Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council Dings Ezra Levant Again!

From the release:

The host of The Source, Ezra Levant, showed videoclips of a protest that had occurred outside the Sun’s Toronto office.  The protestors objected to Sun Media’s coverage of the Idle No More movement.  A few days later, Levant replayed the clips, saying that, following their initial broadcast, he had received information from viewers about who some of the protestors were.  He identified one couple by their names, stating that they were “professional protestors” who had engaged in other protest activity.

The CBSC received a complaint from the identified woman, who asserted that she was not the person in the clip as she had not attended the Sun Media protest and had not even been in Toronto at the time.  She also complained that Levant had tarnished her reputation and that of her husband by accusing them of being professional protestors and using the Aboriginal movement to cause a “ruckus”.

The CBSC’s National Specialty Services Panel concluded that Sun News Network breached Clause 6 of the CAB Code of Ethics for including inaccurate information in the talk show.  Levant had acknowledged his error on the February 8 episode of The Source.

The actual decision can be found here.  Its worth noting that Ezra didn't bother correcting himself until after the complaint was filed (not when the error was first pointed out).

I wrote about this one previously.  From the original complaint:

Neither me nor my husband was even in the country when that protest took place, nor have we been anywhere near Toronto since Jan. 1 of this year. After writing Sun to tell them that the information that they aired was false, demanding an apology, Sun actually aired the program again!

There has to be some accountability. This is the just tip of the iceberg in terms of their racist, misleading, and at times outright false programming. 

At the time, I contacted the complainant via email.  They were considering legal action at the time, which I think meant another defamation suit; I don't know what has happened with that.

PS.  I have an theory about who fed Ezra the false names in this case.  Ez, baby, you shouldn't trust that pair with anything.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
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bigcitylib said...
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bigcitylib said...

Thanks for the comment but I removed it. No names, please. Might wind up being defamatory. But your theory is plausible.

Anonymous said...

Ok, how about this: I wonder if it's a certain blogger who opines obsessively about Sakura Saunders and her hubby and who used to appear on Ezra's show but does no longer?

bigcitylib said...

That's OK.