CBC admits Heather Mallick's op-ed was "visciously personal"
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Posted by David Murrell on 05:47:48 2008/09/29
Over the weekend CBC president John Cruikshank stated that Heather Mallick's hatchetjob on Republican Vice-Presidential Canadiate Sarah Palin was "visciously personal" and full of "invective".
One interesting point metioned by both Cruikshank's letter and the Ombudsman report is that both felt that the range of opinion offered by CBC News was "too narow". I.e. both suggest obliquely that CBC News employes no conservatives. So true, so true!
As one would expect, both written pieces are chock full of high-sounding, flowery phrases desribing the CBC's supposed "high standardfs of quality journalism", etc., etc. - and both slam the organized conservative opposition to the CBC. Having said that, CBC News suffered embarrassment here.
The Ombudsman's report:
http://www.cbc.ca/ombudsman/page/MALLICK-PALIN.pdf
The CBC publisher's letter:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_cruickshank/20080928.html
The Publisher's letter written out:
We erred in our judgment
By John Cruickshank, CBC News
Sept. 28, 2008
More than 300 people have taken the trouble this month to complain to the CBC ombudsman about a column we ran on CBCNews.ca about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Sept. 5.
The column, by award-winning freelance writer Heather Mallick, was also pilloried by the National Post in Canada and by Fox News in the U.S. Despite its age it is three weeks old, several lifetimes in web years this posting remains a subject of fascination in the blogosphere.
Vince Carlin, the CBC Ombudsman, has now issued his assessment of the Mallick column. He doesn't fault her for riling readers by either the caustic nature of her tone or the polarizing nature of her opinion.
But he objects that many of her most savage assertions lack a basis in fact. And he is certainly correct.
Mallick's column is a classic piece of political invective. It is viciously personal, grossly hyperbolic and intensely partisan.
And because it is all those things, this column should not have appeared on the CBCNews.ca site.
On the whole, the CBC News policy handbook takes a very anxious view of any mixing of opinion in with the news business. It sees the two as nitro and glycerin, innocuous on their own but explosive together. This is a very healthy restraint for a public broadcaster.
But every news organization needs to have an opinion dimension. Access to different viewpoints helps readers, listeners and viewers make reasoned choices, especially during an election campaign.
As a public broadcaster we have an added responsibility to provide an array of opinions and voices to complement our journalism. But we must do so carefully. And you should be able to trust us to provide you with work that's based on solid reporting and free from the passionate excesses of partisanship.
We failed you in this case. And as a result we have put new editing procedures in place to insure that in the future, work that is not appropriate for our platforms, will not appear. We are open to contentious reasoned argument but not to partisan attack. It's a fine line.
Ombudsman Carlin makes another significant observation in his response to complainants: when it does choose to print opinion, CBCNews.ca displays a very narrow range on its pages.
In this, Carlin is also correct.
This, too, is being immediately addressed. CBCNews.ca will soon expand the diversity of voices and opinions and be home to a diverse group of writers with many perspectives. In this, we will better reflect the depth and texture of this country.
We erred in our editorial judgment. You told us in no uncertain terms. And we have learned from it.
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