Unverified: The Grind Exposes New Lows in Canadian Media
Unverified: The Grind Uncovers New Lows in Canadian Media
Journalist Dave Gray-Donald from the GrindTO spent months analyzing Canadian media reports and attempting to hold his follow journalists accountable for repeatedly printing unverified claims about October 7th, 2023. His piece, Global News and Postmedia Refuse to Correct Oct. 7 Falsehoods exposes some of the most horrific failures of our legacy media - but its not getting the exposure it needs...
...so we also discuss how to combat the impacts of shoddy, even malicious reporting by supporting independent media and good reporting when we see it.
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Transcript
Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints
Speaker:of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining
Speaker:power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,
Speaker:we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle
Speaker:capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know
Speaker:we need. All right, journalist Dave Graydonald from The GrindTO, he's back in the studio with
Speaker:us to unpack his latest piece. It's a doozy. I imagine it took quite some work to put together,
Speaker:some exhausting work. We're gonna talk to Dave about that. And if you remember, Dave was on
Speaker:earlier in the summer, we had a live stream on managing the narrative. And you'll find
Speaker:some similarities in this conversation from that one, but... near the end of the episode,
Speaker:we're going to talk about what we can do to combat what Dave's going to be talking about
Speaker:here. Dave's article came out this morning, and we'll link it in the show notes as we always
Speaker:do. It centers on the failures of Canadian media surrounding the events of October 7th and their
Speaker:absolute refusal to correct or change course. Dave, first, welcome back. Thanks for taking
Speaker:time for us again. How are you? Hello. Good. Good to be here. Yeah. I've been busy, but,
Speaker:uh, yeah, lovely to be here. You're distributing the latest episode of The Grind right now,
Speaker:as well as I imagine talking to people about this latest article. For sure. For those who
Speaker:haven't read the article yet, can you give us just kind of a brief summary of what you mean
Speaker:when they refuse to correct October 7th falsehoods? Cause I think all of us have heard the falsehoods
Speaker:and we've tried our best to combat those narratives, but you've really done a deep dive into not
Speaker:only uncovering them, but pressing Canadian media to correct themselves. How did that go?
Speaker:So yeah, there's a lot of verified information about what happened on October 7th. It's clear
Speaker:there were attacks and gunfights and all sorts of things happened. a lot of people were killed.
Speaker:So this is not denying at all October 7th, but specifically this article looks at the claim
Speaker:of 40 killed babies and beheaded babies and the claim of 40 beheaded babies. This spread
Speaker:like wildfire starting on October 10th, 2023. There was an Israeli TV interview where someone
Speaker:said that soldiers, the reporter on I-24 News found 40 dead babies in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz
Speaker:in southern Israel. And it turned out there were zero babies killed in that kibbutz. The
Speaker:youngest person killed there was about 14 years old. However, this rumor spread all over the
Speaker:world, as I'm sure almost all of your listeners remember. And it was repeated in Canadian media
Speaker:very quickly. So that day, the National Post had a headline about 40 dead babies. Columnists
Speaker:were posting about it. The Toronto Star had an article in the opinion section. And then
Speaker:relatively quickly, and of course, Joe Biden said he saw photos of decapitated children
Speaker:and the White House immediately said, no, he hasn't seen those photos. We haven't seen those
Speaker:photos. And the Israeli government was not confirming the 40 dead babies or the 40 beheaded babies.
Speaker:but still it kept spreading and there were reports coming out that it wasn't verified. And so
Speaker:the National Post, post-media papers in general, published at least four times this claim. That
Speaker:was mostly in October and November. I've emailed them, the editors, the editor-in-chief and
Speaker:the managing editor there, five times and they... have not responded, they're not correcting,
Speaker:they're reporting. So readers of post-media papers might still believe that there were
Speaker:40 murdered babies in that kibbutz on October 7th. Now the reason that this is important
Speaker:is, aside from just the truth, which I think is always important, is that if you'll remember,
Speaker:this claim was used very widely to shut down any... Anytime a person wanted to talk about
Speaker:context of October 7th, anytime anyone wanted to talk about what was happening and a proportional
Speaker:response, because Israel started bombing, I can't remember if it was the 7th or the 8th
Speaker:of October, started bombing Gaza relentlessly, a big part of the article goes into these claims
Speaker:in an article published by Global News, a journalist named Stuart Bell. He's an award-winning veteran
Speaker:reporter, covers terrorism. And he went to Kibbutz Beri, a different Kibbutz, that had been attacked.
