Former CBC journalist Rodney Palmer told the National Citizens Inquiry that the public broadcaster was guilty of spreading propaganda instead of newsgathering during the COVID-19 pandemic.. CBC LogoCBC logo .“What I’m about to say goes for most news media in Canada,” Palmer told the inquiry during hearings in Toronto last week..“But the CBC is very different … The CBC is a public entity. We pay for it. They broadcast on public airwaves. We expect them to tell us the truth because they've done it for 50 or 60 years. So we started noticing something very different about a week, maybe two at the most, into the emergency.”.Palmer had a journalistic career of two decades that wrapped up roughly 20 years ago. He was a general assignment reporter for the Globe and Mail, a daily news reporter at the Vancouver Sun, and a producer and investigative reporter at CBC radio and TV. Later he was the bureau chief and foreign correspondent for CTV in India, Israel, and China, and was there when SARS-CoV-1 broke out around 2002..Palmer called CBC host Adrienne Arsenault “one of the greatest broadcasters we have, a national treasure,” but added, “She turned this ability against us.”.In an April 4, 2020, segment, Arsenault brought on a guest to discuss how someone should respond if someone, perhaps their father, tells them that COVID started in a Chinese lab..“I thought, well, wait a minute, how do you know it wasn't manufactured at a lab in China? What evidence does the CBC have … 15 days into this, that this was not manufactured in a lab? There's an assumption that you put forth instantly,” said Palmer..Arsenault’s guest suggested the respondent should not embarrass their father but pull them in and convince them.. CBC Logo-redCBC Logo (photo credit CBC) .“I thought, well, I'm a father, who are you speaking to? You're telling my children not to believe their father,” said Palmer..“I have some expertise and experience in the field. And I thought it was shocking to the CBC was trying to get between me and my children. I was astonished that this organization has put forth this expert on how to not leave your father but not embarrass him at the same time. So this, to me, had nothing to do with newsgathering.”.Palmer recalled reading “real journalism” by Josh Brolin for the Washington Post ten days later. Brolin reported how two cables sent in 2018 from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that said the Wuhan Institute of Virology had poor hygiene. The cables warned of the risk of a coronavirus from bats that could cause a “SARS-like pandemic” among humans. He also cited a subsequent Vanity Fair article that documented academic papers that revealed the development of new coronaviruses in Wuhan..“Newsgathering” is one thing, and what CBC did is another, Palmer said..“Another definition is propaganda, persuasive mass communication that filters and frames the issues of the day in a way that strongly favours particular interests, usually those of a government or corporation, also the intentional manipulation of public opinion through lies and half-truths and the selective retelling of history.”.“This is what was going on in that piece. That's why it felt so wrong to me because there was no news involved. It was only propaganda.”.On Oct. 27, 2021, Palmer wrote Paul Hambleton, CBC Head of Journalistic Standards, to ask what the network’s mandate was to correct “misinformation’, the process by which it was “deemed to be incorrect,” and asked for examples outside of COVID where CBC corrects “misinformation from social media.”.“Now, he did reply to me, but he didn’t answer any of those questions,” Palmer explained..Palmer said the CBC was “promoting a new identifiable group of Canadians, and fomenting hate against them,” namely the “anti-vaxxer.”.As an example, he cited an interview Katie Simpson had with Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia-Lambton, ON). As Parliament was about to reopen, she was part of a group of 15 to 30 MPs who opposed vaccination as a requirement to represent constituents in the House of Commons..“Marilyn Gladu bravely took the interview with CBC about this because it was only going to go one way. And Katie Simpson … beat the hell out of this woman on the air. Everything that Marilyn Gladu said, which was reasonable and thoughtful, Katie responded, ‘Aren’t you just giving air to the anti-vaxxers? Isn’t this giving support to the anti-vaxxers?’ Anti-vaxxers became the boogie man in this story and Marilyn Gladu held herself very well.”.Palmer objected to Simpson asking Gladu if, “as a matter of public safety,” she would come to Parliament..“Katie Simpson had no evidence and still has no evidence that anyone who isn’t vaccinated is more likely to spread COVID than a vaccinated person. This was not newsgathering. She was practicing propaganda.” .CLICK HERE to see the video of Palmer’s testimony.
