Was the CBC afraid to show the Danish cartoons? "Well, yeah"

Two weeks ago, CBC Sunday did an extended segment about how Canada's human rights commissions have been turned into political censors. Here's my extended review of that documentary. In short, I thought it was well done and a credit to the CBC, which has made up for lost time on the HRC/censorship issue.

To my surprise, the CBC Sunday had another go at the issue yesterday. Again, to their credit -- and my surprise -- the CBC turned the cameras on itself: Evan Solomon and Carole MacNeil interviewed the CBC's own "publisher", John Cruickshank, about the CBC's decision to blur the images of the Danish cartoons whenever they are shown (though, as I pointed out in my review two weeks ago, sometimes images can make it to the air, unblurred.)

It's dangerous to give a tough interview to your boss, and Solomon and MacNeil probably were about as aggressive as they could get away with, while still being loyal CBC employees. I say again, it is noteworthy that Cruickshank even consented to the interview; as far as I know, neither CTV nor Global have interviewed their own editorial honchos about their self-censorship on the cartoons. (Here's my 2006 radio debate against Scott Anderson, who as the VP editorial for CanWest, made the decision on behalf of that newspaper chain to ban the cartoons. Credit to him for allowing himself to be pummelled by me in public for 18 painful minutes.)

So how did Cruickshank do? Watch the video here and judge for yourself.

Cruickshank called the cartoons "artefacts of hatred". What does that mean? That Muslims hate the cartoons? Or that to show them means you hate Muslims? Will the CBC stop portraying swastikas, which are a symbol of Nazi hate? Will they be blurred in CBC documentaries about the Second World War? Isn't the point of news coverage to report the world as it is -- including controversies coloured by hate? Is Cruickshank implying that to show evil is tantamount to agreeing with evil?

This is one of my favourites of the 12 Danish cartoons. Is it really an artefact of hate?

Cruickshank said that the CBC didn't want to show the cartoons because there is "no way that you can control how your use is then used... it offends some and mobilizes criminality in others." What does that mean? That the CBC is allowing its editorial decisions to be vetoed by Muslim rioters overseas, or any other terrorist, who would use the CBC's broadcast of these cartoons as a figleaf to excuse their violence? Does Cruickshank think that the rioters of Nigeria or Pakistan or Iran rioted because they watch Canadian TV?

Cruickshank creates a false dichotomy -- and false comparison -- between Muslim terrorists (though he doesn't use that word; calls them "extremists") and the "extremists" who are "intolerant of any restrictions on speech rights". That's a cute turn of phrase, but to equate violent terrorists with free speech activists -- to say they're both just "extremists" -- is grotesque. It's also a handy way of marginalizing anyone who believes in some limits on free speech -- as I do, in cases ranging from fraud to defamation to forgery to copyright -- but thinks that the cartoons are reasonable, and shouldn't be censored. Is it really "extremist" to want to show these cartoons on the news? Is that a catch-all phrase for people who disagree with political correctness? And is it really appropriate to use the same word as was used to describe murderers and arsonists opposed to the cartoons? 

Cruickshank says "a public broadcaster endorses a form of speech hatred, by showing it". Again, that's like saying actors who play murderers on TV endorse murder, or reporters who report on earthquakes are pro-earthquake. Cruickshank obviously doesn't believe that -- I don't think anybody could -- but it's a way of marginalizing those who want to see controversial news that doesn't fit into the CBC's "Little Mosque on the Prairie" view of Islam.

But there was a moment in the interview, nearer to the end -- just like the moment at the end of my debate with CanWest's Scott Anderson, where we finally got through the well-rehearsed cliches, and finally got some frankness -- that was a revelation. With Anderson, it was his admission that he didn't think the cartoons were offensive, but that some others did, so he let their judgment trump his own. With Cruickshank, it was his comment that to publish the cartoons was simply being "macho". Pressed to explain, he said that critics called cartoon self-censorhip a "lack of courage... you're just afraid that your correspondents in the Islamic world are going to face the consequences of this. Well, yeah."

Well yeah? I appreciate the honesty: the CBC's news boss acknowledged, for the first time, that they are afraid that if they cover Muslim news in the wrong way, there could be violence against their reporters in Muslim nations. So they don't.

That is an astounding admission to make. It's not just a question about bias; it goes deeper than that. It's one thing for the CBC to wilfully have an editorial position that is pro-Muslim or anti-Israel, as has often been alleged. But it's quite another for the CBC news boss to acknowledge that their editorial decisions aren't even the result of their own views or decisions, but the result of external pressure by Muslim radicals, and the fear of Islamic violence. That's the equivalent of CNN's admission that it let Saddam Hussein change their reporting about Iraq, to guarantee access for CNN reporters.

Cruickshank's final remarks were not as shocking, but they were an interesting comment on the role of big, expensive, well-staffed old media companies, versus the growth of the Internet. Cruickshank said "we are under no obligation to put [the cartoons] on...  they're everywhere on the Internet". Well, not everywhere, of course. Not on CBC.ca, for example. But he's right in a way: when it comes to anything controversial -- oh, say, like the news -- it makes more and more sense to go to websites like the Drudge Report than to big, bureaucratic companies like the CBC or CNN who value political correctness above newsworthiness. It sounds more like an epitaph for old media than a defence.