CBC Ombudsman: Election balance on Ontario today
The complainant, Marc Poitras, thought the host of Ontario Today behaved differently to the callers on the edition which focused on the Progressive Conservative party, during the recent provincial election. He felt she was rude and dismissive. The host was challenging, as she was during episodes focused on other parties. There was no violation of policy.
COMPLAINT
After listening to the May 31st, 2018 edition of the Ontario Today show phone-in, you wrote directly to the programmers with your concerns. The host of the phone-in, Rita Celli, had invited supporters of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario to share why they were going to vote for the party in the upcoming provincial election. You thought she deliberately cut off callers because they were not saying what she wanted to hear. You thought she had behaved very differently when she interviewed the provincial leader of the NDP, Andrea Horwath:
The NDP program was basically Ms. Celli assisting Ms. Horwath in presenting her platform. The Conservative program was Ms. Celli arguing against the conservative platform.
At this point, it is appropriate to put the CBC journalistic standards at the same level as those of Fox news.
MANAGEMENT RESPONSE
Margot Wright, the Producer of Ontario Today, responded to you. She explained the goal of the day’s programme was to “put the Progressive Conservative Party platform under the microscope” to examine its “strengths and weaknesses.” She said the goal for all the election shows focusing on each party was the same. There was a significant difference with this one, though:
The difference today was that the PC Leader declined to come on our show and defend his platform. So we asked Conservative callers to do so instead.
Continue reading this on the CBC website, where it was first published.
