OFFICIALLY EXPOSED: WE ALL KNOW THE CBC IS PUBLICLY FUNDED

Also water is wet and don't trust people who tell you to ignore the news

The leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, tweeted this the other day. It was a follow up to his public request to Elon Musk to classify the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) as ‘Government-Funded Media’ and a crafty way to get people to sign up for his mailing list.

Though ‘Government-Funded Media’ should perhaps be more accurately stated as ‘Publicly-Funded Media’, as Twitter did with the BBC, but that’s just semantics.

The fact remains, it’s true.
The CBC gets the bulk of its operating budget from taxpayers.

Most of us Canucks, but agreed definitely not all, are cool with that.
We generally like publicly-funded things that work to make life better for the public.
Hell, you know how America’s slogan is ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness’?
Our’s is ‘Peace, Order, and Good Government’.
Seriously.
Our national slogan is P.O.G.G.

So, stating that the CBC is government/public/taxpayer funded media, ain’t the issue. That’s just fact.

However, I have a couple of issues with Pierre’s tweet…

First off, it is very concerning to me that an important political leader would deem a statement by current day Twitter as ‘official’.

Twitter doesn’t even actually verify people they declare are verified.
So saying that because Twitter declares something that that something is now ‘officially exposed’ is the same as getting excited when @ Br4dP!TT74938 follows you because they have a blue checkmark.

Nothing officially stated by Twitter these days is officially anything.
Case in point, emails sent to press@twitter.com are auto-replied with “💩”.
Seriously, try it.
Actually, that may be an insight.

The second issue is the line “Now people know that it is Trudeau propaganda, not news”.

This is dangerous and evidently wrong.

It’s dangerous because it smacks of ‘don’t believe what you read, see or hear… just trust me’.

That’s sketchy.

It’s also evidently wrong because…

If the CBC were merely Trudeau propaganda it would be much more insufferable than it is.

Trudeau would be guest starring on Run The Burbs as himself and he’d help the Pham’s deal with their raccoon problems by reasoning with the raccoons in French.

Schitt’s Creek would be back on the air and he’d be part of a storyline where he helps Johnny Rose realize he shouldn’t sell his land to some highway developers and then finishes the episode with a monologue on the dangers of Climate Change and saying ‘More highways? Eeww, David’ and then breaking the fourth wall with a knowing glance to camera.

You can bet your ass there’d be a ‘Little Mosque On The Prairie’ reboot where he’d resolve conflict in the community after the local radio station briefly becomes a Rebel Media affiliate.

I will defend the CBC for lots of reasons but also the CBC sucks for lots of reasons.
One of the reasons on both sides of that argument is accountability.
I once asked a longtime CBC staffer why the CBC wasn’t awesome like the BBC, their reply was “It’s not the CBC’s mandate to be awesome.”

THAT is the CBC.

Could it be run better?
Most likely, yes.
Is it a propaganda machine for whichever government is in power?
No.

The CBC is not quick enough to be a propaganda machine for any party.
They move painfully slow.

The CBC is absolutely crap at covering breaking news because, like the boring by the book journalistic nerds they are, they wait for things to be confirmed before they report them.

The CBC is everything boring about being politely and responsibly Canadian…
and it has a cool logo.
That’s good.

When someone tells you to ignore the news…
it’s usually because they want you to ignore the news.

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