Speaker:About 100 people died there. 100 Israelis died there, and many Hamas fighters. And he interviewed
Speaker:people who had lost relatives. He interviewed... One of the main people he interviewed was an
Speaker:Israeli Colonel, Golan Vach. I'm not sure how to pronounce the last name, I apologize. And
Speaker:the Colonel made a number of unsubstantiated and false claims. And there has been no follow-up
Speaker:evidence from the Israeli government or media sources. And Stuart Bell mentions early in
Speaker:the article that he was shown photos to back up this Colonel's account of events. Now at
Speaker:no point when he's talking about the beheaded baby... does he say that the Colonel could
Speaker:not show him a photo? The Colonel had told other media that there were no photos. This is not
Speaker:noted by Bell, but it's his responsibility as a journalist, including within Global's journalistic
Speaker:practices, to be transparent about what information he can verify and not, especially with such
Speaker:sensitive, highly sensational claims. There's other false claims, or there are false claims
Speaker:in his article, The Colonel says at a different house that eight children were concentrated
Speaker:with seven adults and concentrated in a room and burned together. Now there was no house
Speaker:in Berry where eight children were burned together. And the house, he also mentions standing outside
Speaker:of it that the Israeli military had shot a tank shell at this house. another reporter asked
Speaker:how is this house so damaged and Vatch says it was shot with a tank. Bell does not include
Speaker:this. There's been a lengthy investigation both within Israel and beyond about what happened
Speaker:in this kibbutz and how there was a house, the Pesikohan house, that was fired on several
Speaker:times by Israeli tanks while about 15... hostages were inside. The Israeli military admits that
Speaker:one hostage outside was killed with shrapnel from its own tank. It won't conclude on how
Speaker:the other people were killed. There was a Israeli Yasmin Porat who gave an interview a few days
Speaker:later saying there was a lot of crossfire and people were caught in the crossfire. So Bell
Speaker:does not include this in his Global News article. To get to the end of this story, I've emailed
Speaker:Bell and the editor in chief and they at Global News, Sonia Verma, and they did not respond.
Speaker:Someone from the communications department at the parent company, Chorus Entertainment, responded
Speaker:to all of my requests saying, we stand by our reporting. We will not be changing our story
Speaker:at this time. One last detail here is that I was at an event on October 19th. So this article
Speaker:was posted on October 15th, 2023. And then four days later, there was this event called Trust
Speaker:Talks. It was turned into an episode of CBC Ideas. You can listen to it. It was broadcast
Speaker:on November 8th, 2023. And the panelists were Sonja Verma from Global News, Brody Fenland
Speaker:from very high up at CBC News. And I'm forgetting the name of the person at the Toronto Star.
Speaker:And someone asked a question there about this article by Stuart Bell saying, you know, all
Speaker:of you on stage, your articles have included claims of beheaded babies and often in quotes.
Speaker:So you're quoting from someone who's making the claim. And you're not saying that the claim
Speaker:is unverified. So publishing such a sensational claim, normally, first of all, you would think
Speaker:to not publish it in the first place, if it's so sensational and can't be verified. And then
Speaker:in the second place, if you are gonna publish it, the responsible thing to do is to say that
Speaker:we, Global News, CBC, Toronto Star, et cetera, cannot verify this claim. They did not do that
Speaker:in the Stuart Bell October 15th article. Of course, the National Post was not doing it.
Speaker:There was a Toronto Star op-ed, I think I mentioned already, that mentioned the 40 beheaded babies
Speaker:and it didn't have an attribution. They changed it, I believe on October 19th, but there was
Speaker:still a 40 babies claim in that article that wasn't changed until I emailed them in August
Speaker:2024. When they make those changes, do they do so publicly at all or is it simply just
Speaker:a line change in the printed article or in the online article? So that's a great question.
Speaker:I, you know, the Toronto Star is one of the only ones that from my correspondence, there
Speaker:was a correction. And in that case, there was, they'd already corrected something on last
Speaker:October and they put it, so they changed the article text and then at the very bottom in
Speaker:italics, they say, okay, we couldn't substantiate this. And they did that again. And I looked
Speaker:because they publish corrections each day. And I looked in their corrections those two days
Speaker:and I didn't see a notice. So maybe I missed it, but I don't think they put a notice in
Speaker:their print edition. Um, I'd love to have someone check on that, but, uh, yeah, they, they do
Speaker:it very quietly often, but I was, uh, you know, I was a little bit heartened. I'll be honest
Speaker:that the Toronto star at least would, um, issue that correction on the article. But that is
Speaker:just an indication that expectations are on the floor because they shouldn't have published
Speaker:that in the first place. And I think it's been widely known that those claims have had issues
Speaker:around them, if not been proven to be complete falsehoods for quite some time. I mean, you're
Speaker:talking about people questioning them, pressing them on October 19th. And then months and months
Speaker:and months later, being pestered by their fellow journalists here in Canada, and then they're
Speaker:issuing a really innocuous correction. Let's just couch the fact that the other folks you
Speaker:contacted just still stand by it and how ridiculous that is. It seems like these corrections aren't
Speaker:really corrections at all. And this isn't like they spelt someone's name wrong or they got
Speaker:a small detail wrong. I mean, this is big. This is not to say that October 7th. isn't a date
Speaker:to be discussed and analyzed and on its own without any of these claims, but the way politicians
Speaker:have been able to weaponize it continually to this day, like there's some politicians still
Speaker:really repeating these claims and they know. And so you would think that finding out they
Speaker:were substantiated, they're unsubstantiated, or perhaps even lies perpetuated on purpose
Speaker:for a very specific end. is news in itself. Well, I know it's news because he wrote about
Speaker:it and we're here to talk about it. But I mean, like you're in these editing rooms and on mass,
Speaker:like Legacy Media finds out that they've been duped, you know, let's just, we'll give them
Speaker:the benefit of the doubt. And they have nothing really to say about that at all. That's the
Speaker:most damning thing about it. Yeah, I should say that at the, that event in Toronto, the
Speaker:Trust Talks, So the editor-in-chief at Global News, Sonia Verma, said, you know, I need to
Speaker:see the example. And then I read every night the Global News articles and the scripts, and
Speaker:I go through it all, and I know what we can verify and what we can't, and make sure that
Speaker:we are upfront about what we can verify and what we can't. And this one... That's a lie.
