I am appalled that CTV would hire Gilmore then fire her immediately because of Conservative push-back. Are they so out-of-touch with Canadian social media that they didn't realize they were going to get this kind of crazy reaction from the Cons, and they would need to expect it and figure out how to deal with it?
Its like the CTV bosses have no idea that the journalists they want to hire are prominent because they have an independent profile and national standing (oh yeah -- Lisa LaFlame!)
I won't repeat the blow-by-blow that LeBrun reports, but here is how his article ends:
Luke LeBrun / Press Progress
Here's more reaction:
Luke LeBrun / Press Progress
CTV Cancelled a Fact-Checking Segment in Response to Political Pressure From Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives
Audio recording shows CTV cancelled an ‘election misinformation’ segment with journalist Rachel Gilmore after online backlash from conservatives
...Gilmore says she worries about the message CTV is sending to other journalists, especially women, people of colour and younger journalists, who will feel chilled about covering issues impacting vulnerable communities and democracy for fear they will suffer professional consequences if they become a target too.
“Newsrooms should stand by their journalists,” Gilmore said. “These campaigns are disproportionately deployed against women and against people of colour, and that means that those are the people who will be disproportionately taken off of the airwaves when newsrooms give in to these bad faith campaigns.”
“The only way you can control it is by reducing your presence online and not covering the kinds of stories that piss these people off … The reason these people initially hated me was because I covered vaccines, the Freedom Convoy, the far-right and rising neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements within our country.”
Despite the threat of online harassment and pressure campaigns designed to make journalists pay a price professionally for using their voices and exercising their right to free expression, Gilmore says she will “not stop telling stories about things threatening our democracy and our society.”
“I didn’t get into journalism because I wanted to see my name on CTV News,” Gilmore said. “I got into it because I want to make the world slightly less shitty.”
“I cover these stories because they help people.”
Here's more reaction:
10 comments:
Beyond systematic intimidation of women and people of colour and LGBTQ+ and any other group that isn't white male Christians with money, there's another issue. Clearly, Conservatives are fundamentally at odds with the very concept of "news" that is intended to tell people factual information about the world. It's obvious because they lie all the time, and it's obvious because of how much they always HATE when anyone does fact checking. The idea of the public finding out true things about reality just drives Conservatives up the wall.
So the CTV move is doubly or triply disgraceful. It goes beyond just not having a spine. It betrays the basic concept of being a news organization. All news organizations with any real intent to convey news to the public are by definition in opposition to the alt-right. News dies under fascism. Enabling that is incredibly shameful.
What a pathetic excuse for firing Gilmore. The media, especially the on-air media, have forgotten that when he says it's raining and she says it's sunny, it's their job to look outside and tell us who's lying. In this case, it's who's paying for online bots and astroturf groups to lie to us and undermine democracy. Gilmore's now been fired by two of the three major TV broadcasters for trying to get at the truth. And PP's got his knife to the throat of the third, so don't look for the Corpse to ride to the rescue.
Steve Bannon's Cambridge Analytica, the propaganda operation that contributed to Brexit and the 2015 election of Trump, was a proof of concept. The disinformation going on now is far more sophisticated. But the goal remains the same: to deliver a population intensely divided that has given up on distinguishing truth from lies and is looking for a strongman to help them make sense.
PP along with the rest of the populist right purports to reveal the "truth" of globalist elite authoritarianism, hence all his conspiracy jabber about the World Economic Forum. In fact, he's closely aligned with Trump and working in the interests of the authoritarian destruction of Western democracy.
But, disinformation doesn't just cause distrust and confusion on the right, it works on the left too. There are strong authoritarian elements to "wokeism," and the trans issue is a powerful pipeline funnelling people into the right-wing propaganda world. It's such an obvious case of institutional power lying to people about facts they've observed since childhood. No matter how hard we pretend otherwise, people know that we can no more change sex than change species. Worse, the lie that men become women if they say so is taught in the schools and enforced by courts, human rights tribunals and professional regulators. So I was disappointed, but not surprised, to hear Gilmore accept it as true.
