Pamphleteer Launches Libel Suit against CBC

I’ve modified their headline for my title, because even that is biased.

Whatcott’s legal team claims the CBC misrepresented him when they panned to one of his pamphlets declaring “Kill the Homosexual” during the story – words Whatcott maintains were a spoof of a 2008 Alberta Human Rights Commission ruling tossing out a complaint about a death metal song urging listeners to “Kill the Christian.”

Tom Schuck, Whatcott’s lawyer, said the broadcaster should have used one the pamphlets at issue in the current Supreme Court case.

“But they dredged up this old pamphlet and then misconstrued it for the general public,” he said.

In doing so, Schuck argues “they allege that Bill advocates killing homosexual people – that would be hate speech under the criminal code.”

Figures the CBC would play dirty.  Of course, that parody was, to say the least, ill-advised.

Tory Senator Wants CBC Called on Carpet for Slashing Shortwave Service

If anything, this is the sort of service that’s most important for the CBC to be maintaining, IMO.

Segal, a member of the Senate’s Foreign Affairs committee and chair of its special Committee on Anti-Terrorism, says the busting down of RCI to an Internet radio station will block RCI from millions of people living under repressive regimes.

“In those parts of the world where the Internet is blocked, such as the People’s Republic of China, Iran and North Korea, there is no way for RCI’s messages of freedom and opportunity to get there,” he told the Senate. “I blame the board of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its senior management, who cut far away from home rather than cutting here, because it was more convenient for them to do so.”

CBC is slashing 80 per cent of Radio Canada International’s budget, cutting dozens of full- and part-time jobs, eliminating much original programming and confining the 67-year-old Voice of Canada broadcast to a website.

In many developing nations, access to the Internet is either limited or non-existent, with millions of people relying solely on radio for national and international news and information.

CBC International Drops Its Portuguese and Russian Programming

Wait, what?  Who knew they wasted our money that way?

The broadcaster will also stop producing news bulletins, but keep other programs.

It now produces and broadcasts daily and weekly programs in one or more of seven languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Arabic, and Portuguese. Some of its reports and interviews air on its partner stations in most of these languages.

It will close its Russian and Portuguese departments, keeping the others “to help audiences discover and especially understand democratic and cultural life and values in Canada,” said CBC president Hubert Lacroix.

The CBC is Getting Slashed

The 2012 budget cuts 10% of the CBC’s funding. But it deserves it:

[The CBC], in programming on English radio and TV, has been utterly feckless, constantly diminishing its own standards. It has leaned right and ostentatiously pro-businesslike, a nervous Nelly anticipating criticism before it arrives. It has abandoned excellence in countless areas. On many nights, the main CBC English channel schedule looks like a mishmash of game shows and lightweight news and docs.