Speaker:You know, I don't... I don't know what's going on inside the newsroom at Global News. If anyone
Speaker:from Global News is listening, get in touch with me, because I would love to know what
Speaker:is going on inside this newsroom that this article won't be corrected. Same goes with Post Media,
Speaker:let me know. But to understand a little bit what's going on there is, oh, I should give
Speaker:one little shout out to CBC first.
Speaker:General Manager and Editor-in-Chief at CBC News, he got promoted in January. He responded saying
Speaker:roughly the same thing, that we wanna be really upfront about what we can verify and what we
Speaker:can't and give context and explain and whatever. Now there's two articles that, there are only
Speaker:two articles on CBC News website that I can find that talk about beheaded babies. I only
Speaker:really looked at new... printed or sort of online text media. I didn't go through radio. I didn't
Speaker:go through TV. Dave, I don't even know how you went through all the print. I mean, just searching
Speaker:key keywords. So I might've missed something, but on CBC news, there's two articles that
Speaker:quote from a conservative MP, Rachel Thomas, because they were attacking the CBC the conservatives
Speaker:were because they weren't using the word terrorist to define Hamas or. I can't remember exactly
Speaker:what the argument was, but it was something like that. And so Rachel Thomas at Parliament
Speaker:had said, you know, what side are you on? How could you possibly be on this side when there's
Speaker:40 babies beheaded? And so John Paul Tasker, senior reporter at CBC, quoted that, and in
Speaker:the first article on October 17th, did not say anything about how this was unsubstantiated.
Speaker:There were widespread reports that it was unsubstantiated at the time, just didn't include it. So a reader
Speaker:could reasonably think that it was true. But a week later did a follow-up article on the
Speaker:same topic and included, you know, this claim cannot be verified or it's not been corroborated.
Speaker:So that's good. That's progress at least. You know, I take issue with it being printed in
Speaker:the first place, but the CBC News Online did sort of correct their record. However, that
Speaker:first article from October 17th, I got in touch with them actually just yesterday with the
Speaker:journalist, John Paul Tasker, and I said, you know, will you issue a correction or a clarification
Speaker:like you did in the other article? Cause this one still looks like it's telling a truth.
Speaker:You gave him one last out. Yeah, and I was forwarded on to the head of public affairs for CBC, Chuck
Speaker:Thompson, and he just said, you know, this quote was attributed properly, no change necessary.
Speaker:I said, seriously, I gave them some more time and no response. I filed a complaint now with
Speaker:the ombudsman at CBC because they do have an ombudsman, unlike Global, and we'll see what
Speaker:happens there, but the article is uncorrected. So CBC did also fail in that regard. And that's
Speaker:our public broadcaster. Well, the other person interviewed in the article, and you should
Speaker:really read the article. everyone who's listening, I don't want to give away everything, but it
Speaker:is very long, so I'm trying to summarize for you, is that I spoke to journalism professor
Speaker:Sonia Fata at Toronto Metropolitan in Toronto, and Sonia was talking about how this story,
Speaker:there's a huge responsibility for media, because it's so charged, because it's such a sensational
Speaker:claim. all the reasons you can imagine, journalists should be really, really careful about anything
Speaker:that looks like disinformation or misinformation. Disinformation is when a source is specifically
Speaker:trying to mislead and it's disseminated in a way that's meant to mislead. Often media take
Speaker:disinformation and then unwittingly spread it, and that's called misinformation, when you
Speaker:have an incorrect fact and you're spreading it without knowing. I have no idea. whether
Speaker:these journalists and editors are unwittingly or wittingly do it, I can't judge on that.
