The Conservative Party of Canada still accuses CTV News of “disinformation”, even if its big boss assures that it is rather an “error” of two journalists, now fired, which led to distorting the words of Pierre Poilievre in a report.
“There was no malicious intent, from my perspective. It was two people, acting independently, trying to make a story work,” CTV News vice-president Richard Gray told a parliamentary committee Thursday.
Mr. Gray gave a little more detail on the circumstances which led to the dismissal of two of his “experienced” journalists, held responsible for having altered a video clip suggesting that Mr. Poilievre wanted to call an election for something else than to get rid of the carbon tax.
“A reporter altered a script that was approved by the director, changing the meaning of a particular clip to better fit [dans] the desired story. In the second case, an editor pasted two clip fragments together, creating a new segment that was never said, to overcome a technical problem with the initial recording,” he detailed.
Ontario Conservative MP Michael Barrett took the time to read to the parliamentary committee the title of an article published by CTV News that he considers biased. He criticized the fact that other stories were ignored, he said, when they could demonstrate the negative effect of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s nine years in power.
“You altered this quote from Mr. Poilievre to reflect the arguments of the Trudeau government,” he accused, in reference to the September 27 report which led to the boycott of CTV News by all conservative elected officials. He later shouted at her “no one believes you!” »
End of the boycott
The ban on speaking to journalists from this channel quietly ended last week, English-speaking listeners listening to station 580 CFRA in Ottawa learned last Wednesday. Like CTV, this position is owned by Bell Media.
“We are allowing our caucus to speak to CTV again,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced to host Bill Carroll.
The politician argued that the editing of his remarks was too “well done” for it to be anything other than a planned action against him.
“The problem is not that they made a mistake. They didn’t make a mistake. They deliberately concocted a sentence that I didn’t say and broadcast it on the evening news. […] It was a deliberate lie. »
Mr. Poilievre attacked journalists who are members of the Canadian Parliamentary Tribune, which covers political news in Ottawa. He confirmed his strategy of avoiding these media, to better “deliver [son] message directly to Canadians.
Simple mistake
CTV News vice-president Richard Gray has repeatedly said the situation was due to a simple error, despite the firing of two journalists.
“We made a mistake. It was an error that was impossible to predict. We apologized immediately. […] This is a deeply regrettable situation. This is the first time I’ve seen this in my 33 years in television news. »
He later assured MP and former leader Andrew Scheer that his team of journalists “does not have a liberal bias”, provoking hilarity from conservative elected officials.
Bloc Québécois MP René Villemure also attacked the bias of CTV News, with proof of the fact that Quebec separatists are described as “separatists”.
“The very use of the word puts us in a bad position in the face of English Canada,” he illustrated. Richard Gray did not go into detail about this choice of words.