As I reported on October 8, comedian Mary Walsh produced a partisan video during the election campaign comparing Stephen Harper to Adolph Hitler and equating his administration with the East German secret police.
After the CBC posted this video, ostensibly as part of a news story, I sent a complaint to the CBC Ombudsman.
Today I received a reply:
This is in response to your email of October 9 addressed to Esther Enkin, CBC Ombudsman, and blog post of the same date (“My complaint to CBC Ombudsman about Mary Walsh equating Harper to Hitler”) drawing our attention to a CBCNews.ca story posted on October 7 on the Newfoundland and Labrador page under the headline, “’Save’ Stephen Harper, Marg Delahunty says in protest video”.
Since CBCNews.ca in Newfoundland and Labrador falls under my responsibility, Jennifer McGuire, General Manager and Editor in Chief of CBC News, asked me to reply to you directly.
Let me say immediately that I regret you found Ms. Walsh’s words offensive. However, I want to be clear at the outset that the video you are referring to was written and produced entirely by Ms. Walsh and subsequently posted on her online protest page. CBCNews.ca subsequently published a news story about the video and only provided a link to it to illustrate the story.
Of course, Ms. Walsh is a popular figure in Newfoundland and Labrador. As I expect you know, she is a multiple award-winning comedian and actress, who for many years performed in the long-running CBC program This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Among the most popular of the characters she played is Marg Delahunty, a super-heroine. Dressed in her colourful Princess Warrior costume, Ms. Walsh has been widely covered in the news media over the years surprising politicians across the country, often mock-admonishing them for their perceived public shortcomings. You may recall stories from a few years ago, when in the guise of the Princess Warrior, Ms. Walsh visited then Mayor Rob Ford’s house in suburban Toronto.
On October 5, the popular comic, once again dressed as the Princess Warrior, posted a video to her online political protest page, “Marg Brings Change”. The tongue-in-cheek, anti-Conservative video, which was later uploaded to YouTube, was quickly viewed tens of thousands of times.
Whether you share it or not, anti-Harper sentiment was a recurrent theme heard during the election campaign. Ms. Walsh was the latest popular performer to urge Canadians not to vote Conservative.
On October 7, two days after it had been publicly released, CBC News posted an online story about recent artistic performances critical of Mr. Harper, noting that Ms. Walsh as Marg Delahunty had now joined Blue Rodeo, Hey Rosetta! and Yukon Blonde in expressing her political views. It was not serious political coverage or analysis; nevertheless, we felt it contributed one more perspective to CBC’s extensive cross-platform election coverage.
The story briefly describes the video and quotes Ms. Delahunty before including something of the popular local performer’s background and pointing out that she and Mr. Harper had not always been so adversarial, noting that the two had once “famously locked lips”. By way of illustration, the story included Ms. Walsh’s video as well as links to the Blue Rodeo song, the Hey Rosetta! and Yukon Blonde tune and video clips of Ms. Walsh on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
I should emphasize that the video expresses Ms. Walsh’s views, not the CBC’s — CBC is prohibited from advocating or supporting any particular point of view – and she is in the best position to explain or defend it. However, I can tell you that she does not at any point in the video equate or compare Mr. Harper to Adolf Hitler.
At one point, she suggests the government has cloaked itself in secrecy. In that vein she refers to Mr. Harper, using his first name, as “Stasi Steve”, an alliterative, if clearly absurd, reference to the former East German secret police. Seconds later, she follows that with the alliterative Germanic honorific, “Herr”, ahead of his surname. Her rant is exaggerated, inflated, evidently untrueand, certainly, partisan, but in our view it is not hateful.
I fully realize that any comparison to Adolf Hitler is offensive to many. And rightly so. But we do not believe Ms. Walsh’s video crossed that threshold. It’s something we are sensitive to and I regret that you understood her as “equating” the two in this instance.
Denise Wilson
Senior Managing Director
CBC Atlantic
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How much air time do you think they would have given “Marg” if it had been anti liberal ?
Also, their love affair with old rock stars and actors who are all but forgotten, but want attention and do so by suddenly, after a life of caring less, decide to become crusaders against things they have no clue about. Whether it be oil, seals, carbon or governments you name it.
