Unverified: The Grind Uncovers New Lows in Canadian Media

Journalist Dave Gray-Donald from the GrindTO spent months analyzing Canadian media reports and attempting to hold his follow journalists accountable for repeatedly printing unverified claims about October 7th, 2023. His piece, Global News and Postmedia Refuse to Correct Oct. 7 Falsehoods exposes some of the most horrific failures of our legacy media - but its not getting the exposure it needs...

...so we also discuss how to combat the impacts of shoddy, even malicious reporting by supporting independent media and good reporting when we see it.

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• Global News and Postmedia Refuse to Correct Oct. 7 Falsehoods - The Grind Magazine

Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know

we need. All right, journalist Dave Graydonald from The GrindTO, he's back in the studio with

us to unpack his latest piece. It's a doozy. I imagine it took quite some work to put together,

some exhausting work. We're gonna talk to Dave about that. And if you remember, Dave was on

earlier in the summer, we had a live stream on managing the narrative. And you'll find

some similarities in this conversation from that one, but... near the end of the episode,

we're going to talk about what we can do to combat what Dave's going to be talking about

here. Dave's article came out this morning, and we'll link it in the show notes as we always

do. It centers on the failures of Canadian media surrounding the events of October 7th and their

absolute refusal to correct or change course. Dave, first, welcome back. Thanks for taking

time for us again. How are you? Hello. Good. Good to be here. Yeah. I've been busy, but,

uh, yeah, lovely to be here. You're distributing the latest episode of The Grind right now,

as well as I imagine talking to people about this latest article. For sure. For those who

haven't read the article yet, can you give us just kind of a brief summary of what you mean

when they refuse to correct October 7th falsehoods? Cause I think all of us have heard the falsehoods

and we've tried our best to combat those narratives, but you've really done a deep dive into not

only uncovering them, but pressing Canadian media to correct themselves. How did that go?

So yeah, there's a lot of verified information about what happened on October 7th. It's clear

there were attacks and gunfights and all sorts of things happened. a lot of people were killed.

So this is not denying at all October 7th, but specifically this article looks at the claim

of 40 killed babies and beheaded babies and the claim of 40 beheaded babies. This spread

like wildfire starting on October 10th, 2023. There was an Israeli TV interview where someone

said that soldiers, the reporter on I-24 News found 40 dead babies in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz

in southern Israel. And it turned out there were zero babies killed in that kibbutz. The

youngest person killed there was about 14 years old. However, this rumor spread all over the

world, as I'm sure almost all of your listeners remember. And it was repeated in Canadian media

very quickly. So that day, the National Post had a headline about 40 dead babies. Columnists

were posting about it. The Toronto Star had an article in the opinion section. And then

relatively quickly, and of course, Joe Biden said he saw photos of decapitated children

and the White House immediately said, no, he hasn't seen those photos. We haven't seen those

photos. And the Israeli government was not confirming the 40 dead babies or the 40 beheaded babies.

but still it kept spreading and there were reports coming out that it wasn't verified. And so

the National Post, post-media papers in general, published at least four times this claim. That

was mostly in October and November. I've emailed them, the editors, the editor-in-chief and

the managing editor there, five times and they... have not responded, they're not correcting,

they're reporting. So readers of post-media papers might still believe that there were

40 murdered babies in that kibbutz on October 7th. Now the reason that this is important

is, aside from just the truth, which I think is always important, is that if you'll remember,

this claim was used very widely to shut down any... Anytime a person wanted to talk about

context of October 7th, anytime anyone wanted to talk about what was happening and a proportional

response, because Israel started bombing, I can't remember if it was the 7th or the 8th

of October, started bombing Gaza relentlessly, a big part of the article goes into these claims

in an article published by Global News, a journalist named Stuart Bell. He's an award-winning veteran

reporter, covers terrorism. And he went to Kibbutz Beri, a different Kibbutz, that had been attacked.

