CBC’s outgoing ombudsman, Jack Nagler, recently released a review entitled “A Divisive Phrase”. This review came about due to complaints over CBC’s repeated use of the term “Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.”
His conclusion was similar to what we have seen before from his office. Yes, useage of the phrase in the incident cited was probably unnecessary but it “in no way violates CBC’s journalistic standards.” (More on those “standards” later)
This was the same approach Nagler used with our complaint back in 2021, when we challenged the on-air apology about the use of “Palestine” during an interview. This was when CBC’s infamous language guide received international exposure for its pro-Israel bias, a guide that states: So do not refer to Palestine or show a map with Palestine as a country. Use the term “pro-Palestinian” instead of “pro-Palestine” when referring in generic ways to Palestinian supporters.
This new review covers a complaint that is now almost one year old, going back to Jan. 11, 2024. As such, it gives us a unique opportunity to see how CBC’s framing of the health situation in Gaza helped lay the groundwork for Israel’s horrific destruction of Gaza’s entire medical infrastructure and the arrest and torture of doctors and other medical staff.
The repetition of such terminology has consequences and as the original complainants noted: “the addition of the “Hamas-led” qualifier is inherently pejorative in intent. It is also preposterous for reasons we have stated, showing direct bias against the integrity of the Gazan health authority. The “Hamas-run health ministry” is synonymous with ‘terrorist health ministry’.”
This imaging, this dehumanization of all Palestinians in Gaza as terrorists (even kids) is the foundation for what we have seen recently and are still witnessing at hospitals across Gaza…Kamal Adwan hospital, Indonesian hospital, AlAhli hospital and the list goes on. The cornerstone was laid for Western public opinion to accept these atrocities, although the response in recent days to the arrests and disappearance of Kamal Adwan’s staff and director has defied this racist narrative.
The CBC ombudsman concludes his rambling review with the following:
The point for consideration, then, is volume and frequency. I note that the phrase “Hamas-run” is used much less often in CBC’s reporting these days. I would encourage programmers to use it as sparingly as possible, and only when relevant to the story at hand.
But no, this is too little, too late. The damage has been done and the outcome is there for all to see. Gaza’s health care system will take generations to recover and that was really the Israeli objective from the beginning. An objective that CBC obligingly aided and is now still defending.
Which brings us back to CBC and its touted “journalistic standards”.
Don’t tell us your seasoned journalists and editors don’t understand the power of language and the role of media in perpetuating a specific narrative. Don’t expect us to believe that you don’t comprehend how the words you use will help facilitate a certain outcome…outcome of genocide, an outcome of the obliteration of Palestinian society in Gaza.
Your senior executives can repeat endlessly that they “reject the idea that CBC News is somehow…’cheerleading a Genocide’.” We know that CBC is complicit in genocide, and history has now proven that this is true beyond any doubt. These are your only journalistic standards, whether by intent or cowardice.