Speaker:However, she says, you know, in the case of Russian disinformation, when media hears that,
Speaker:they're very, very careful, very scrutinizing, really sharp on not trusting a word that comes
Speaker:from Russian government sources. This case, the, you know... The Colonel in Berry was just
Speaker:trusted at his word. You know what really upsets me? And I get it, like we don't know what they
Speaker:knew. We don't know what pressures they were under to print what. And we can give them all
Speaker:the benefit of the doubt in the fucking world. But here's where I'm gonna lose my shit. We
Speaker:have seen collective retribution from Israel time and time again, right? Prior to October
Speaker:7th, 2023. many, many times, carpet bombing of densely populated areas in retribution for
Speaker:legitimate armed violence against an occupation. Okay, but even if you want to frame it as Israel
Speaker:does, you know, rockets would be fired into civilian territory and perhaps kill or damage
Speaker:or whatnot from Palestine, from Gaza. Hamas would take credit. and Israel would then again
Speaker:just wipe out apartment blocks. CBC has reported on this, Global News has reported on this,
Speaker:all of these people have seen this. So it wasn't just a sensational claim. It was used to justify
Speaker:a fucking genocide and they may not have anticipated the genocide but they absolutely knew in that
Speaker:moment. We all knew on October 7th when we saw what we saw. We all knew it was important to
Speaker:remind people that it didn't start then because we knew, we knew, we knew what the response
Speaker:would be. And every journalist had to have known what would happen if they printed those claims
Speaker:and repeated those claims without verifying them and fed into that fever in that moment.
Speaker:They had to have known women, children and families would die en masse. We all knew. So. all those
Speaker:pressures they were under, they didn't care. And then even as it started to unfold and the
Speaker:language of the Zionist state was repeated and it was genocidal, still they felt no responsibility
Speaker:to pull that back. And it's still used, it's still used. It even still sits in the minds
Speaker:of people who aren't as informed, who don't have the time to seek out genuine media sources.
Speaker:Because I can't even tell the difference. I'm trying to talk to Santiago about the rules
Speaker:of journalism and you kind of... You know, you talked about there being an ombudsman for CBC,
Speaker:and we know there's libel if you say something about somebody. Hamas isn't going to start
Speaker:suing all of these outlets or whoever has been defamed or whatnot. And there's just no legal
Speaker:recourse for these people who are complicit in what we've seen unfold. Like I hold them
Speaker:partly responsible. I don't care about the pressures that they're in the newsroom. There is huge
Speaker:impact. It's not just like you misled people into believing a policy, you know, some transit
Speaker:policy or whatnot. Like this, this was complicity and genocide now. And so even when you go back
Speaker:to them and you were pleading with them, it sounds like you're like pleading with your
Speaker:colleagues. Like, look, bud, I will give you all the time in the world, but you've got to
Speaker:make this right. And they're just like, no. Yeah. Yeah, it's been, it's been. obviously
Speaker:brutal to watch. And yeah, just to give some rough numbers, the, you know, there were one,
Speaker:you know, depending how you count, there's one or two babies and two toddlers who were killed
Speaker:on October 7th. And, you know, there's 710 babies as of the end of August who were killed in
Speaker:Gaza. That's, you know, people under the age of 12 months. You know, it boggles the mind.
Speaker:And yeah, so another aspect in the article that I was looking at was, you know, why does this
Speaker:happen? And there's a couple answers. One is general and one is specific. The general one
Speaker:is about Canadian foreign policy and how often journalists, this is across any country, journalists
Speaker:from a country come with all of our own cultural baggage and so when we go to a place we have
Speaker:all of these ideas already and the journalists who often get selected to be foreign correspondents
Speaker:have, they often have the interests of the Canadian state in mind. And so the reporting on our
Speaker:allies tends to be a lot less critical than reporting on our enemies. That's the general
Speaker:thing that comes from, you know, upbringing, the public education system, culture, Hollywood,
Speaker:other media, colleagues, editors, owners, all of that sort of stuff. Because our allies are
Speaker:as clearly defined as our quote unquote enemies, right? Like, for a long, we've been in the
Speaker:Middle East. Right, right. So yeah, so when you have all of the Canadian politicians of
Speaker:the major parties, specifically the Liberals and the Conservatives, you know, steadfastly
Speaker:in step with Israel and the US, then, you know, those are our allies there, and Palestinians
Speaker:and their representation are the sworn enemy. The other specific... thing that I can note
Speaker:is that post-media and global news were up until about 2009 owned by the same company. It was
Speaker:called Canwest Global. Some of you might remember it. And Canwest Global had an openly very Zionist,
Speaker:pro-Israel editorial position. So the head office in Winnipeg would edit or shoot down opinion
Speaker:writing that was critical of Israel. And that's when the Post Media papers like, well, the
Speaker:Sun papers weren't owned, but the Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, National Post, etc. were all
Speaker:owned by the same company. And this year, the National Post editor-in-chief said, you know,
Speaker:I'm very proud to be editing a publication that is Zionist in its commentary or opinion or...