About 100 people died there. 100 Israelis died there, and many Hamas fighters. And he interviewed

people who had lost relatives. He interviewed... One of the main people he interviewed was an

Israeli Colonel, Golan Vach. I'm not sure how to pronounce the last name, I apologize. And

the Colonel made a number of unsubstantiated and false claims. And there has been no follow-up

evidence from the Israeli government or media sources. And Stuart Bell mentions early in

the article that he was shown photos to back up this Colonel's account of events. Now at

no point when he's talking about the beheaded baby... does he say that the Colonel could

not show him a photo? The Colonel had told other media that there were no photos. This is not

noted by Bell, but it's his responsibility as a journalist, including within Global's journalistic

practices, to be transparent about what information he can verify and not, especially with such

sensitive, highly sensational claims. There's other false claims, or there are false claims

in his article, The Colonel says at a different house that eight children were concentrated

with seven adults and concentrated in a room and burned together. Now there was no house

in Berry where eight children were burned together. And the house, he also mentions standing outside

of it that the Israeli military had shot a tank shell at this house. another reporter asked

how is this house so damaged and Vatch says it was shot with a tank. Bell does not include

this. There's been a lengthy investigation both within Israel and beyond about what happened

in this kibbutz and how there was a house, the Pesikohan house, that was fired on several

times by Israeli tanks while about 15... hostages were inside. The Israeli military admits that

one hostage outside was killed with shrapnel from its own tank. It won't conclude on how

the other people were killed. There was a Israeli Yasmin Porat who gave an interview a few days

later saying there was a lot of crossfire and people were caught in the crossfire. So Bell

does not include this in his Global News article. To get to the end of this story, I've emailed

Bell and the editor in chief and they at Global News, Sonia Verma, and they did not respond.

Someone from the communications department at the parent company, Chorus Entertainment, responded

to all of my requests saying, we stand by our reporting. We will not be changing our story

at this time. One last detail here is that I was at an event on October 19th. So this article

was posted on October 15th, 2023. And then four days later, there was this event called Trust

Talks. It was turned into an episode of CBC Ideas. You can listen to it. It was broadcast

on November 8th, 2023. And the panelists were Sonja Verma from Global News, Brody Fenland

from very high up at CBC News. And I'm forgetting the name of the person at the Toronto Star.

And someone asked a question there about this article by Stuart Bell saying, you know, all

of you on stage, your articles have included claims of beheaded babies and often in quotes.

So you're quoting from someone who's making the claim. And you're not saying that the claim

is unverified. So publishing such a sensational claim, normally, first of all, you would think

to not publish it in the first place, if it's so sensational and can't be verified. And then

in the second place, if you are gonna publish it, the responsible thing to do is to say that

we, Global News, CBC, Toronto Star, et cetera, cannot verify this claim. They did not do that

in the Stuart Bell October 15th article. Of course, the National Post was not doing it.

There was a Toronto Star op-ed, I think I mentioned already, that mentioned the 40 beheaded babies

and it didn't have an attribution. They changed it, I believe on October 19th, but there was

still a 40 babies claim in that article that wasn't changed until I emailed them in August

2024. When they make those changes, do they do so publicly at all or is it simply just

a line change in the printed article or in the online article? So that's a great question.

I, you know, the Toronto Star is one of the only ones that from my correspondence, there

was a correction. And in that case, there was, they'd already corrected something on last

October and they put it, so they changed the article text and then at the very bottom in

italics, they say, okay, we couldn't substantiate this. And they did that again. And I looked

because they publish corrections each day. And I looked in their corrections those two days

and I didn't see a notice. So maybe I missed it, but I don't think they put a notice in

their print edition. Um, I'd love to have someone check on that, but, uh, yeah, they, they do

it very quietly often, but I was, uh, you know, I was a little bit heartened. I'll be honest

that the Toronto star at least would, um, issue that correction on the article. But that is

just an indication that expectations are on the floor because they shouldn't have published

that in the first place. And I think it's been widely known that those claims have had issues

around them, if not been proven to be complete falsehoods for quite some time. I mean, you're

talking about people questioning them, pressing them on October 19th. And then months and months

and months later, being pestered by their fellow journalists here in Canada, and then they're

issuing a really innocuous correction. Let's just couch the fact that the other folks you

contacted just still stand by it and how ridiculous that is. It seems like these corrections aren't

really corrections at all. And this isn't like they spelt someone's name wrong or they got

