CBC/Radio-Canada is following in the footsteps of US state media NPR and PBS and immediately ceasing its activities on Twitter, after being labeled by the social network as “government-funded media”, shortly after a request from Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
“Our journalism is impartial and independent. To claim otherwise is false. This is why we are suspending our activities on Twitter,” the public broadcaster wrote, in both official languages, on Monday afternoon. on Twitter.
Our journalism is impartial and independent. To suggest otherwise is untrue. That is why we are pausing our activities on @Twitter. | Our journalism is impartial and independent. To claim otherwise is false. This is why we are suspending our activities on @Twitter.
— CBC/Radio-Canada (@CBCRadioCanada) April 17, 2023
Radio-Canada’s director general of news, Luce Julien, has given her journalists the right to continue publishing on the platform, reads an internal memo obtained by The duty. “You can continue to post on this platform and our entertainment accounts will continue to be active as well,” it read.
Only institutional accounts and those of the Information Service are affected by this suspension.
The same morning, the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau came to the defense of the public media. He called it “disappointing” that his Tory rival Pierre Poilievre is going after the “independent” and “local” public broadcaster with the help of billionaire Elon Musk.
“To me, it highlights a misalignment of values and a lack of understanding of how proud Canadians are of our institutions, and don’t like when billionaires are asked to help them attack our institutions,” Mr. Trudeau said at a press briefing.
After a request from Pierre Poilievre
On Sunday, the official account of the English network of Radio-Canada was identified by Twitter as a media “funded by the government”. This follows the sending, last week, of a letter from the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (CCP), Pierre Poilievre, to the big boss of Twitter, the billionaire Elon Musk, with precisely this aim. In this message, he indicated that he wanted to “protect Canadians against misinformation and manipulation by state media”.
Mr. Poilievre never received a response from Elon Musk. He nevertheless celebrated the appearance of this label attached to the CBC account, writing “now people know that this is Trudeau propaganda, not news”.
Contacted by The duty to find out if its decision stems directly from Mr. Poilievre’s letter, Twitter simply sent the now-famous poop emoji as a response. An identical response was sent to other media.
The CCP’s proposal is officially to cut off the English network of CBC, but not the French network of Radio-Canada. A petition available Monday on the party’s website, however, asked to “Stop funding the CBC” (Société Radio-Canada). Party spokeswoman Marion Isabeau-Ringuette said it was a “translation error”. The page was removed from the site shortly after receiving questions from the Duty.
Other departures from Twitter
In the past few days, other public media outlets have been given the famous label of “government-funded media” on their Twitter accounts. Among them, the American public radio NPR and the American public television PBS have also decided to cease their activities on the social network. “The platform takes actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” NPR said.
After challenging the label, Britain’s BBC got a new mention from Twitter, which now calls it “publicly funded media.”
By way of comparison, Russian state media Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, the Chinese state agency China Xinhua News, are labeled “government-affiliated media”.
In interview with The duty last week, UQAM journalism professor Patrick White shared his fear that several media would follow in NPR’s footsteps. “It’s important to have reliable sources on social networks, otherwise it will leave room for misinformation,” he insisted.
CBC / Radio-Canada, an independent media?
In the opinion of Alain Saulnier, former director general of information for Radio-Canada, the editorial independence of the broadcaster is protected by the Broadcasting Act. This does not give any right to the government in power to interfere in the content of the broadcaster or in the way in which it uses its resources. It states that it is important to maintain “the freedom of expression and the journalistic, creative and programming independence enjoyed by broadcasting companies”.
“It was even former Conservative minister Marcel Masse who sponsored this law and insisted on adding this mention,” explains Mr. Saulnier.
This is without forgetting the existence of Journalistic Standards and Practices (NPJ) with which information employees must comply. The code of ethics of more than a hundred pages specifies that journalists are “independent of lobbies and political and economic powers”.
Moreover, on both the French and English sides, we have an ombudsman to deal with complaints from the public. This is another mechanism to ensure the independence of CBC / Radio-Canada. “Unlike private media, the public broadcaster must put in place such a transparency mechanism to protect the public and ensure that the NPJ are respected. The decisions of the ombudsman, who has a completely independent role, are also of a public nature,” recalls Guy Gendron, who held this position from 2016 to 2021.
In 2021-2022, CBC/Radio-Canada received $1.2 billion from the federal government, compared to $1.4 billion the previous fiscal year. The public broadcaster also derives revenue from advertising and subscriptions.