation than others. It is, in my newsroom, to fill out racial profile forms for every guest you book; to actively book more people of some races and less of others.
Which races Tara? I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on her. She represents a sort of last gasp of legitimacy on the Finkle-left, where there are some people who are annoyed that they got sold this kumbaya bullshit by a bunch of anti-Whites and the mask is being pulled off.
To work at the CBC is to submit to job interviews that are not about qualifications or experience — but instead demand the parroting of orthodoxies, the demonstration of fealty to dogma.
It is to become less adversarial to government and corporations and more hostile to ordinary people with ideas that Twitter doesn’t like.
Tara Henley, former CBC producer
Woah. Sounds kinda fascist there you bigot. Trillion dollar multinational corporations are our greatest allies!
It is to endlessly document microaggressions but pay little attention to evictions; to spotlight company’s political platitudes but have little interest in wages or working conditions. It is to allow sweeping societal changes like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school closures to roll out — with little debate. To see billionaires amass extraordinary wealth and bureaucrats amass enormous power — with little scrutiny. And to watch the most vulnerable among us die of drug overdoses — with little comment.
I wrote many months ago on a different site about a former CBC documentary maker being explicitly told that her documentary about opiate overdoses was bad because “we don’t need stories focused on White Men.” I’ll reformat that and put it up on this site at sometime in the future.
It is to consent to the idea that a growing list of subjects are off the table, that dialogue itself can be harmful. That the big issues of our time are all already settled.
It is to capitulate to certainty, to shut down critical thinking, to stamp out curiosity. To keep one’s mouth shut, to not ask questions, to not rock the boat.
This, while the world burns.
How could good journalism possibly be done under such conditions? How could any of this possibly be healthy for society?
All of this raises larger questions about the direction that North America is headed. Questions about this new moment we are living through — and its impact on the body politic. On class divisions, and economic inequality. On education. On mental health. On literature, and comedy. On science. On liberalism, and democracy.
These questions keep me up at night.
I can no longer push them down. I will no longer hold them back. This Substack is an attempt to find some answers.
There is definitely a grift movement where you get these “anti-woke leftists” doing the annoying cuckservative routine. Having said that, I can sense the passion that this woman has, and I think it’s more Jimmy Dore Syndrome than anti-woke left grifter.
I will be doing a blitz of Canadian content on this site.
