"Without identifying these supposed actors, the phrase 'terrorist-backed' becomes meaningless at best and misleading at worst. This is either a breakdown in the Post’s editorial standards or a deliberate use of sensationalist language to provoke a strong reaction out of your audience."
To the National Post and Kenn Oliver,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) about your article “Gen Z Canadians more likely to support terrorist-backed Iranian regime: poll” published on March 16, 2026.
This article is heavily biased fear-mongering masquerading as “news”. Your headline confusingly tries to, yet again, demonize Iran with the ridiculous qualifier “terrorist-backed Iranian regime.” This is a bizarrely unusual stance for the National Post; typically, your outlet frames the regime as the source of terror, not the recipient of it.
Under the Canadian Association of Journalists’ (CAJ) standards of accuracy and verification, the National Post must identify these actors and provide evidence for such a claim. As it stands, no such clarification is offered.
The CAJ also emphasizes that journalists must “seek documentation to support the reliability of sources” and “distinguish between assertions and fact.” You fail this standard by not naming which so-called terrorists are backing Iran, if there are any at all.
Without identifying these supposed actors, the phrase “terrorist-backed” becomes meaningless at best and misleading at worst. This is either a breakdown in the Post’s editorial standards or a deliberate use of sensationalist language to provoke a strong reaction out of your audience.
Additionally, the headline and photo which accompanies it, denigrates readers of the Post, respondents such as myself and by association the young people who are against the US/Israeli war on Iran. The rhetoric used in the headline is negligent and could very well foment the very hate you claim to be against and put young people exercising their democratic rights in physical danger.
I request that the National Post immediately revise this headline to meet basic journalistic standards of accuracy.
Later on in your article, the pollster Jack Jedwab and the author, Kenn Oliver both undermine themselves repeatedly by judging the poll respondents as either correct, for those who support the war on Iran, or “misinformed” for those who don’t. To make matters worse there is not a single question from the poll itself printed in the article. This is not journalism. It is manipulation thinly cloaked as data collection.
The pollster himself is hardly reliable. Jack Jedwab was the Executive Director of the Canadian Jewish Congresses’ Quebec branch. Clearly someone with an agenda.
Given these concerns, it is especially important that the article provide full
transparency regarding the poll’s methodology and framing. Without such
disclosure, readers are left unable to assess potential sources of bias or evaluate the credibility of the findings.
Thank you for reading and I look forward to your response.
Jeff Winch