Dell's Canadian Tails

Friday, July 2, 2010

Dell on What Is CBC Up To?

You know how something sticks in your craw? Someone will say something? or you see something? and something about it nags at you? Something just doesn't fit and you can't quite put your finger on what it is?
For me it was several things all on the same day.

One was the video report by Jennifer Hollet of CBC on June 27, 2010.

The other was Susan Ormiston's report to CBC 'The National'  on the same day regarding the police abrogation of citizens' rights in Toronto at the G20, asking, "What country am I living in?"

Jennifer Hollet,of CBC, in her report, made a point of showing two videos side by side and a number of  what I found intriguing statements, throughout her video report: 

Prior to Ms. Hollet's report, another CBC reporter draws attention to a protester shouting out, "See you on youtube"
Then Ms. Hollet's report followed, in which she talks about the 70 "new security cameras" in Toronto for the G20...
" one could argue that these are actually the new security cameras." [Hollet holds up her flip cam]
"My flip cam allowed me to get right up close when protesters took over police vehicles"
..."Here I was shooting a police car on fire when riot police suddenly storm the crowd"
..."Just this morning, with everyone having these little cameras"..."Police can't separate the protesters from the press"..."the media line blurs"...
At this point the side by side videos are shown: "take a look...it's actually the CBC's "
Jennifer Hollet CBC video

Side by side are then  two identical videos. The video was posted to youtube by the CBC video journalist...
Hollet draws attention to the fact a CBC journalist has posted to youtube...what's with that? why mention it?
Is she saying the CBC video was posted by the journalist filming it because he didn't think it would make it to air? ...or is she saying some news doesn't make it to air?...or is she saying, something you've seen as news is not real?
"as journalists we're trying to make sense of what you see?" is the ending.

Is someone manipulating the news?
... with staged bank bombings? terrorist acts that are really "controlled events"? to drum up public support for Harper's policies and discredit CSIS' whistleblower, Richard Fadden?
Is there an effort being made to draw Canadians' attention from the bigger story?
Richard Fadden has told Canadians that Harper's government has done nothing to close the loop-holes that make Canada vulnerable to foreign influence and theft of trade secrets and technology? [because PM Harper and his friends are getting rich leaving the loop-holes in place.]

If I wanted to draw the attention of the public to news manipulation, I'd do a piece like Jennifer Hollet's report. It comes across like a hostage trying to send a message.
If that's what Hollet was up to, sending an innocuous report with a deeper message, in such a way as to not  draw attention from the censors, I would have used the same sort of word choices, phrasing, order of phrasing, visual clues, etc....
Susan Ormiston, "What country am I living in?"
CBC reports: "protestor shouts back: See you on youtube."
Jennifer Hollet does a piece on CBC news footage being posted at youtube.
Either CBC is slipping in the way it covers news, or CBC is telling Canadians, "look, listen and make sense of what you are seeing."
CBC news: what are you up to?

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