CBC Censorship Week - Again Proves Hypocrisy

I learned this morning that this is censorship week on the Ceeb. I think that they’re not in favour of it, although they didn’t mention the Egyptian blogger doing time nor the banning of Bibles in Saudi Arabia, nor the Falun Gong in China. I guess, really, it was "Censorship in Canada and the USA Week".

One show this morning focussed on an FDA director who resigned because her superiors refused to fast track approval of the day after pill. Fair enough, although I was not convinced it was a censorship issue.

Quirks and Quarks, of course, talked about science being affected by politics and by corporate sponsorship and mentioned global warming. To Bob Macdonald’s credit he did query his interview subject on conflicts of interest by proponents of AGW. And the response was fair in that the guest said that the way science works best is when other scientists critically review the conclusions of others. The circle wasn’t squared, though, because the ostracization of AGW “deniers” was not followed up on.

But, back to my main theme, the Ceeb criticizing censorship at all. Because perhaps the most egregious example of censorship in Canada in recent memory was by the CBC itself. What About Michael Coren?

Read about it here, but basically, conservative commentator Michael Coren was initially booked to appear on CBC News Sunday with Evan Solomon and Carole MacNeil, but his appearance was cancelled fifteen hours before by CBC producer Ghazala Malik. Coren's closing comment in his report on this is particularly powerful given the CBC's self-righteous fight against censorship: "People used to run away to sea. Now they run away to the CBC. Well, at least the ones who don't like freedom of speech do so. "

I am a frequent critic of the CBC for its philosophical selectivity in its choice of guests and subject matter “experts”. So I won’t reiterate this. Nor will I even bother criticizing their not reporting on a non-North American world of people dying because of their state’s non allowance of free speech, or even how they managed to make a Stephen Harper joke while they were at it.

But CBC is again hypocritical for not looking within itself to be sure (or admit) that they are not without sin, and should not be busy casting stones..