• CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC Ombudsman: Reporting Racism

    The complainant, David Anderson, thought the emphasis on racism in a National and online look at the plight of Indigenous students who go to Thunder Bay to complete high school was inaccurate and biased. I found the piece addressed some of the complexities of the issue and it was appropriate to include racism. COMPLAINT You…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC Ombudsman: Point-of-View Documentaries | The Case of Sled Dogs

    The complainant is a sled dog operator. She wrote on behalf of many in her business as well as some of the participants in the documentary “Sled Dog” to complain about bias in the film misrepresentation of its purpose to those who were featured, and the advocacy work of the filmmaker. Sled Dogs ran on…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC Ombudsman: Balance in Science Reporting

    The complainant, Richard Reeleder, objected to an interview with an opponent of the herbicide Glyphosate. He thought he was presented as a scientific expert when he was not, and that his comments went unchallenged. He thought it was alarmist and unbalanced. This was one interview in ongoing coverage, but it raised the important question about…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC Ombudsman: Accuracy in headlines and photos

    The complainant, Mike Fegelman, the Executive Director of HonestReporting Canada, made two requests for reviews. One concerned a headline dealing with the sentencing of an Israeli soldier and the other questioned the use of an old photograph for a news report. He was concerned that the story behind the photo made it inappropriate, and he…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC Ombudsman: Seeing is Believing

    CBC Ottawa ran a story about a programme to match homeless people to rental housing. It documented a case where it went wrong, leaving the landlord with a trashed apartment. The story showed the damage, but focused on the gap between the promises and the delivery of the sponsoring agency. The complainant, Lorraine Cohen, questioned…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC OMBUDSMAN: Reporting the Facts

    The complainant, Diane Bederman, objected to a report by Derek Stoffel who was at a protest in Ramallah on the one-hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. She thought that by reporting the Palestinian position, he was implying Israel did not have a right to exist. He attributed the statement to the views of the Palestinians.…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC Ombudsman: The challenge of sizing up crowds

    The complainant, Anthony Nolan, wrote to say that a report on an anti-white supremacy rally at Queen’s Park distorted the crowd size, and deliberately so, in his view. I agreed that reporting how many people expressed interest in coming, rather than the number of attendees, lacked clarity. COMPLAINT You took issue with a report about…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC Ombudsman: Fixing facts on Facebook

    The complainant, Jyothi Jayaraman, was one of 9 who objected to the explanation of the process of medically-assisted death. In the course of taking questions live on Facebook, the interviewee gave wrong information. CBC admitted fault and despite best efforts, came up against the limitations of making corrections on a platform they don’t control. It’s…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    CBC Ombudsman: The Pit Bull Controversy

    The complainant, April Fahr, is the Director of Education and Advocacy for the HugABull Advocacy & Rescue Society. She was concerned that a Fifth Estate episode on whether pit bulls should be banned was biased and cherry-picked data and information. The documentary featured the highly polarized views of both the dog and the evidence about…