CBC president Marie-Philippe Bouchard denied the public broadcaster’s news coverage is biased or that it poaches journalists from smaller media outlets in regional markets.
“I will uphold the right of anybody to have opinions about our coverage, but I will stand by the quality of our journalism any day,” Bouchard said at a Canadian Heritage parliamentary committee hearing on Thursday looking into the state of journalism and media sectors.
Bouchard faced most of the questions from members of Parliament at the hearing, which also featured other media representatives, including Torstar president Angus Frame and Pattison Media president Rod Schween.
Last month, the same committee heard from former CBC News host Travis Dhanraj, who accused the public broadcaster of trying to silence him when he challenged bias at the network and fought for a diversity of opinion. CBC denied these accusations.
During the committee hearing on Thursday, Edmonton Conservative MP Kerry Diotte asked Bouchard to respond to accusations of CBC bias.
“I don’t believe that our reporters are pursuing a particular agenda,” Bouchard said. “They are seeking the truth. They are double-sourcing their information.”
She said reporters are “held to a standard” and do not push their opinion but base their stories and broadcasts “on facts that they check.”
Bouchard was also grilled about CBC’s impact on regional media coverage and local outlets. Conservative MP Rachael Thomas said the committee has heard from some media outlets who say that instead of the CBC going into so-called news deserts, it’s setting up new bureaus in areas where private outlets already provide local coverage.
Thomas said these local outlets feel “quite targeted” and “under attack” by the CBC. She asked Bouchard about the CBC coming into these markets with its “$1.6-billion of taxpayer money, plus ad revenue” and then “dispel these smaller players.”
We asked CBC’s president: Is CBC carrying out an ‘ideological objective’?
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and other critics of the CBC and Radio-Canada have said Canada’s public broadcaster has an ‘ideological objective.’ The CBC’s Front Burner sat down with the president of the public broadcaster, Marie-Philippe Bouchard, and asked her to weigh in.
Bouchard said the CBC is reinforcing its coverage in smaller locations, where it has not had a presence before, and sometimes that new coverage includes areas that already have some local media presence.
She said in those cases, the CBC seeks to collaborate with that local media, and to see how they can help and support each other through training opportunities and sharing facilities.
Not there to ‘extinguish’ media’: Bouchard
“We are there not to extinguish existing media,” Bouchard said.
“That’s not how these local news companies perceive the CBC,” Thomas said.
Asked by Liberal MP Fares Al Soud to expand on the issue, Bouchard said when the CBC opens up a new bureau, its first interest is in seeking local people to report on that community.
“We don’t approach journalists from other media, but … if there’s a posting, we can’t stop people from applying,” she said. “That’s a reality.”
Conservative MP Kevin Waugh asked Schween, the Pattison Media president, whether the CBC collaborated with them when their independent television station had to close in Medicine Hat, Alta.
Schween said that his company has had a “wonderful relationship” with CBC in terms of renting transmission space, and that the decision to pull out of Medicine Hat came before CBC added a bureau there.
However, Schween said his company has not had any conversations with the CBC.
“But, boy, I would love to have that conversation where we could collaborate on bringing journalists to markets like Medicine Hat, because we have a great difficulty in that,” Schween said.
Schween said the CBC did take one of the remaining journalists they decided to keep in Medicine Hat to service the market with their local radio stations.
“Instead of helping us in that market, they left us without a journalist in that market, and then having to go out and retrain somebody else,” Schween said.
Asked to respond to Schween’s comments, Bouchard said that same employee only stayed with the CBC for a little while and then moved on to another job.
‘That is business’
“That is business. That is what happens,” she said. “People move — they move because they want other experience.”
“We are all faced with the same challenges, and I’m sorry there was not a conversation at the timely moment for your station that was closing.”
Waugh asked Schween how it helps to expand the media when the CBC comes into a community to “poach.”
“I don’t think it does, unfortunately,” Schween said.
He said it’s not the only time the CBC has taken one of its employees, but he didn’t want to refer to it as poaching, as the “same thing happens with us.”
Even so, he said he’s seen many other examples of the CBC doing this. He questions why the public broadcaster says it wants to have conversations about helping those situations.
“I would welcome that conversation, but I think, unfortunately, they’re targeting markets that aren’t news deserts, in a lot of cases.”
