The state-owned CBC is NOT on this story today:
Columnist’s Labeling Palin Backers ‘White Trash’ Spurs Review at Canadian TV
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is reviewing complaints from both Americans and Canadians about a Web site columnist who recently described Sarah Palin’s supporters as “white trash,” compared the vice presidential candidate to a “porn actress” and called her daughter’s boyfriend a “redneck” and “ratboy.”
The incendiary column by Toronto-based writer Heather Mallick appeared on the CBC News site on Sept. 5, after the close of the Republican National Convention. On the same day, Britain’s Guardian newspaper published another column by Mallick in which she trashed Palin’s home state of Alaska as a “frontier state full of drunks and crazy people.”
In the CBC story, Mallick wrote that John McCain’s running mate “added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn’t already have sewn up, the white trash vote.”
She proceeded to write that the Alaska governor “has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favored by this decade’s woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression.”
She also questioned why the Palins were allowing Levi Johnston — 17-year-old Bristol Palin’s boyfriend and father of her unborn baby — into the family.
“What normal father would want Levi ‘I’m a f—-n’ redneck’ Johnson prodding his daughter?” Mallick asked.
“I know that I have an attachment to children that verges on the irrational, but why don’t the Palins? I’m not the one preaching homespun values but I’d destroy that ratboy before I’d let him get within scenting range of my daughter again, and so would you. … Turn your guns on Levi, ma’am.”
CBC Ombudsman Vince Carlin told FOXNews.com that he has gotten “quite a few complaints about [the column], both from Canada and the U.S,” and said he’s reviewing its contents to see if it meets CBC’s journalistic standards and practices.
Asked if Mallick’s column represented the views of CBC or the Canadian government, which owns CBC, Mallick suggested it did not and questioned whether commentators on FOX News represent the views of all Americans.
“I don’t think so,” he answered.
As for Mallick, he said, “She’s a columnist not a journalist.”
Mallick also wrote on the CBC Web site that Republican men, whom she called “sexual inadequates,” must think that women would vote for Palin just because she’s a woman.
In her Guardian column, Mallick claimed her own small-town credentials are just as solid as Palin’s, writing “Palin cannot out-hick me.”
But she said Palin should have stayed in her hometown of Wasilla, writing, “Small towns are places that smart people escape from, for privacy, for variety, for intellect, for survival. Palin should have stayed home.”
Mallick also blasted Alaska as Canada’s ugly stepchild.
“We love our own north to the point of covering our eyes and humming as it melts … but Alaska is different from our north,” she wrote. “We share a 1,500-mile border with a frontier state full of drunks and crazy people, of the blight that cheap-built structures bring to a glorious landscape.
“Alaska is our redneck cousin, our Yukon territory forms a blessed buffer zone, and thank God he never visits. Alaska is the end of the line.”
Click here to read Mallick’s Giardian column
I might also add this email a PTBC reader sent to me that he got from Mary Sheppard, Executive Producer, CBC NEWS.CA, who said she was writing on the instruction of the aforementioned CBC Ombudsman, Vince Carlin, who in the above piece said “he’s reviewing its contents to see if it meets CBC’s journalistic standards and practices.” But in this email, it is insinuated that the CBC is abiding by all kinds of standards, just perfectly.
Dear xxxx,
Thank you for your e-mail of September 9 addressed to Vince Carlin, CBC Ombudsman. As you know, Mr. Carlin asked me to reply.
You wrote to draw our attention to a column by Heather Mallick in CBC NEWS.CA’s Analysis & Viewpoint section posted on September 5 under the headline, “A Mighty Wind blows through Republican convention.” It is “sexism and verbal abuse in the extreme” you wrote.
I should be clear right away that CBC NEWS.CA – like the National Post or The Globe and Mail – contains stories about the news of the day as well as columnists who express an opinion about some of those events. Perhaps needless to say the two are quite different. We take great pride in the excellence of our journalism and you are right to expect that news stories on CBC NEWS.CA will be accurate, fair, unbiased and in all respects meet the rigorous criteria set out in the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices.
But as the section heading – Analysis & Viewpoint – suggests our pages also contain clearly identified viewpoint and opinion. We invite some of the best and, yes, controversial writers in the country, Ms. Mallick among them, to offer their views on the events of the day. That is as it should be. It is CBC’s mandate, part of its obligation under the federal Broadcasting Act, to offer a range of views on matters of public interest and concern. And I believe we are doing that.
Ms. Mallick, a veteran Canadian journalist, columnist and editor, has won awards for her reviews and feature writing. She is widely recognized as an insightful, witty – and controversial – observer of the political and cultural scenes. But although we encourage commentators to express different points of view, I should be clear that the opinions they express are their own. We do not expect all our readers will share them. Certainly, they are not the opinions of CBC NEWS.CA.
I should also point out that while columnists are entitled to express their opinions, their critics are also free to disagree with them. As you will have noticed, the section encourages readers’ comments – quite a number of which, I see, have taken issue with Ms. Mallick – and prominently posts them at the bottom of the column.
Thank you again for your e-mail. …
Oh yes. The state-owned, state-run taxpayer-funded CBC and its CBC.ca web site with its far-left columnists is EXACTLY like the private, citizen-owned National Post and the Globe and Mail in every way. In a parallel universe. Or if you’re high. And they should abide by exactly the same standards as citizen-owned, private media. Pass the joint.
Also see PTBC blog entries and columns about this here:
• “Heather Mallick, CBC columnist, paid by you, exhibits her weekly hatred of conservatives”
—J-log
• “Why I’ll defend writers who represent everything I hate”
—David Warren column
Related “NEWS” reporting from CBC “NEWS”:
• “CBC’s “reporter” Neil Macdonald on Sarah Palin: Best at “talking about hunting moose”
—J-Log
• Also this, by National Post editor Jonathon Kay: “Another week, another disgrace at the CBC”; and his followup—a reader complaint to the CBC: “Wouldn’t it be great if the CBC were as professionally run and politically impartial as NBC?”. (And please forgive the slightly mistaken Mr. Kay for thinking NBC is “impartial” rather than “in the tank” for liberals and particularly Obama—even after their recent firings of Olbermann and Matthews from their anchor desks—read comments here.)
• And this by a blogger at Michelle Malkin’s HotAir.com: “Hatred in Canada alive and well”.
• More J-Log: I’ve exposed her repeatedly for her anti-conservative hate-fests before, numerous times. Yes here’s but just one more.
SAY IT WITH ME:
State-owned, and state-run media should be BANNED in this country, and that notion should be enshrined in our constitution.
.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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