a small detail wrong. I mean, this is big. This is not to say that October 7th. isn't a date

to be discussed and analyzed and on its own without any of these claims, but the way politicians

have been able to weaponize it continually to this day, like there's some politicians still

really repeating these claims and they know. And so you would think that finding out they

were substantiated, they're unsubstantiated, or perhaps even lies perpetuated on purpose

for a very specific end. is news in itself. Well, I know it's news because he wrote about

it and we're here to talk about it. But I mean, like you're in these editing rooms and on mass,

like Legacy Media finds out that they've been duped, you know, let's just, we'll give them

the benefit of the doubt. And they have nothing really to say about that at all. That's the

most damning thing about it. Yeah, I should say that at the, that event in Toronto, the

Trust Talks, So the editor-in-chief at Global News, Sonia Verma, said, you know, I need to

see the example. And then I read every night the Global News articles and the scripts, and

I go through it all, and I know what we can verify and what we can't, and make sure that

we are upfront about what we can verify and what we can't. And this one... That's a lie.

You know, I don't... I don't know what's going on inside the newsroom at Global News. If anyone

from Global News is listening, get in touch with me, because I would love to know what

is going on inside this newsroom that this article won't be corrected. Same goes with Post Media,

let me know. But to understand a little bit what's going on there is, oh, I should give

one little shout out to CBC first.

General Manager and Editor-in-Chief at CBC News, he got promoted in January. He responded saying

roughly the same thing, that we wanna be really upfront about what we can verify and what we

can't and give context and explain and whatever. Now there's two articles that, there are only

two articles on CBC News website that I can find that talk about beheaded babies. I only

really looked at new... printed or sort of online text media. I didn't go through radio. I didn't

go through TV. Dave, I don't even know how you went through all the print. I mean, just searching

key keywords. So I might've missed something, but on CBC news, there's two articles that

quote from a conservative MP, Rachel Thomas, because they were attacking the CBC the conservatives

were because they weren't using the word terrorist to define Hamas or. I can't remember exactly

what the argument was, but it was something like that. And so Rachel Thomas at Parliament

had said, you know, what side are you on? How could you possibly be on this side when there's

40 babies beheaded? And so John Paul Tasker, senior reporter at CBC, quoted that, and in

the first article on October 17th, did not say anything about how this was unsubstantiated.

There were widespread reports that it was unsubstantiated at the time, just didn't include it. So a reader

could reasonably think that it was true. But a week later did a follow-up article on the

same topic and included, you know, this claim cannot be verified or it's not been corroborated.

So that's good. That's progress at least. You know, I take issue with it being printed in

the first place, but the CBC News Online did sort of correct their record. However, that

first article from October 17th, I got in touch with them actually just yesterday with the

journalist, John Paul Tasker, and I said, you know, will you issue a correction or a clarification

like you did in the other article? Cause this one still looks like it's telling a truth.

You gave him one last out. Yeah, and I was forwarded on to the head of public affairs for CBC, Chuck

Thompson, and he just said, you know, this quote was attributed properly, no change necessary.

I said, seriously, I gave them some more time and no response. I filed a complaint now with

the ombudsman at CBC because they do have an ombudsman, unlike Global, and we'll see what

happens there, but the article is uncorrected. So CBC did also fail in that regard. And that's

our public broadcaster. Well, the other person interviewed in the article, and you should

really read the article. everyone who's listening, I don't want to give away everything, but it

is very long, so I'm trying to summarize for you, is that I spoke to journalism professor

Sonia Fata at Toronto Metropolitan in Toronto, and Sonia was talking about how this story,

there's a huge responsibility for media, because it's so charged, because it's such a sensational

claim. all the reasons you can imagine, journalists should be really, really careful about anything

that looks like disinformation or misinformation. Disinformation is when a source is specifically

trying to mislead and it's disseminated in a way that's meant to mislead. Often media take

disinformation and then unwittingly spread it, and that's called misinformation, when you

have an incorrect fact and you're spreading it without knowing. I have no idea. whether

these journalists and editors are unwittingly or wittingly do it, I can't judge on that.

