CBSC overwhelmed by Krista Erickson complaints
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has issued a plea on their website: Please no more complaints about Krista Erickson’s interview with Margie Gillis on Sun News.
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has issued a plea on their website: Please no more complaints about Krista Erickson’s interview with Margie Gillis on Sun News.
“The volume of complaints already sent to us exceeds the Council’s resources,” says the note. “The CBSC will be unable to respond individually to each and every complaint received on this topic, as it customarily does.”
That doesn’t mean the CBSC won’t review the core complaint, however, just that it must curb responses. And besides, it adds: “It will not help the disposition of this file in any way since the CBSC never bases its decisions on the number of complaints it has received. Decisions are always and only based on whether a broadcast has breached one of the CBSC’s codified standards.”
So just how many complaints have been filed?
According to a recent Globe and Mail article, about 4,350 have been sent in since the program aired in the beginning of June. That’s a whole lot for an organization that normally receives 2,000 total complaints each year.
If the Council determines that Sun News violated any part of the code of ethics governing Canadian broadcasters, it will order the network to issue an on-air statement about the ruling, during Erickson’s program. The CBSC does not issue fines. Many believe the ruling will centre around a clause requiring “full, fair and proper presentation of news, opinion, comment and editorial.”