Does the left really need to offer more fuel to the populist right by making them out to be truth tellers? Every denial of the reality of sex differences on the left adds to the credibility and growth of speakers on the right who tell the truth on this issue if on no other. The damage done to democracy and trust in the government, schools, medicine and media by this stupidity is incalculable. Unfortunately, I've yet to see any sign that the Libs or NDP are ready to follow California governor Newsom's lead in dialing it back.
So pro-trans people are "authoritarian". Let me parse that a bit. It DOESN'T MATTER if a trans person is "really" the gender they think they belong to. You can come up with definitions either way, it becomes a semantic argument. But however you do the definition, what you're saying is that if someone wants to call themselves a particular thing and feel happier and more functional doing so, it's "authoritarian" to let them do their thing. Whereas telling them they have to knuckle under and be what you tell them to be, or else you'll make their life a living hell--that's NOT "authoritarian".
Sod off. My kid is trans. If you got close to him and started harassing him with this crap, I would knock your goddamn teeth down your throat.
It was quite a day.
Cap you have been a faithful reader and commenter, but I have to tell you that your opinions on transgender are absolutely wrong.
There is nothing "pretend" about it - and yes, I too "accept it as true" and so do millions and millions of others, who understand how important it is for trans people to be respected for who they are. Two of my friends are trans - one man, one woman - and they were absolutely right to transition to the correct gender.
When my daughter came out as gay, as a teenager, she said to me "Doesn't anyone understand how hard this is? How many nights I lay awake wondering what was wrong with me, why couldn't I just be happy as a hetrosexual woman? Does anyone think that I "choose" to be gay? Its what I am".
So I would say the same to you, Cap - transgender people didn't "choose" to be trans, it's what they are. I am grateful we are in a society now where medicine is able to help transgender people be their own true selves.
PLG, have you heard yourself? You're literally threatening violence for non-belief while claiming there's nothing authoritarian about trans. I don't believe in the TWAW/TMAM catechism, in gender souls trapped in wrong bodies or that metaphysical beliefs about gender outweigh or change the objective reality of sex. So what? I don't believe in religion either, but not even Islamists demand that I pray five times a day or call me a bigot when I don't. Live and let live.
I have to agree with Cap on this. Some people have an epiphany, religious or otherwise, which serves to guide their lives. Fine, have at it. The problem comes when I am expected to accept their dogma.
Recognizing transgender as legitimate is not just a "dogma" or religious belief, any more that believing the earth is round. It is just a reality. The only thing different now is that our medicine has caught up with gender reality.
Cap, would you say "live and let live" to racism or sexism or fascism? Transgender isn't "a belief" it is a reality.
Cap, you continue to be confused. Violence between one individual and another is not "authoritarian". It's just violent. And I stand by what I said; violence is not only about blows, and if you were harassing my son that would be violence as far as I'm concerned. FAFO.
Meanwhile, as I say it DOESN'T MATTER if you believe it. I don't believe in Christianity, but I still refer to Catholic priests as "Father so-and-so". Tons of entertainers go by various different names; people call them how they want to be called. If someone gets married and tells me they are no longer "Miss Smith" but now "Mrs Chen" it doesn't matter if I believe in patriarchal name changes for women getting married, I call them Mrs Chen. What people get called should be up to them.
If someone is going to be happy if you treat them and refer to them as a woman, and unhappy if you treat them and refer to them as a man, why are your sensibilities or offended (albeit mistaken) sense of accuracy more important to you than their happiness? Why do you want to be in AUTHORITY over what they get called and how they are treated, Mr Anti-authoritarian? Particularly when the only clear impact of you getting your way would be to make their lives miserable? Are you some kind of sadist? How exactly does it impair YOUR life to just leave them the hell alone?
Your beliefs about what gender is, whether or not they would bear any scrutiny (I think not), are nearly irrelevant to the anti-trans stance. It also requires authoritarian cruelty and intolerance of difference.
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