However, she says, you know, in the case of Russian disinformation, when media hears that,

they're very, very careful, very scrutinizing, really sharp on not trusting a word that comes

from Russian government sources. This case, the, you know... The Colonel in Berry was just

trusted at his word. You know what really upsets me? And I get it, like we don't know what they

knew. We don't know what pressures they were under to print what. And we can give them all

the benefit of the doubt in the fucking world. But here's where I'm gonna lose my shit. We

have seen collective retribution from Israel time and time again, right? Prior to October

7th, 2023. many, many times, carpet bombing of densely populated areas in retribution for

legitimate armed violence against an occupation. Okay, but even if you want to frame it as Israel

does, you know, rockets would be fired into civilian territory and perhaps kill or damage

or whatnot from Palestine, from Gaza. Hamas would take credit. and Israel would then again

just wipe out apartment blocks. CBC has reported on this, Global News has reported on this,

all of these people have seen this. So it wasn't just a sensational claim. It was used to justify

a fucking genocide and they may not have anticipated the genocide but they absolutely knew in that

moment. We all knew on October 7th when we saw what we saw. We all knew it was important to

remind people that it didn't start then because we knew, we knew, we knew what the response

would be. And every journalist had to have known what would happen if they printed those claims

and repeated those claims without verifying them and fed into that fever in that moment.

They had to have known women, children and families would die en masse. We all knew. So. all those

pressures they were under, they didn't care. And then even as it started to unfold and the

language of the Zionist state was repeated and it was genocidal, still they felt no responsibility

to pull that back. And it's still used, it's still used. It even still sits in the minds

of people who aren't as informed, who don't have the time to seek out genuine media sources.

Because I can't even tell the difference. I'm trying to talk to Santiago about the rules

of journalism and you kind of... You know, you talked about there being an ombudsman for CBC,

and we know there's libel if you say something about somebody. Hamas isn't going to start

suing all of these outlets or whoever has been defamed or whatnot. And there's just no legal

recourse for these people who are complicit in what we've seen unfold. Like I hold them

partly responsible. I don't care about the pressures that they're in the newsroom. There is huge

impact. It's not just like you misled people into believing a policy, you know, some transit

policy or whatnot. Like this, this was complicity and genocide now. And so even when you go back

to them and you were pleading with them, it sounds like you're like pleading with your

colleagues. Like, look, bud, I will give you all the time in the world, but you've got to

make this right. And they're just like, no. Yeah. Yeah, it's been, it's been. obviously

brutal to watch. And yeah, just to give some rough numbers, the, you know, there were one,

you know, depending how you count, there's one or two babies and two toddlers who were killed

on October 7th. And, you know, there's 710 babies as of the end of August who were killed in

Gaza. That's, you know, people under the age of 12 months. You know, it boggles the mind.

And yeah, so another aspect in the article that I was looking at was, you know, why does this

happen? And there's a couple answers. One is general and one is specific. The general one

is about Canadian foreign policy and how often journalists, this is across any country, journalists

from a country come with all of our own cultural baggage and so when we go to a place we have

all of these ideas already and the journalists who often get selected to be foreign correspondents

have, they often have the interests of the Canadian state in mind. And so the reporting on our

allies tends to be a lot less critical than reporting on our enemies. That's the general

thing that comes from, you know, upbringing, the public education system, culture, Hollywood,

other media, colleagues, editors, owners, all of that sort of stuff. Because our allies are

as clearly defined as our quote unquote enemies, right? Like, for a long, we've been in the

Middle East. Right, right. So yeah, so when you have all of the Canadian politicians of

the major parties, specifically the Liberals and the Conservatives, you know, steadfastly

in step with Israel and the US, then, you know, those are our allies there, and Palestinians

and their representation are the sworn enemy. The other specific... thing that I can note

is that post-media and global news were up until about 2009 owned by the same company. It was

called Canwest Global. Some of you might remember it. And Canwest Global had an openly very Zionist,

pro-Israel editorial position. So the head office in Winnipeg would edit or shoot down opinion

writing that was critical of Israel. And that's when the Post Media papers like, well, the

Sun papers weren't owned, but the Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, National Post, etc. were all

owned by the same company. And this year, the National Post editor-in-chief said, you know,

I'm very proud to be editing a publication that is Zionist in its commentary or opinion or...