Speaker:Is that like an almost quote? It's a real quote, it's at the end of the article, it's the second
Speaker:last paragraph. And Global News and its new parent company, Chorus Entertainment, it was
Speaker:owned by Shaw for a little bit, now it's at Chorus, they wouldn't respond to that question
Speaker:of whether it still holds a sort of pro-Israel editorial position. Well... We don't need them
Speaker:to answer. You've proven it. Before we started recording, you know, I asked you how you were.
Speaker:You said you were fine at the beginning of the episode. But the truth is this, not only was
Speaker:it clearly a lot of work, I mean, you talk about reading through and then checking back on a
Speaker:lot of content and reaching out over and over again. These are... I don't know if you want
Speaker:to call them that, like your colleagues. You are a journalist. You speak often of the value
Speaker:of truth. I mean, like, I imagine that drives you, obviously, to some extent. How has it
Speaker:been seeing the media respond in this way? Yeah, I mean, it's obviously rough. Hard article
Speaker:to write, but, you know, I've been meaning to write this one for so long. really since October
Speaker:last year. Took a long time for whatever reasons. I really wanted to be meticulous about it all.
Speaker:But yeah, it's hard seeing. I've never worked in like one of the big corporate newsrooms.
Speaker:So I don't really consider myself colleagues with some of these reporters and editors, but.
Speaker:Yeah, just seeing that they're the ones with the big audience and the prestige and winning
Speaker:awards and making living wage salaries. A lot of people have been laid off at Global News
Speaker:and Stuart Bell is not one of them. And so seeing all this is really demoralizing. I mean it's
Speaker:not nearly as bad as watching actually what's happening and I don't have family there so
Speaker:I don't have that immediate connection that a lot of people do. I do have friends with
Speaker:family there. But yeah, it's been rough. And I think it's a sign that there've been a number
Speaker:of signs in Canada that media is not staying on top of being credible and big corporate
Speaker:media. I mean, we've seen it more in the US, but I think there's something to be said in
Speaker:Canada. A lot of people, I would imagine, don't take post-media very seriously. However...
Speaker:Seeing this, the report from Global, was a wake-up call as well for me, because I hadn't considered
Speaker:Global in this way before. I didn't look at radio, but Emma Paling, another excellent journalist—not
Speaker:that I'm excellent, but—an excellent journalist, Emma Paling, did a great article on Global
Speaker:News and also some Bell media radio that had unverified claims. So the Alex Pearson show,
Speaker:which is a global show. had the beheaded babies claim a number of times and they still have
Speaker:those episodes up, I believe, uncorrected. I don't imagine Canadian media is especially
Speaker:unique in terms of Western coverage of what's happening either. Like, I know it's not your
Speaker:job to have monitored the UK, EU, or United States media, but. Yeah, the thing I'll say
Speaker:is that there's, a lot of this stuff was reported in Israeli media. Corrected in Israeli media,
Speaker:do you mean that? Yes. Yeah, it was corrected in Israeli media, but not Canadian media. And,
Speaker:you know, I will say, I'll be totally honest, I was, you know, I've been very nervous to
Speaker:publish about this. And because being the first one is tough. You know, you see the house that
Speaker:the Israeli tanks shot at with hostages in it. It's been reported by Haaretz in Israel recently
Speaker:by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. No one, I don't think anyone in Canada has
Speaker:published about it. I don't think any major Canadian source has done a sort of big look
Speaker:at the 40 beheaded babies claim and debunking it. I just don't think any Canadian media has
Speaker:done it. So that's very strange and nerve-racking to speak against when there's such a consensus.
Speaker:And that's what happened back last fall. was there's such a consensus, especially it comes
Speaker:from the comment section, sorry, the opinion section of papers, but it also does start from
Speaker:reporting. There was such a consensus, it was really hard to say anything. And then, you
Speaker:know, now I reply to some people on Twitter and I say, you know, this post media, they
Speaker:still have articles up, or they are repeating the beheaded babies claim and people are like,
Speaker:no, they didn't do that. We all know that was false. These are supporters of Israel. And
Speaker:I'm saying, no, how do you forget this? The articles are still up. This was the whole thing.
Speaker:This was the whole thing last fall. That, there has been a little bit of that that's gone on
Speaker:this past almost year where it's just like you're in disbelief of people's inability to hold
Speaker:a point. You know, like it's just this global amnesia or whatnot. But yeah, it's also I should
Speaker:note there's a few politicians. So obviously Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, he still
Speaker:tells a story like the US Congress in July. He told a story of two babies in an attic who
Speaker:were killed. And that. That never happened. And the other one is a conservative MP, Melissa
Speaker:Lansman, in March gave a speech where she talked about Hamas burning babies in ovens. And there's
Speaker:no evidence of that. Was she wearing her IDF dog tag at the time? I don't know. I didn't
Speaker:see the photo. I imagine she was. All right, so the show's called Blueprints of Disruption.
