Canada, our neighbor to the north, is known for its cultural elites being even further to the left than our own elites here in America. This notion was dramatically confirmed recently when Tara Henley, a left-leaning producer at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the country’s oldest broadcasting network, resigned over the CBC’s irrational commitment to the woke agenda.
In a January 3rd statement posted on Substack, Henley declared:
When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.
As she noted, the change at the CBC happened quite recently:
It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom… I am now easily the most conservative, frequently sparking tension by questioning identity politics. This happened in the span of about 18 months. My own politics did not change. To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity.
At the CBC, Henley writes, one must be wholeheartedly committed to the woke agenda:
[To be at the CBC] is to sign on, enthusiastically, to a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the United States and spread through American social media platforms that monetize outrage and stoke societal divisions. It is to pretend that the “woke” worldview is near universal—even if it is far from popular with those you know, and speak to, and interview, and read.
In particular, one must firmly support identity politics. She writes:
To work at the CBC now is to accept the idea that race is the most significant thing about a person, and that some races are more relevant to the public conversation than others. It is, in my newsroom, to fill out racial profile forms for every guest you book; to actively book more people of some races and less of others.
And it is not just racial identity politics:
People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive.
Significantly, due to the CBC’s commitment to the woke agenda, important news stories are being ignored:
[Working at the CBC] is to endlessly document microaggressions but pay little attention to evictions; to spotlight company’s political platitudes but have little interest in wages or working conditions. It is to allow sweeping societal changes like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school closures to roll out—with little debate. To see billionaires amass extraordinary wealth and bureaucrats amass enormous power—with little scrutiny. And to watch the most vulnerable among us die of drug overdoses—with little comment.
Even hiring decisions at the CBC were dominated by wokeism: “To work at the CBC is to submit to job interviews that are not about qualifications or experience—but instead demand the parroting of orthodoxies, the demonstration of fealty to dogma.”
But worst of all, at the CBC one must suspend critical thinking and self-censor all the time: “[Working at the CBC] is to capitulate to certainty, to shut down critical thinking, to stamp out curiosity. To keep one’s mouth shut, to not ask questions, to not rock the boat. This, while the world burns.”
Henley is especially worried about how this commitment to the woke agenda will affect North America:
All of this raises larger questions about the direction that North America is headed. Questions about this new moment we are living through — and its impact on the body politic. On class divisions, and economic inequality. On education. On mental health. On literature, and comedy. On science. On liberalism, and democracy.
As for her future, Henley states that she will write on the Substack media platform in order to get the truth out:
Here at Substack, I will continue the work of thinking through the current moment, focusing on non-fiction writing from around the world….This work is entirely independent and entirely free from editorial control, allowing me to say the things that are not being said, and ask the questions that are not being asked.
Wokeism is alive and well at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and as a result critical thinking is being shut down and real news stories are not being covered. All this was too much for CBC producer Tara Henley. Willing to take a courageous stand for the truth, she boldly resigned from the CBC in protest. Let us hope that her action will encourage other people opposed to the woke agenda to stand up for their beliefs. If enough of us do this, we can defeat the scourge of the woke agenda.
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