Categories: Need to know

"Just Visiting"? Not on CBC's watch

Network rejects Tory attack ads

by macleans.ca on Thursday, June 4, 2009 9:59am - 63 Comments

The CBC may be strapped for cash, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll let just anyone buy ad time on the public broadcaster. The Ottawa Citizen reports that the Conservative Party’s latest anti-Liberal ad campaign – which lambaste the Liberal leader for his 34-year absence from the country, and portrays him as a self-serving, hyper-ambitious elitist — runs afoul of a “longstanding policy.” According to CBC spokesman Jeff Keay, the network has “pretty strict guidelines” when it comes to party-funded ads: “We’ll only accept political advertising like that when there is an election campaign on.”

Ottawa Citizen

Tags: Canada

Rudy Daniels

Well someone in the media has a bit of class.

scf

Yes, I agree, CTV is a classy organization compared to the biased CBC.
Nita

I agree.. I am so sick of attack ads. I also watched saw that they have some against the NDP in NS.. I would vote against a party simply for using that type of tactic.

http://intensedebate.com/people/OntarioTown OntarioTown

And, that's why I'm watching CTV news – I don't have to put up with this childish BS.

Principled and class – thank you CBC

MJ Patchouli

Principled, classy and CTV don't belong together.

William

But ,How will the 3% of the people who sometimes watch the CBC ever find out what Iggy is really like ?
Gerry Lalonde

No big deal. CBC has such a small percentage of TV viewershp that it doesn't have much of an impact.
Wassim

@William, @Gerry Lalonde
The NHL Finals are one of the highest rated programmes in Canada.

And in many ways, it is the ideal target audience for the Conservative Party.
hosertohoosier

I don't know why people are painting this as a CBC decision (either by saying "the CBC is biased" or "yay CBC"). They have an internal policy that prohibits advertising outside of an election. This isn't a hidden message from the network that Harper's attack ads were so unfair they would never air them.
Ronald Cape

It suggests that CBC sticks to its principles, even when someone is waving a pile of cash in their face. Bravo.

http://intensedebate.com/people/mrgenier mrgenier

BRAVO CBC….____hoser, youre right and the fact that still have an autonomous public broadcaster is something to be proud of.
Sisyphus

It’s not principles. It’s policy.

If we want to consider principles watch conservative, conservative , and Coyne tonight.

Anon

I think they should be banned from the public airwaves, period. The airwaves belong to us, and we shouldn't have to endure them being polluted by this government propaganda, planned an executed in the PMO, on our dime.

baldygirl

I'll second that.

scf

Great ideas people. Why bother with campaigning at all? Why bother with elections? Who needs democracy?

matt

I can't help but wonder if they were NDP ads pointing to a conservative "hidden agenda" that the rules would be so rigidly applies

M.A.N

Yeah, actually, they would. This has always been their policy. But feel free to drift into "what if" land.
scf

Are you kidding? The CBC would be running NDP ads for free.

sbt

Whether or not we like pre-writ advertising or not isn't the point here. The reality is that pre-writ advertising is legal and for the CBC to draft some guidelines and throw itself into the middle of a political debate over pre-writ political advertising when it is supposed to be neutral is completely unacceptable. It would be alright for a private broadcaster to do so, but the CBC must be held to a higher standard of impartiality.

M.A.N

Actually, not taking ads from any side is the definition of impartial.

And the CBC didn't "throw itself into the middle of a political debate over pre-writ political advertising". The Ottawa Citizen did that.

sbt

No, it's not. Allowing all sides to advertise outside the writ period (as is currently allowed by law) would be impartial. Preventing all parties from advertising while one party is trying to change the current law (a bill introduced by a Liberal Senator) to prevent pre-writ advertising is not impartial and essentially taking sides.

As for the Ottawa Citizen throwing the CBC into the middle of the debate, surely you're kidding. They were simply reporting what was going on. I'll grant you that the CBC didn't make a public announcement about this, but surely they were aware that people would become aware of it.

DerekPearce

It depends on what you think of as impartial. Just because it is legal to advertise outside a writ period does not necessarily mean that a network is being impartial by letting those who can afford to pay, advertise. You can look at it two ways– on the one hand, by not accepting the ads, the CBC is being impartial so that a party with the $$ to advertise doesn't get extra exposure of it's agenda. On the other hand, the CBC could be seen as biased against any party that does have said money, in favour of poorer parties. Regardless of whether one likes the ads or not, I personally can't make up my mind which interpretation of this CBC policy applies .

calc

I agree with the CBC and wish more broadcasters would take the same stance. The Conservatives might as well of had a dancing picture of Ignatief with devil horns painted on his head for 30 seconds. This type of political garbage is a big step backwards every time it happens. Aren't we trying to strive towards non-partisan politics?

http://intensedebate.com/people/AdenMurphy AdenMurphy

I totally agree. And make sure that criticism applies itself to past Liberal and NDP ads.
In my dreamland, the parties would actually present, i dunno, policy ideas during elections. And while I'm dreaming…

DianeG

That ad is running and running and running on CTV. They have no scruples about running attack ads when there's no election called. I only get one channel and it' sa CTV station. I don't watch it much, but every time I turn on the set – there's that insulting ad again.

K V

Actually, in the middle of the night I've seen them running on Bravo, HGTV, and,IIRC, even on PBS. I've heard the CPC is spending millions, but I wonder how much we, as taxpayers, might be paying for them.