Is that like an almost quote? It's a real quote, it's at the end of the article, it's the second

last paragraph. And Global News and its new parent company, Chorus Entertainment, it was

owned by Shaw for a little bit, now it's at Chorus, they wouldn't respond to that question

of whether it still holds a sort of pro-Israel editorial position. Well... We don't need them

to answer. You've proven it. Before we started recording, you know, I asked you how you were.

You said you were fine at the beginning of the episode. But the truth is this, not only was

it clearly a lot of work, I mean, you talk about reading through and then checking back on a

lot of content and reaching out over and over again. These are... I don't know if you want

to call them that, like your colleagues. You are a journalist. You speak often of the value

of truth. I mean, like, I imagine that drives you, obviously, to some extent. How has it

been seeing the media respond in this way? Yeah, I mean, it's obviously rough. Hard article

to write, but, you know, I've been meaning to write this one for so long. really since October

last year. Took a long time for whatever reasons. I really wanted to be meticulous about it all.

But yeah, it's hard seeing. I've never worked in like one of the big corporate newsrooms.

So I don't really consider myself colleagues with some of these reporters and editors, but.

Yeah, just seeing that they're the ones with the big audience and the prestige and winning

awards and making living wage salaries. A lot of people have been laid off at Global News

and Stuart Bell is not one of them. And so seeing all this is really demoralizing. I mean it's

not nearly as bad as watching actually what's happening and I don't have family there so

I don't have that immediate connection that a lot of people do. I do have friends with

family there. But yeah, it's been rough. And I think it's a sign that there've been a number

of signs in Canada that media is not staying on top of being credible and big corporate

media. I mean, we've seen it more in the US, but I think there's something to be said in

Canada. A lot of people, I would imagine, don't take post-media very seriously. However...

Seeing this, the report from Global, was a wake-up call as well for me, because I hadn't considered

Global in this way before. I didn't look at radio, but Emma Paling, another excellent journalist—not

that I'm excellent, but—an excellent journalist, Emma Paling, did a great article on Global

News and also some Bell media radio that had unverified claims. So the Alex Pearson show,

which is a global show. had the beheaded babies claim a number of times and they still have

those episodes up, I believe, uncorrected. I don't imagine Canadian media is especially

unique in terms of Western coverage of what's happening either. Like, I know it's not your

job to have monitored the UK, EU, or United States media, but. Yeah, the thing I'll say

is that there's, a lot of this stuff was reported in Israeli media. Corrected in Israeli media,

do you mean that? Yes. Yeah, it was corrected in Israeli media, but not Canadian media. And,

you know, I will say, I'll be totally honest, I was, you know, I've been very nervous to

publish about this. And because being the first one is tough. You know, you see the house that

the Israeli tanks shot at with hostages in it. It's been reported by Haaretz in Israel recently

by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. No one, I don't think anyone in Canada has

published about it. I don't think any major Canadian source has done a sort of big look

at the 40 beheaded babies claim and debunking it. I just don't think any Canadian media has

done it. So that's very strange and nerve-racking to speak against when there's such a consensus.

And that's what happened back last fall. was there's such a consensus, especially it comes

from the comment section, sorry, the opinion section of papers, but it also does start from

reporting. There was such a consensus, it was really hard to say anything. And then, you

know, now I reply to some people on Twitter and I say, you know, this post media, they

still have articles up, or they are repeating the beheaded babies claim and people are like,

no, they didn't do that. We all know that was false. These are supporters of Israel. And

I'm saying, no, how do you forget this? The articles are still up. This was the whole thing.

This was the whole thing last fall. That, there has been a little bit of that that's gone on

this past almost year where it's just like you're in disbelief of people's inability to hold

a point. You know, like it's just this global amnesia or whatnot. But yeah, it's also I should

note there's a few politicians. So obviously Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, he still

tells a story like the US Congress in July. He told a story of two babies in an attic who

were killed. And that. That never happened. And the other one is a conservative MP, Melissa

Lansman, in March gave a speech where she talked about Hamas burning babies in ovens. And there's

no evidence of that. Was she wearing her IDF dog tag at the time? I don't know. I didn't

see the photo. I imagine she was. All right, so the show's called Blueprints of Disruption.