Speaker:So let's talk about how we can disrupt this shit, right? what we can do to combat the failures
Speaker:of Canadian media and the impact that it has. So I agree, like I called Santiago, and this
Speaker:is relevant, the reason I had to call Santiago and talk to him about this for a while and
Speaker:why he couldn't be here. And what Dave said earlier, livable wage, like independent media
Speaker:generally doesn't pay livable wages. I mean, personally for Santiago and I, it doesn't pay
Speaker:anything at all. And so, He has to pay the bills. He's working. He can't do the good journalism
Speaker:that he would like to do right now because he has got to put food on his table and pay rent.
Speaker:And independent Canadian media is not unique. I mean, there's maybe a few people that are
Speaker:able to do that. But generally it is, and I don't mean this as a pun, it's a grind. It's
Speaker:a real grind. And like, you know how we all feel. We're never... doing enough to stop this,
Speaker:to, you know, Dave's never gonna be feeling like he's doing enough to correct the wrongs
Speaker:of Canadian media. None of us are gonna feel like we've ever done enough to stop the genocide
Speaker:and the escalation that's happening now in Lebanon, or rather the world's woes, like all on our
Speaker:own. But there is a lot I think we can do in terms of supporting and promoting independent
Speaker:media sources in order to combat this. I think it is critical. because like Dave said, those
Speaker:other platforms have such huge reach. Now, if we could find a way to get the grind in this
Speaker:article as much reach as those other things, the impacts wouldn't be so great, but there's
Speaker:just such a lopsided delivery of information. And it's really hard for people right now to
Speaker:find genuine media sources. that they can trust. Yeah, yeah, I don't envy readers. I mean, one
Speaker:positive thing I can point people to is there's a new site that aggregates a lot of indie media
Speaker:called unrigged.ca, U-N-R-I-G-G-E-D.ca. And it's semi-curated, so that's pretty good, but
Speaker:we don't have anything on the scale of post media. I was looking at their financials yesterday
Speaker:and they're like, they still have annual revenues of like $177 million. They lose millions of
Speaker:dollars every year, but they're still able to pay off some loans or their loan sharks or
Speaker:whatever. But yeah, to your, to the point you're making, yeah, there's so many stories that
Speaker:we can't do and I'm, I'm trained as a environmental writer. I wrote a book on climate justice.
Speaker:I was just so blown away and shocked and appalled by what was happening and this has become my
Speaker:beat, hopefully not forever, hopefully we, you know, get out of this. But yeah, there's a
Speaker:lot of stories that I'm kicking myself that I just haven't had the time to do. I'm sure
Speaker:there's shows that you wish you could do. And yeah, there's a couple things I want to mention
Speaker:money is obviously number one. Donate to the media sources that you want to see more of
Speaker:in the world and so that they don't disappear. There's been a ton of indie papers and online
Speaker:publications that have disappeared over the years, and it's because people need money and
Speaker:get burned out and have to take paying jobs at other places that have money. The second
Speaker:thing is there's a culture that used to exist that doesn't as much anymore, and it's around
Speaker:how people who are involved in movements used to write more, and used to write more articles.
Speaker:Now it's a lot of Instagram writing and Twitter and stuff, but when it comes to writing articles,
Speaker:whether it's report backs from protests, whether it's analysis of something. It's all on Instagram,
Speaker:but it's not on web pages. And that makes it very hard to search for. It makes it hard to
Speaker:know where to look. And so, you know, I'll take an example of another story. The story you
Speaker:actually emailed me about first, which was about a protest that, where someone was arrested
Speaker:in Toronto in September 6th or 11th, I think maybe. And then they went to 50... one division
Speaker:or 52, 51, and then police pushed people onto the street and pepper sprayed them and beat
Speaker:them and tackled people and made a bunch of arrests all for assaulting an officer. Folks
Speaker:were put in the hospital that day. Yeah, there were a number of concussions, torn MCL, knee
Speaker:ligament, and minor injuries on the police side is what they say. So no major media did an
Speaker:article. about what had happened out front of 51 Division. And then what I did was literally
Speaker:just put things in chronological order based on interviewing people who were there and finding
Speaker:videos online and people sending me videos and literally just put the sequence of events in
Speaker:chronological order and make it make sense. And reporting in a lot of ways is not that
Speaker:complex. There's some stories that are, but a lot of it is really just, can I verify that
Speaker:this actually happened? What is my, how do I know or not know? Let me put it in an order
Speaker:that makes sense. And there's, I think a lot of people are intimidated with writing. I know
Speaker:it's not for everyone, but I do encourage more people to write articles, honestly. I'm giving
Speaker:you this face just because I'm in the middle of trying to build a website so that we could
Speaker:do just that, you know, like, find another medium, and both Santiago and I like to write, but
Speaker:want an outlet for it, and we want to tell the story of movements on the ground. And so that
Speaker:smirk that I have is like you reaffirming that there's a bit of a vacuum there. We interviewed
Speaker:Unicorn Riot not that long ago, and they're based in the US, but they do have... contributors
Speaker:from around the globe and they help tell the stories on the ground of movements and protests
Speaker:and the state's response not just theoretically or in policy, but how it's actually playing
Speaker:out against protesters and what that means for quote-unquote democracy, so I definitely understand
Speaker:what you're talking about there because if there's so much misrepresentation of protests right
Speaker:now in general and there's really not much to combat that. So and I'll say putting videos
Speaker:online, whatever social media platform it is, is fine and good. The thing that is searchable
Speaker:on the internet is text. So if you want to say search for what happened on this date at this
Speaker:place. I mean, you could caption something really well on Instagram and people might be able
Speaker:to find it, but it's much harder that way. So I think there's another role that, you know,
Speaker:something I want to do more is help provide and train people on various skills in journalism.
