The Ombud's Inbox - November 2024

The most prevalent themes of the complaints that arrived in my inbox over the past month were predictable, and revealing of why society seems to have difficulty grappling with contentious issues.

The number one subject of complaints was, yet again, the conflict in the Middle East. Only this time, the incident that had the most people talking took place not in Gaza, or Lebanon, or Israel - but in Amsterdam.

I speak, of course, of the violence that took place before and after a soccer match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Dutch club Ajax.

I heard from many people concerned that CBC’s coverage downplayed evidence suggesting antisemitism was the driving force behind the beatings of Maccabi supporters:

In the current time where we've seen such a meteoric rise in and violent escalations of antisemitism both at home and abroad, I'm deeply troubled by the choice made by CBC to devote so many words to casting doubt on the extent to which this bigotry contributed and suggesting that isolated incidents of Israeli hooliganism could be an acceptable explanation for widespread targeted attacks on Jews. It's an incredibly irresponsible characterization of the events to be coming from our national broadcaster.

Others took a nearly polar opposite view, arguing that the only thing being downplayed was offensive behaviour by the Israeli soccer fans:

By disregarding the provocative statements and aggressive history of the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, CBC missed an opportunity to present a balanced and accurate account of the altercation. The absence of this context undermines the depth of understanding for audiences and hampers the ability to engage in informed discourse. To uphold responsible journalism, it is imperative for news outlets to provide comprehensive coverage that considers all perspectives and behaviors involved in such incidents.

It is easy enough to point people toward CBC reports that mentioned many different aspects of these events. The goal of the journalists is generally to provide people a 360-degree view of what is known, and what people are saying, and allow the audience to decide for itself what to think. That’s not to say that CBC did a perfect job - in fact, the coverage will be the subject of an upcoming review.

But it’s discouraging that complainants appeared to want CBC to frame the event through a very singular lens. Depending on their point of view, it was either a pogrom, or the inevitable outcome of instigation by Israeli soccer fans. In my experience, quality journalism tends to be less categorical in the immediate aftermath of an event. That does not mean pulling punches about hard truths, but it often means it is wise for a reporter to distinguish carefully between facts that are verifiable, and reactions or analysis which are informed views, but not necessarily gospel.

The other issue which dominated my correspondence in November was the U.S. election.

Coverage of Donald Trump invariably inspires people with competing viewpoints to speak up. The moment that generated the most complaints came on election night, CBC’s live coverage on television included a panel with one representative from the Democrats, and one from the Republicans. At one point, the Democrat accused Mr. Trump of promoting a false theory that the 2020 election results were illegitimate. She described it as a propaganda campaign that could have come out of “Hitler’s playbook.”

Pretty much any reference to Hitler is incendiary. In this case, the chatter in some quarters of social media was that CBC had compared Trump to Hitler. That was not a take I shared. I explained to complainants that the comments were clearly an opinion expressed by a partisan person, and that the audience was then free to judge the credibility of her remarks. There’s no particular reason to assume that CBC endorsed what she said. Naturally, I would expect that programmers will take all this critical feedback from viewers into consideration the next time they are assembling a U.S. political panel.

Both the U.S. election and the violence in Amsterdam affected people emotionally, and it’s no wonder that they want coverage to align with their own individual response. But while one of my functions is to hold CBC journalists to account, I want to encourage consumers of the news not to assume that a report is wrong or biased, simply because it includes views - even provocative or offensive ones -  that conflict with their own.