So let's talk about how we can disrupt this shit, right? what we can do to combat the failures

of Canadian media and the impact that it has. So I agree, like I called Santiago, and this

is relevant, the reason I had to call Santiago and talk to him about this for a while and

why he couldn't be here. And what Dave said earlier, livable wage, like independent media

generally doesn't pay livable wages. I mean, personally for Santiago and I, it doesn't pay

anything at all. And so, He has to pay the bills. He's working. He can't do the good journalism

that he would like to do right now because he has got to put food on his table and pay rent.

And independent Canadian media is not unique. I mean, there's maybe a few people that are

able to do that. But generally it is, and I don't mean this as a pun, it's a grind. It's

a real grind. And like, you know how we all feel. We're never... doing enough to stop this,

to, you know, Dave's never gonna be feeling like he's doing enough to correct the wrongs

of Canadian media. None of us are gonna feel like we've ever done enough to stop the genocide

and the escalation that's happening now in Lebanon, or rather the world's woes, like all on our

own. But there is a lot I think we can do in terms of supporting and promoting independent

media sources in order to combat this. I think it is critical. because like Dave said, those

other platforms have such huge reach. Now, if we could find a way to get the grind in this

article as much reach as those other things, the impacts wouldn't be so great, but there's

just such a lopsided delivery of information. And it's really hard for people right now to

find genuine media sources. that they can trust. Yeah, yeah, I don't envy readers. I mean, one

positive thing I can point people to is there's a new site that aggregates a lot of indie media

called unrigged.ca, U-N-R-I-G-G-E-D.ca. And it's semi-curated, so that's pretty good, but

we don't have anything on the scale of post media. I was looking at their financials yesterday

and they're like, they still have annual revenues of like $177 million. They lose millions of

dollars every year, but they're still able to pay off some loans or their loan sharks or

whatever. But yeah, to your, to the point you're making, yeah, there's so many stories that

we can't do and I'm, I'm trained as a environmental writer. I wrote a book on climate justice.

I was just so blown away and shocked and appalled by what was happening and this has become my

beat, hopefully not forever, hopefully we, you know, get out of this. But yeah, there's a

lot of stories that I'm kicking myself that I just haven't had the time to do. I'm sure

there's shows that you wish you could do. And yeah, there's a couple things I want to mention

money is obviously number one. Donate to the media sources that you want to see more of

in the world and so that they don't disappear. There's been a ton of indie papers and online

publications that have disappeared over the years, and it's because people need money and

get burned out and have to take paying jobs at other places that have money. The second

thing is there's a culture that used to exist that doesn't as much anymore, and it's around

how people who are involved in movements used to write more, and used to write more articles.

Now it's a lot of Instagram writing and Twitter and stuff, but when it comes to writing articles,

whether it's report backs from protests, whether it's analysis of something. It's all on Instagram,

but it's not on web pages. And that makes it very hard to search for. It makes it hard to

know where to look. And so, you know, I'll take an example of another story. The story you

actually emailed me about first, which was about a protest that, where someone was arrested

in Toronto in September 6th or 11th, I think maybe. And then they went to 50... one division

or 52, 51, and then police pushed people onto the street and pepper sprayed them and beat

them and tackled people and made a bunch of arrests all for assaulting an officer. Folks

were put in the hospital that day. Yeah, there were a number of concussions, torn MCL, knee

ligament, and minor injuries on the police side is what they say. So no major media did an

article. about what had happened out front of 51 Division. And then what I did was literally

just put things in chronological order based on interviewing people who were there and finding

videos online and people sending me videos and literally just put the sequence of events in

chronological order and make it make sense. And reporting in a lot of ways is not that

complex. There's some stories that are, but a lot of it is really just, can I verify that

this actually happened? What is my, how do I know or not know? Let me put it in an order

that makes sense. And there's, I think a lot of people are intimidated with writing. I know

it's not for everyone, but I do encourage more people to write articles, honestly. I'm giving

you this face just because I'm in the middle of trying to build a website so that we could

do just that, you know, like, find another medium, and both Santiago and I like to write, but

want an outlet for it, and we want to tell the story of movements on the ground. And so that

smirk that I have is like you reaffirming that there's a bit of a vacuum there. We interviewed