Speaker:There are some skills that are to be learned, but for the most part, it is really just verifying
Speaker:what happened. I mean, a lot of journalism school is about the craft, but really what it comes
Speaker:down to is like fact checking. verifying and yeah, and then there's the things of how to
Speaker:put together a good interesting story. Maybe you could have a little workshop for the folks
Speaker:at Post Media. Global News maybe? We could sign them all up. Santiago just went through journalism
Speaker:school and we had all these discussions and he talks about you know the rules that his
Speaker:professors are treating are. and the standards some of his stories are held to, and they're
Speaker:always a higher standard than what he's witnessing in legacy media. And he always... And I didn't
Speaker:go through journalism school, and so I'm hearing all of these, and I'm thinking, like, there's,
Speaker:like, this checklist, this set of rules. But then I'm on the phone with him today, and he's
Speaker:like, well, it's kind of like, you know, what is that, Pirates of the Caribbean, they're
Speaker:like guidelines. They're these unwritten rules. And... There's really no mechanism to hold
Speaker:them responsible. And the idea of trying to get the state to hold news, that's just a big
Speaker:puddle of mud. We don't want to go there. So sure, some folks might want to take up journalism
Speaker:or some form of it, but let's say they don't have capacity for that. Is there anything a
Speaker:reader should be doing when they see this or to combat this other than finding a better
Speaker:media source and supporting them? and sharing with all of their friends so that they don't
Speaker:also have to just consume global news. Can they be should they be writing the editor? Should
Speaker:they be pushing back in this way? Is there a way for us to correct legacy media to change
Speaker:this kind of trend? That maybe is not a trend because I haven't studied media for a very
Speaker:long time, but it just seems like since October 7th. And I hate using that as a time frame,
Speaker:but it's inevitable in discussion now. I don't know. I feel like it's next level. So how can?
Speaker:we push back against this. Yeah, that's, I mean, I would look to organizers of various movements
Speaker:for this, and you know, you have a lot of experience. I'll just add that the, yeah, writing to the
Speaker:editors and the journalists is important on both sides of things. So if there's a problem
Speaker:at CBC, let's say, yeah, email the ombudsman. Ombudsman does usually look into things in
Speaker:a somewhat thorough way. They dismiss a lot of complaints that I think are valid, but they
Speaker:do actually respond and I believe they make their responses public. And so that is at least
Speaker:one mechanism and they do have to do an investigation. And on the other side, the thing I've heard
Speaker:in newsrooms is they want people who also want to hear positive reinforcement when they get
Speaker:it right. So for example, What works with dogs and kids. Yeah, and so I'm trying to think
Speaker:of an example, but let's say there's a story that's well reported and then honestreporting.ca,
Speaker:which is a very pro-Israel media advocacy organization, they go on the offensive and they say this
Speaker:article is biased against Israel. If it's good reporting, then get in touch with the journalist,
Speaker:with the editor, and say, you know, this article was excellent. And there are a few organizations
Speaker:that are doing campaigns when there's really bad reporting. So the Canadians for Justice
Speaker:and Peace in the Middle East is one of the few that does sort of mail the... You can sort
Speaker:of use a web form to email. On mass. Yeah, on mass. And they identify and do the research
Speaker:for you, but you can add what you want to say. But I think a personal email is really powerful.
Speaker:And yeah, even calling out. The other thing that I think a lot of people should do is sometimes
Speaker:get out of your bubble and see what is being published. Going on changing, changing from
Speaker:the... following to the for you tab on Twitter is night and go. That's where Brian Lilly lives.
Speaker:Yeah. So you're going to see like right now what's happening there is they're really going
Speaker:on the offensive against the Toronto District School Board and teachers for this for telling
Speaker:kids to wear blue, which is happening for years at the grassy narrows River Run in Toronto.
