(LifeSiteNews) — The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has come under fire by its own ombudsman for violating its ethics code when it published a story in 2021 that suggested the nation’s Catholic Bishops were not coming through on a promise to raise money for an “Indigenous Reconciliation Fund.”
Per Blacklock’s Reporter, CBC Ombudsman Jack Nagler said that the network, which gets over a billion dollars a year from the federal government, violated its own ethics code over the 2021 article.
Nagler said that in his view, the “CBC made an error in judgment,” and that “Editors at CBC Saskatchewan did not have an explanation for the failure.”
Nagler’s ruling stems from a December 2021 CBC story published online with the headline, “Catholic Bishops Fail To Release Details Of $30 Million Fundraiser For Residential School Survivors On Time.”
The report was written by Jason Warick of CBC Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Warick’s report claimed that the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) was coming up short on a promise to raise $30 million for the Indigenous Reconciliation Fund.
However, noted Nagler, some CBC readers pointed out to the network that the CCCB had not only begun fundraising for its Indigenous Reconciliation Fund, but that Warick had himself reported on this in the past.
The report was amended in April of 2022. However, the amended version of the report did not contain a note with the clarification brought up by readers, nor did it contain a statement about breaching the CBC’s Journalistic Standards And Practices guide.
This, said Nagler, meant that the CBC had violated its own policies by “failing to inform readers about the change.”
“Journalistic Standards And Practices says: When we make corrections and clarifications online we should include on the story page an explanatory note to the audience,” he noted, adding that on “many occasions” he has “reminded CBC journalists that precision matters and provides readers or listeners or viewers with confidence that CBC’s journalism is reliable.”
He said that the CBC could have made some “wiser” choices before “the initial publication of the article.”
This is not the first time the CBC has been reprimanded by its Ombudsman.
Last fall, Nagler said he was “disappointed” the outlet ran a story that falsely claimed Russia was behind the Freedom Convoy protests, adding it should have never happened.
Despite these breaches, CBC’s CEO Catherine Tait claimed that her network had the “gold standard” on ethics in journalism while announcing a cross-country tour to talk about CBC ethics.
The CBC has long been criticized by conservatives over what is said to be a left-wing political bias in its reporting. This accusation of partisanship has become a heated topic in Canada, mostly due to the CBC’s massive reliance on taxpayer funds.
In 2021 the CBC received $1.4 billion from the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, accounting for roughly 70 percent of its total revenue.
The whopping sum came after Trudeau’s 2019 election promise that his Liberal government would give legacy media $595 million in federal assistance over four years.
The mainstream media’s coverage of Catholic-Indigenous relations has also been a source of ethical controversy among Canadians.
In 2021, the CCCB announced a $30 million Indigenous Reconciliation Fund which was established to “accept donations from 73 Catholic entities across the country, and to advance healing and reconciliation initiatives.”
The Indigenous Reconciliation Fund came about as a result of the May 2021 reported discovery of “215 unmarked child graves” at Kamloops Residential School, which was once run by the Catholic Church.
Throughout 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media continually ran with the inflammatory and dubious claim that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the residential schools. This resulted in mass church burnings across Canada.
However, investigations from January 2022 have found that despite the allegations of “physical genocide” on the part of the Catholic Church, no graves have actually been found.
Despite this contradictory evidence and to the dismay of many Catholics, the CCCB has continued to comply with the mainstream media narrative and even made a public statement of apology in 2021.