A former CBC reporter who left her long-time career with Canada's national media outlet said she did so because the broadcaster was ignoring journalistic principles. .Marianne Klowak explained her reasons for resigning from the CBC on the Trish Wood Podcast, hosted by the former anchor of the CBC's The Fifth Estate. Wood was credited for exposing corruption on the Emmy and Oscar winning program for 10 years. .Winnipeg-born Klowak, a 32-year general reporter with the CBC and former teacher, said her "last year and a half ... was a real fight" to get the truth out during the pandemic. ."It was no longer a place I recognized and I tried to pushed through a number of stories that were censored and cancelled," she said. .Klowak said she felt like the CBC was "no longer committed to truth and honesty" and said the culture she was seeing develop was "disturbing.".She said it was in June 2021 when she started to notice a "real change" with the public broadcaster during the pandemic. ."What I was seeing unfold at the CBC was you were very quickly shutting down one side of the debate, and for me that was alarming," she said pointing to news at the time surfacing out of Israel linking the vaccines to heart inflammation. .She said she "flagged it" to her editors and said many stories she was bringing forward were being cancelled. ."This was really troubling for me, because the CBC I knew, the CBC I loved, the CBC where I spent three decades, would give a voice to both sides on an issue," said Klowak. .She said the broadcaster began "eliminating one entire side" of a story, which Klowak said she felt was misleading. ."We were not giving the public the information they had the right to know to make a decision based on informed consent." .She said that was the time "things started to spiral." ."I could see it was quickly becoming not safe for people to tell their stories and have their voices heard," said Klowak, who added people whose beliefs differed from the COVID-19 narrative were being dismissed and cancelled. .While with the CBC, Klowak was able to cover several COVID-19-related stories, but said many were being blocked by her editorial managers and "others up the chain." .In particular, one story surrounding the safety of the vaccines for young people, Klowak said she received some pushback from her editors and was shocked when asked to alter her story. ."Up until now, all we were hearing was 'safe and effective, safe and effective' and no dissenting voices," she said. ."So I thought, this is great. This is a story that's going to try to punch a hole in the narrative to move it forward." .Klowak was told to remove certain portions of the story, including comments from a group calling itself the Canadian COVID Care Alliance, and add two experts from the Toronto health unit, both supportive of the vaccination of young people. ."What you're asking me to do is journalistically unethical, it's manipulating information," Klowak said she told her superiors, adding, "This doesn't sit well with me." ."To me, it was just a dishonest thing to do and it was immoral for me, as well." ."Not only were we cancelling credible voices, we were violating our own principles of balance and fairness." .Klowak's story was not published and the reporter said she ended up calling back all those she spoke with to apologize and explained "the story was being manipulated in a way that to me was not reflective of the truth of what I was hearing and seeing from people." .She said she also took exception to the term "anti-vaxxer" while watching her company contribute to a "conscious bias against a particular group of society." .Klowak referenced George Orwell's book 1984 and said, "Language controls thought and it controls the behaviour."."If you look at the dictionary definition of an anti-vaxxer, it's someone who's against vaccines," she said.."But we had extended that to included people who are against mandates, people who had only gotten one shot who were vaccine injured; anyone who was opposed to the vaccine in any form."."It was becoming increasingly more difficult to work in that environment." .In light of her experiences, Klowak decided to resign from the CBC in 2021, and has now begun to speak out about her experience. .CBC's Tara Henley, another seasoned employee, also resigned from the public broadcaster in December 2021. .READ MORE: SLOBODIAN: Citing lack of “journalistic integrity,” CBC reporter quits.The former CBC TV and radio producer, and occasional on-air columnist, shared about her departure in a Substack article citing similar issues as Klowak. .“By the time I resigned last month, [CBC] embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media," Henley told the Western Standard's Linda Slobodian in an exclusive interview in January.."In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.".“To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity."
