Canadian Journalist Resigns: Hits Woke Media In Canada and U.S.

Tara Henley was tired of being ignored. Henley, a long-time producer at the Canadian Broadcasting Company abruptly quit, telling Substack her reasons.

Her headline:

Talking Freely
Reasons I quit the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

This is what she wrote in her essay:

For months now, I’ve been getting complaints about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where I’ve worked as a TV and radio producer, and occasional on-air columnist, for much of the past decade.

…When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. It was a symbol of some the most destructive trends in mainstream media by the time that I quit last month. Within a relatively short amount of time, the CBC was no longer a trustworthy source of information. Instead it produced clickbait which reads almost like a parody on student newspapers.

…It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I now find myself to be the most conservative and often cause tensions by asking questions about identity politics. All of this happened within a span of approximately 18 months. My personal politics didn’t change.

In the current environment, it is easy to accept cognitive dissonance while working at the CBC.

This is to be enthusiastically committed to the radical political agenda which originated at Ivy League universities in the United States. It has spread via American social media platforms, that profiteer off of outrage and stir up societal divisions. It is to pretend that the “woke” worldview is near universal — even if it is far from popular with those you know, and speak to, and interview, and read.

Henley summed up by saying: “Everyone asks the same thing: What is going on at the CBC?”

Henley soon turned her attention towards the American media with Fox News as her main focus.

Producer who quit Canadian broadcaster over ‘radical political agenda’ says American outlets have same issue

Henley reported Fox’s report:

Tara Henley (a veteran producer) resigned this week from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation after she claimed the network had abandoned journalistic integrity in order to adopt “a radical agenda.” She also noticed the same problems with American news agencies.

“My focus is Canadian media, but I do read quite a lot of the American media as well…I think it’s very polarized, and I think on both sides of the spectrum, the working class needs more voice and more representation, and it troubles me,” Henley told Fox News Digital.

We don’t talk to enough people, and our views are limited. Henley said that they are narrative-driven and this is not good for democracy. The woke world view is fine with me. That view is something I believe we must reflect, but that shouldn’t make it the only voice.

Not so curiously, Henley’s views sound almost identical to those of resigned New York TimesBari Weiss is an opinion editor. Weiss, too, wrote Substack her opinion with her own version of the same complaint regarding woke journalism.

Weiss stated this last week about the atmosphere of the space, as noted in the previous space. Times newsroom:

As a journalist, I learned that the task of writing history was my responsibility. History is just one other ephemeral object that can be molded into a narrative.

…Rule One: Speak your mind at your own peril. Rule 2: Don’t risk getting a story published that isn’t in the script. Rule three: Do not listen to any editor or publisher that urges you against the grain. Eventually, the publisher will cave to the mob, the editor will get fired or reassigned, and you’ll be hung out to dry.

The rising awareness, both in Canada and in the USA that the media are driven by a conscious left agenda regardless of subject matter is what is interesting here – just as Henley or Weiss claim.

The problem was evident in the past week, January 6. The “mainstream” media was consumed with coverage of the Capitol riot of a year ago. But, there was the constant coverage by CNN and MSNBC. The New York Times, The Washington PostMore importantly, the news was not covered. What was covered uniformly was the left-wing narrative describing the riot as an “insurrection” that was “incited”, but of course, by Donald Trump.

This “coverage” came on the heels of the massive coverage devoted to another subject altogether – the trial of young Kyle Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse was presented repeatedly as having murder two African-Americans cold-blood because, of course, it was a white supremacist. He should therefore be jailed for life. But the problem is that Rittenhouse was white and, after hearing all evidence, the jury believed it was self-defense. With its Rittenhouse coverage, the media wasn’t covering news. It was promoting the liberal woke agenda.

As also mentioned in this space last week, the Wall Street Journal has in fact touched on exactly the same point as Henley – before Henley’s resignation was even known. This headline says it all:

The Conformity Crackup in 2021
Political-media consensus was incorrect from Covid lockdowns down to crime and police officers

It WSJThis:

We mean the political consensus and media convergence that quickly forms around an issue. It then consolidates itself, regardless of any competing information or arguments. This isn’t a conspiracy in any formal sense; there are no organized calls or Zoom meetings.

It is about the common set of political preferences and values that lead people to come to similar conclusions about events. The reporters and commentators of the major progressive media—the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Atlantic, and more—all then reinforce what they now like to call the “narrative” of a story.

Politicians and the press feed the narrative with leaks and the stories they pursue—or, as important, what they don’t pursue.

But as Henley’s observations illustrate, more and more people – both in Canada and America – are on to the game.

This was the end-of-year headline at BizPac Review

CNN suffers from scandals and sees viewer ratings drop to their lowest point in 2021. The network is looking for new ways to bring in the New Year.

The story reports: “CNN is set to close out 2021 in a massive slump for the four-decades-old network after watching their ratings tank over the past year, leaving them in third place behind Fox News and MSNBC for overall viewership.”

Over at the Post Millennial was this year’s end headline about both CNN and MSNBC:

CNN ratings and MSNBC ratings are LOW as Americans ignore woke liberal media

This means that American media consumers have intuitively understood Henley’s message. The practical result is that liberal outlets such as the CBC are losing viewers. And, again, in Canada, as Henley says, “Everyone asks the same thing: What is going on at the CBC?”

It is not surprising, but interesting, that neighboring nations, Canada and America, as cultural neighbours, have the exact same problems with their media outlets. No matter if it is CNN or CBC, the problem remains the same.

In essence, woke-ism has become the journalistic version of Covid – a serious disease passed invisibly from one country’s media to another country’s media, with an increasing realization by their respective audiences that what is being served up everyday is left-wing narrative, not news.

This media’s Covid-like version can only be cured by reporting the facts instead of liberal narrative.

Are the American and Canadian media going to get the vaccine?

Doubtful. It is not.