"In October of this year, I complained to CBC about not clearly stating that Gaza is occupied. Editors rejected the complaint. I asked CBC's Ombudsman to look at the case. He said he can not make decisions about omissions. How will CBC address these concerns?"
November 22, 2024
Dear all,
Towards the end of the interview, the host of CBC’s podcast Front Burner challenged Francesca Albanese’s description of Gaza as being occupied. After citing Israel's denial, the host backtracked, saying CBC's editorial policy is that Gaza is occupied. I investigated. This letter is about what I found.
Using an advanced media monitoring tool that can access all articles from the CBC's website, as well as cross-referencing with Google’s Advanced Search tool, I found that the CBC articles consistently do not mention Gaza being occupied. Indeed, as seen on CBC’s correction page, there has been at least one case where CBC had to correct the record after claiming that Gaza is not occupied.
On October 9, 2024, Nancy Waugh wrote the following in an email to me in response to my concerns about CBC’s coverage of Gaza:“On the question of the word ‘occupied,’ I am confident that our extensive reporting from the region, especially in the past year, very clearly reflects the reality of the situation in Gaza.”
However, the data I will present in this letter shows that CBC’s confidence in its coverage is misplaced. I am confident that CBC’s readers would not understand the reality of the situation in Gaza, as it pertains to occupation, if they only read CBC News. Given that most Canadian media fails on this question, it would be unsurprising if most Canadians are unaware that Gaza is considered occupied by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and numerous human rights organizations, even since Israel’s withdrawal of ground troops in 2005. Under international law, an occupation does not depend on whether a foreign power has a direct ground troop presence in a territory, but on whether it asserts “effective control” over the territory. As such, the Fourth Geneva Convention continues to apply in Gaza. This means that Israel, as an occupying power, has a responsibility to protect the welfare of the civilian population.
Year to date, according to my research, there are only 3 CBC articles that use any of the phrases "occupied Gaza,” "Gaza is occupied," or "occupation of Gaza."
1 of those 3 articles was written by Dylan Robertson of the Canadian Press, not by CBC News.
1 of the remaining 2 articles, by Yasmine Hassan, mentions Gaza's occupation in an Amnesty International quote.
The last article, by Francis Plourde, paraphrases a statement from the B.C. Teachers' Federation about Israel's "military occupation of Gaza."
That’s it. That is all my research turned up. You will understand that I find CBC’s omission of this context, as it covers a genocide in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, the majority women, children, and elderly, that CBC is not telling its readers that Israel is attacking a recognized occupied territory. This is to erase an essential piece of context.
In October of this year, I complained to CBC about not clearly stating that Gaza is occupied. Editors rejected the complaint. I asked CBC's Ombudsman to look at the case. He said he can not make decisions about omissions.
How will CBC address these concerns?
Sincerely,
Jason Toney
Director of Media Advocacy, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East