Harper is clearly more like Stalin than Hitler.
The only Canadian on TV (OK, the internet) that is even vaguely funny is Ezra Levant, I really like (most of) his humour. Those old, stinky, never-beens on CBC are just that. The last time CBC had someone funny on their channel was, I believe, Wayne and Shuster. Denise Wilson (who ever she is) has a huge chip on her shoulder, that’s fairly evident from the tone of her letter.
COPIED AND PASTED:
CBC is prohibited from advocating or supporting any particular point of view –
Mary Walsh = Can’t Understand Normal Thought. Now use the first letter of each word and what does that spell.
It appears that talking code doesn’t count.
Mary Walsh = Can’t Understand Normal Thought. You see, I am just criticizing how Walsh thinks – that’s all.
Canadian Bigot Corporation – would you expect anything different?
Rather amusing when she says the CBC is prohibited from taking a political view for a specific party.
And yet they campaigned exclusively for PET’s man-child, by constantly attacking that mean old agenda driven PM Harper, to the detriment of our country! We know whose agenda the CBC is fulfilling here, no matter how they try to spin it into fairy dust, and popcorn farts.
With respect to:
“Let me say immediately that I regret you found Ms. Walsh’s words offensive”, and “I fully realize that any comparison to Adolf Hitler is offensive to many…and I regret that you understood her as ‘equating the two in this instance.”
I am sure you are familiar with a “non-apology apology”, common in both politics and public relations. Your “regret” falls into that category, namely, that you saw nothing wrong with Ms. Walsh’s conduct but rather that the problem is mine for taking offense and having such an “understanding”.
It may be true that the video was written and produced entirely by Ms. Walsh, who has had a long profitable association with he CBC. However, CBCNews.ca happily published a news story about the video and provided a link to it to in order to promote this trash, because, after all, it fit with the anti-Harper CBC narrative.
I don’t care if Ms. Walsh is a popular figure in Newfoundland or that she is a “award-winning comedian and actress”. That does not excuse what she did!
“Whether you share it or not, anti-Harper sentiment was a recurrent theme heard during the election campaign. Ms. Walsh was the latest popular performer to urge Canadians not to vote Conservative.” According to this logic, it was all the more reason or justification for the CBC to pile on Harper, which itself was a major contributor to the “anti-Harper sentiment”, to jump on the bandwagon and give, Ms. Walsh, a friend and associate of the CBC, such a forum and exposure. That meanie, Stephen Harper, deserved it.
“I should emphasize that the video expresses Ms. Walsh’s views, not the CBC’s — CBC is prohibited from advocating or supporting any particular point of view”. Given the CBC’s incredibly biased election coverage, I find laughable your statement that the CBC is “prohibited from advocating or supporting any particular point of view”. I am sure you are aware, as well, that the journalists’ union was a registered third party campaigner. To top it off, Justin Trudeau even dangled a $150 million carrot in front of the CBC to bolster the CBC’s help to get him elected.
Undoubtedly, the most outrageous statement in your letter was, “However, I can tell you that she does not at any point in the video equate or compare Mr. Harper to Adolf Hitler”! Ms. Walsh, referring to Prime Minister Harper as “Stasi Steve” and “Herr Harper” and ending with a flourish with a Nazi salute in no way associates him with Hitler? Talk about cognitive dissonance! Turns out that Calgary Imam Syed Sohardwardy recently outclassed even classless Ms. Walsh by comparing former PM Stephen Harper to murderous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin!
With respect to your suggestion to submit the matter to the CBC Ombudsman, no thanks. I have gone that route before and found it likewise to be a waste of time.
As I pointed out at the start of my letter, “I don’t expect much to come of my complaint”, and your letter on behalf of the CBC didn’t disappoint. At least, you could have ended your letter thanking me for the financial support I involuntarily give to the CBC through my taxes.
How did I attack the messenger exactly. I made a general statement and acknowledged that I agreed with the CBC response on this one.
You seem to have a problem with views you don’t like.
The response is no more than can be expected from them. Is it not sad though that we must pay a billion a year to keep them in existence. We really do need to sell the CBC
The
I see so the CBC clearly does not support any particular view, glad she cleared that up!