DerekPearce

I find the ads ridiculous, hope they backfire, and mock them regularly– I've taken to using the ad's snide voice/tone around the house, for instance accusing my partner of "just visiting" the kitchen to cook, and being an "elitist" who won't put the dishes in the dishwasher after– to much general laughter and merriment. But taxpayers are not paying for the ads, as they are paid for by the Conservative Party and not the government. In an indirect way, you could say taxpayers are partly funding them because of the tax breaks that political donations get, but these breaks are open to the donors of all registered parties.

Truth

Perhaps the only thing insulting is how truthful the ads are.

A Prime Minister who lived outside of Canada for decades and the only thing he missed was "Algonquin Park". How embarassing.

It's time for the CBC to be privatized or closed, they provide no service to Canadians.

C.C.

Ok, well if CBC provides no service to Canadians in any ways, then what does? CNN and CBS or NBC, or even BBC? We need to be able to stay local and have national chains. CTV isn't enough, also CBC has a french side, which we know that Canada is a bilingual country.
Anon

Nah. Let CanWest-Global go bankrupt first. I can't believe how utterly crappy its tiny amount of original programming is.

The Bull

what's the CBC's policy on one of their announcers being the voice in a Liberal attack ad?

just curious.

DerekPearce

Explain, please– who/when?
DerekPearce

Explain, please– who/when?
DerekPearce

My original question to The Bull was actually "what CBC announcer did the voice-over for a Liberal attack ad?", not about running the ads or not. That's quite the accustion s /he made, so I want to know more about it.

The Bull

diane – "That ad is running and running and running on CTV. They have no scruples about running attack ads when there's no election called. I only get one channel and it' sa CTV station. I don't watch it much, but every time I turn on the set – there's that insulting ad again. "

what's "insulting" about it? it's the truth.

oh wait, i forgot, we live in la-la-land where telling the truth makes one "mean".

kcm

The truth! I'm surprised you even know how to spell the word! There is very liitle absolute truth, it's mostly subjective. Which is why Harper gets away with this crap.

debsagrrl

Class move, CTV airs this trash at every commercial break…
Nita

Maybe by READING because they are smarter than those who rely on attack ads.
nita

I agree. We should all vote against the parties who use attack ads… just on principle./

William

Well, I guess you will have to start up the " nita " party if you want someone to vote for.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

I think we should vote against all parties that include blatant falsehoods in their political attack ads. I'll leave it to you to figure out which parties do that.

http://intensedebate.com/people/AdenMurphy AdenMurphy

Is it e) All of the above?

Nita

Get a life, Truth (although Conservatives are anything but!).. Are you saying that anyone who has lived outside the country is not Canadian enough???

hosertohoosier

Nita, can you agree that there is a difference between living abroad for 4 years and 34 years (with those 34 years being the more recent years of Ignatieff's life)?

If George W. Bush moved to Canada today, became a Canadian citizen and wanted to run for PM, would you think that was okay?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

I can honestly say that if George W. Bush ran for Canada, the fact that he was previously an American for all of his life would not be the concern.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

I can honestly say that if George W. Bush ran for Prime Minister, the fact that he was previously an American for all of his life would not be the concern.
Andrew

Who cares where he was living?

tony harrison

Nice of CBC, I guess, but the whole premise of the commercials is so flawed and cynical about the intelligence of Canadians that it hardly matters. Ignatieff is supposedly in it for himself, so his ideas are meaningless and we should just swallow Stephen Harper's load? The greater message here is how afraid the Tories are to actually run on the issues, and despite what they think, I don't think that will be lost on Canadians.
http://skinnydips.blogspot.com Skinny Dipper

Thankfully, the CBC won't air any "Harper Gone Wild" commercials. I wouldn't want to see Harper lift up his shirt and show his belly.
hosertohoosier

The CBC explanation is that they have an internal policy against running political ads outside of election season. So I don't think they would run any ad, positive or not.
sbt

Quite obviously it is a bias against parties with said money in favour of poorer parties. You could argue that there is systemic bias that favours bigger parties in terms of fundraising and getting their message out. You may even have a case. However, it is not the role of the CBC to level the playing field. The lawmakers of this country are supposed to do that.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

So, you deny that a media organization has any right to refuse advertising?

sbt

What part of "it would be alright for a private broadcaster to do so (refuse advertising)" would lead you to think that? The CBC is owned by Canadians and should be as apolitical as possible in terms of how it is managed. Canadians have decided, through their representatives in Parliament, that pre-writ advertisements on media networks are legal. Therefore, the management of our publicly-owned broadcaster should not be refusing political advertisements outside the writ period simply because it can be interpreted as a political statement on pre-writ advertising. If CTV and Global were to reject the ads, it could still be interpreted as a political statement but the Canadian people do not own them so they can do whatever they want in terms of what ads they allow on their networks.

In short the answer to your question is no, but the CBC is isn't just another media organization.

REXVee

This, years long, Harper electioneering BS is nauseating. During an election campaign is more than enough. Harper obviously doesn't have anything intelligent to offer Canadians so he has to sling MUD. Must be worried about how much longer he'll be playing the "Bully King of the Castle". So juvenile—certainly not the actions of a statesman ! !
Fed-UP with Politics

Thank-you CBC ! These ads remind me of a mindless junk-yard mutt constantly barking and barking and barking—just won't SHUT-UP ! At least I can watch CBC news without that Harper drivel spoiling the newscast. Thanks !