Unicorn Riot not that long ago, and they're based in the US, but they do have... contributors

from around the globe and they help tell the stories on the ground of movements and protests

and the state's response not just theoretically or in policy, but how it's actually playing

out against protesters and what that means for quote-unquote democracy, so I definitely understand

what you're talking about there because if there's so much misrepresentation of protests right

now in general and there's really not much to combat that. So and I'll say putting videos

online, whatever social media platform it is, is fine and good. The thing that is searchable

on the internet is text. So if you want to say search for what happened on this date at this

place. I mean, you could caption something really well on Instagram and people might be able

to find it, but it's much harder that way. So I think there's another role that, you know,

something I want to do more is help provide and train people on various skills in journalism.

There are some skills that are to be learned, but for the most part, it is really just verifying

what happened. I mean, a lot of journalism school is about the craft, but really what it comes

down to is like fact checking. verifying and yeah, and then there's the things of how to

put together a good interesting story. Maybe you could have a little workshop for the folks

at Post Media. Global News maybe? We could sign them all up. Santiago just went through journalism

school and we had all these discussions and he talks about you know the rules that his

professors are treating are. and the standards some of his stories are held to, and they're

always a higher standard than what he's witnessing in legacy media. And he always... And I didn't

go through journalism school, and so I'm hearing all of these, and I'm thinking, like, there's,

like, this checklist, this set of rules. But then I'm on the phone with him today, and he's

like, well, it's kind of like, you know, what is that, Pirates of the Caribbean, they're

like guidelines. They're these unwritten rules. And... There's really no mechanism to hold

them responsible. And the idea of trying to get the state to hold news, that's just a big

puddle of mud. We don't want to go there. So sure, some folks might want to take up journalism

or some form of it, but let's say they don't have capacity for that. Is there anything a

reader should be doing when they see this or to combat this other than finding a better

media source and supporting them? and sharing with all of their friends so that they don't

also have to just consume global news. Can they be should they be writing the editor? Should

they be pushing back in this way? Is there a way for us to correct legacy media to change

this kind of trend? That maybe is not a trend because I haven't studied media for a very

long time, but it just seems like since October 7th. And I hate using that as a time frame,

but it's inevitable in discussion now. I don't know. I feel like it's next level. So how can?

we push back against this. Yeah, that's, I mean, I would look to organizers of various movements

for this, and you know, you have a lot of experience. I'll just add that the, yeah, writing to the

editors and the journalists is important on both sides of things. So if there's a problem

at CBC, let's say, yeah, email the ombudsman. Ombudsman does usually look into things in

a somewhat thorough way. They dismiss a lot of complaints that I think are valid, but they

do actually respond and I believe they make their responses public. And so that is at least

one mechanism and they do have to do an investigation. And on the other side, the thing I've heard

in newsrooms is they want people who also want to hear positive reinforcement when they get

it right. So for example, What works with dogs and kids. Yeah, and so I'm trying to think

of an example, but let's say there's a story that's well reported and then honestreporting.ca,

which is a very pro-Israel media advocacy organization, they go on the offensive and they say this

article is biased against Israel. If it's good reporting, then get in touch with the journalist,

with the editor, and say, you know, this article was excellent. And there are a few organizations

that are doing campaigns when there's really bad reporting. So the Canadians for Justice

and Peace in the Middle East is one of the few that does sort of mail the... You can sort

of use a web form to email. On mass. Yeah, on mass. And they identify and do the research

for you, but you can add what you want to say. But I think a personal email is really powerful.

And yeah, even calling out. The other thing that I think a lot of people should do is sometimes

get out of your bubble and see what is being published. Going on changing, changing from

the... following to the for you tab on Twitter is night and go. That's where Brian Lilly lives.

Yeah. So you're going to see like right now what's happening there is they're really going

on the offensive against the Toronto District School Board and teachers for this for telling

kids to wear blue, which is happening for years at the grassy narrows River Run in Toronto.

People are losing their minds and it's happening from

Loomay or however you pronounce it at the Sun and Jesse Brown's on it. But you don't see

these things until very late in the game if you're staying in your bubble. So being able

to see what's happening, see people who are misconstruing things early on and speaking

back to it I think is important. Instagram is maybe the worst for this because you can really

be in your own bubble and never see anything. on Instagram. So read, you know, go to the

front page, go to the opinion section of the star, the globe. It's really hard to look at

the post, but sometimes, sometimes do it. This is not self-care you're advocating for. And

engage. No, it's not. But you know, be careful, be careful, especially with the post. Don't

read the comments. Don't read the comments if you have to go there. Promise me people, you

won't read the comments. But the other thing is, you know, we like... Jessa, you and I know

Scott Martin is about to launch a podcast as well. We've lost a lot of the media criticism

capacity in this country. You know, you really don't see coverage of, for example, the article

that I just did. You wouldn't see that on Canada land anymore. You might have seen it a year

ago, but things are different now. And so there isn't really a media criticism. website right

now. There's not an outlet in Canada that does that. So I think it's important to support

the places that do it. The Breach is doing a lot. The Grind is doing a lot. The Maple, yeah.

So yeah, those are important things. I very much appreciate you coming on, Dave, and sharing

your time. I know you folks are just in the middle of it getting another issue out to print.

We absolutely love... the grind. Santiago, again, I just I told him I would represent today because

he couldn't be here. He was just like, if they could just have big ads in every subway stop,

if we could support them enough, they could have two issues a month. I mean, whenever he

sees it go out, they're always gone. Like you got to get your copy or you're going to miss

it. Like people want it. It is good stuff. Like it gets consumed. So if you're out there and

you can support these people. Please do. As well as all the other great people that Dave

mentioned. But I got really upset when I was talking to you before. And we said, if it doesn't

get that reach, what is the value? If we're not really changing the narrative with what

we're doing, and you talked about recording history. And I just, like I. I started crying

when I was thinking about that today because I was like, no, god damn it, I am not here

to record history. Fine, you can you can watch my stuff 20 years from now and think what you

want. And sure, I understand the value of that and the importance of documenting war crimes

and all of that. But no fucking way am I living for them right now. Like it just it's not enough

in this moment of rage and seeing what we're seeing. So yeah, the there's a. The new documentary,

No Other Land, is about the West Bank. It showed at TIFF, the North American premiere. It's

about 2019 to 2023, and these homes being demolished in the West Bank again and again and again

by the Israeli military. And the main person, the main focus, he, I'm forgetting his name,

but he says something, because there's another journalist there. Israeli journalist who's

really like I'm gonna publish an article and everything's gonna change and This this Palestinian

guy is like you're not gonna end the occupation in ten days You know, it's It's a it's a slow

process Just just getting the truth out there is a slow process and Yeah, I don't think honestly,

you know this article might go somewhere. I don't think it'll be that big that fast. Honestly,

I think it'll be, you know, it's for the next time that something happens and we, but even

then, you know, it's just, it's, we're on a perpetual cycle. I honestly don't know how

we get off it, but I am heartened by the growth of a number of media outlets that's happening.

I totally understand your frustration, but also it's It is just a process. I think a lot of

people right now are watching what's happening in Lebanon and they're like, oh, it's the same,

these same claims again. And people are seeing, seeing through it a lot better that it's, you

know, these things aren't made, these claims aren't made in good faith. Now that's not changing

what's happening in Lebanon. It is, however, you know, what is possible to do in terms of

educating people here. But I think there's, you know, there's a lot of people who are just

willing to turn their attention away and not look, they're not that interested in the truth,

or they've been trained to not really question. I don't think those people are listening to

this show, though. But in terms of Lebanon folks, start writing to the CBC ombudsman because

they are just regurgitating Israeli talking points again, over and over again in their

headlines, targeting Hezbollah, warning civilians. I mean, they're just helping to legitimize

all of it. So pushback there would be appreciated. Well, thanks. Thanks so much for having me

on. Always a pleasure. And yeah. Thank you, Dave. Yeah, support the grind, please. Keep

up your good work, comrade. Thanks so much. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints

of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also a very big thank you to the producer of our

show, Santiago Jaluc Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated

cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to help us

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