Speaker:People are losing their minds and it's happening from
Speaker:Loomay or however you pronounce it at the Sun and Jesse Brown's on it. But you don't see
Speaker:these things until very late in the game if you're staying in your bubble. So being able
Speaker:to see what's happening, see people who are misconstruing things early on and speaking
Speaker:back to it I think is important. Instagram is maybe the worst for this because you can really
Speaker:be in your own bubble and never see anything. on Instagram. So read, you know, go to the
Speaker:front page, go to the opinion section of the star, the globe. It's really hard to look at
Speaker:the post, but sometimes, sometimes do it. This is not self-care you're advocating for. And
Speaker:engage. No, it's not. But you know, be careful, be careful, especially with the post. Don't
Speaker:read the comments. Don't read the comments if you have to go there. Promise me people, you
Speaker:won't read the comments. But the other thing is, you know, we like... Jessa, you and I know
Speaker:Scott Martin is about to launch a podcast as well. We've lost a lot of the media criticism
Speaker:capacity in this country. You know, you really don't see coverage of, for example, the article
Speaker:that I just did. You wouldn't see that on Canada land anymore. You might have seen it a year
Speaker:ago, but things are different now. And so there isn't really a media criticism. website right
Speaker:now. There's not an outlet in Canada that does that. So I think it's important to support
Speaker:the places that do it. The Breach is doing a lot. The Grind is doing a lot. The Maple, yeah.
Speaker:So yeah, those are important things. I very much appreciate you coming on, Dave, and sharing
Speaker:your time. I know you folks are just in the middle of it getting another issue out to print.
Speaker:We absolutely love... the grind. Santiago, again, I just I told him I would represent today because
Speaker:he couldn't be here. He was just like, if they could just have big ads in every subway stop,
Speaker:if we could support them enough, they could have two issues a month. I mean, whenever he
Speaker:sees it go out, they're always gone. Like you got to get your copy or you're going to miss
Speaker:it. Like people want it. It is good stuff. Like it gets consumed. So if you're out there and
Speaker:you can support these people. Please do. As well as all the other great people that Dave
Speaker:mentioned. But I got really upset when I was talking to you before. And we said, if it doesn't
Speaker:get that reach, what is the value? If we're not really changing the narrative with what
Speaker:we're doing, and you talked about recording history. And I just, like I. I started crying
Speaker:when I was thinking about that today because I was like, no, god damn it, I am not here
Speaker:to record history. Fine, you can you can watch my stuff 20 years from now and think what you
Speaker:want. And sure, I understand the value of that and the importance of documenting war crimes
Speaker:and all of that. But no fucking way am I living for them right now. Like it just it's not enough
Speaker:in this moment of rage and seeing what we're seeing. So yeah, the there's a. The new documentary,
Speaker:No Other Land, is about the West Bank. It showed at TIFF, the North American premiere. It's
Speaker:about 2019 to 2023, and these homes being demolished in the West Bank again and again and again
Speaker:by the Israeli military. And the main person, the main focus, he, I'm forgetting his name,
Speaker:but he says something, because there's another journalist there. Israeli journalist who's
Speaker:really like I'm gonna publish an article and everything's gonna change and This this Palestinian
Speaker:guy is like you're not gonna end the occupation in ten days You know, it's It's a it's a slow
Speaker:process Just just getting the truth out there is a slow process and Yeah, I don't think honestly,
Speaker:you know this article might go somewhere. I don't think it'll be that big that fast. Honestly,
Speaker:I think it'll be, you know, it's for the next time that something happens and we, but even
Speaker:then, you know, it's just, it's, we're on a perpetual cycle. I honestly don't know how
Speaker:we get off it, but I am heartened by the growth of a number of media outlets that's happening.
Speaker:I totally understand your frustration, but also it's It is just a process. I think a lot of
Speaker:people right now are watching what's happening in Lebanon and they're like, oh, it's the same,
Speaker:these same claims again. And people are seeing, seeing through it a lot better that it's, you
Speaker:know, these things aren't made, these claims aren't made in good faith. Now that's not changing
Speaker:what's happening in Lebanon. It is, however, you know, what is possible to do in terms of
Speaker:educating people here. But I think there's, you know, there's a lot of people who are just
Speaker:willing to turn their attention away and not look, they're not that interested in the truth,
Speaker:or they've been trained to not really question. I don't think those people are listening to
Speaker:this show, though. But in terms of Lebanon folks, start writing to the CBC ombudsman because
Speaker:they are just regurgitating Israeli talking points again, over and over again in their
Speaker:headlines, targeting Hezbollah, warning civilians. I mean, they're just helping to legitimize
Speaker:all of it. So pushback there would be appreciated. Well, thanks. Thanks so much for having me
Speaker:on. Always a pleasure. And yeah. Thank you, Dave. Yeah, support the grind, please. Keep
Speaker:up your good work, comrade. Thanks so much. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints
Speaker:of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also a very big thank you to the producer of our
Speaker:show, Santiago Jaluc Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated
Speaker:cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to help us
Speaker:continue disrupting the status quo, please share our content. And if you have the means, consider
Speaker:becoming a patron. Not only does our support come from the progressive community, so does
Speaker:our content. So reach out to us and let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until
Speaker:next time, keep disrupting.
