"You have also failed to provide any balancing perspective on whether Sarah Jama’s comments are antisemitic and have therefore failed in your journalistic mandate to provide diversity in your news reporting. By comparison, the Globe and Mail, in an article about Jama and her comments published March 14, cited Independent Jewish Voices which supports Jama, as well as Michael Bueckert of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, who describes the ruckus as a “smear campaign.”"
March 16, 2023
To:
Steve Dankoff, Senior News Producer, CP24
Kathleen Peroff, News Writer, CP 24,
Dear Mr. Dankoff and Ms. Peroff,
I’m writing to you on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, https://www.cjpme.org) to express my concern regarding your news segment about NDP Candidate Sarah Jama aired by CP24 on March 16, 2023.
In a segment that is one-sided and biased, I was shocked to realize that a portion of the segment plagiarises directly from an article written by the National Post on March 15th, 2023. The article reads:
“She has called Israel an “illegitimate” country and suggested, in speaking about Israel, that the “same people will continue to fund the killing of people here, locally, and globally,” apparently referring to Jews.”[1]
The CP24 segment transcript reads:
“Jama has referred to Israel as an “illegitimate” country and suggested, in speaking about Israel, that the “same people will continue to fund the killing of people here, locally, and globally,” apparently referring to Jews.”
As such, this content was clearly plagiarised from the National Post. This is a scandalous violation of basic journalistic standards.
You have also failed to provide any balancing perspective on whether Sarah Jama’s comments are antisemitic and have therefore failed in your journalistic mandate to provide diversity in your news reporting. By comparison, the Globe and Mail, in an article[2] about Jama and her comments published March 14, cited Independent Jewish Voices which supports Jama, as well as Michael Bueckert of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, who describes the ruckus as a “smear campaign.”
Unless you address these issues on-air at the earliest possible moment, with a segment highlighting the fact that not everyone agrees with the assessment that Jama’s comments were antisemitic, and quoting such sources, we will be forced to lodge these two issues as a complaint to the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council (CBSC.)
Should you wish, you can contact me at 438-380-5410 for more information.
Sincerely,
Tayla Shair
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
[1] Bryan Passifiume, “Despite candidate's antisemitic comments, Ontario NDP still favoured to win Thursday byelection,” National Post, March 15, 2023, accessed March 16, 2023, https://nationalpost.com/news/despite-antisemitic-comments-controversy-ontario-ndp-still-favoured-to-win-thursday-byelection
[2] Laura Stone, “Ontario by-election stirs controversy as provincial NDP look to hold Hamilton seat,” Globe and Mail, March 14, 2023, accessed March 16, 2023 at https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-by-election-stirs-controversy-as-provincial-ndp-look-to-hold/