Dear Mr. Nagler,
It is truly shocking and offensive to see a "so-called" journalist from a program of presumed integrity ie the Fifth Estate, take to social media to spread lies and hatred towards the Jewish people. Make no mistake, posting a tweet to defend the antisemite Hosam Salem, is spreading hatred and potential injury to persons who are Jewish and especially if they are Israeli.
The CBC should be above such partisan positions but even more to the point, a journalist should do some homework. But on October 12th, Ms Findlay posted the following which besmirched Honest Reporting, an NGO that does its homework, and supported Hosam Salem who was terminated as a contractor for the New York Times due to his biased antisemitic twitter postings. That Salem's antisemitism was clearly identified by the New York Times should have been easy for Findlay to confirm, so her support for Salem who supports terrorism and the murder of Jews, suggests her own position might coincide with his.
Surely Canada's public broadcaster can do better than this and will hold its staff to a level of accountability that does not tolerate support for violence, for antisemitism, and for support of other persons whose work is biased, unethical, and antisemitic.
Regards,
Andria Spindel, Executive Director
Response from Director of Journalistic Standards at CBC:
Dear Andria Spindel,
Thank you for your October 14 email to the CBC Ombudsman. As Director of Journalistic Standards, I am responding on behalf of Editor-in-Chief Brodie Fenlon.
I agree that the tweet you pointed out was problematic. We expect all our journalists to only provide content based on precise facts and presented with clear context. That was not the case in that short social media post.
We took corrective action as soon as we were made aware of the incident. As you may have noted since, Gillian Findlay posted a second tweet where she acknowledged her original statement violated CBC's social media policy as it lacked context in its criticism
of another media outlet.
Thank you again for writing.
Best,
George Achi (he/him)
Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust