On February 19, CJPME learned that CTV News corrected an article following several CJPME complaints. This article was about Selina Robinson’s resignation following her racist comments about Palestine.
The article introduced Selina Robinson’s comments as being about “the region where Israel was founded,” which clearly erases the history of Palestinians and their land. While we initially asked them to describe Robinson’s comments as a reference to Palestine– instead of “the region on which Israel was founded” – they opted to remove “the region.” The sentence now reads: “The B.C. NDP’s minister of post-secondary education is stepping down from her cabinet position, days after sparking widespread outrage by saying Israel was founded on a “crappy piece of land with nothing on it.” Although this is not the edit CJPME was hoping for, we recognize CTV’s attempt. Moreover, the article stated that calls for her resignation were made by “pro-Palestinian groups and others,” but omits any mention of the other groups that supported her resignation. CTV has since added the Jewish Faculty Network to its list of groups in support of her resignation.
Albeit small, these changes mark a small win for CJPME. This article was initially published on February 5th, and a letter expressing our concerns was promptly emailed on February 6th. Lacking a response from the author/editors, CJPME launched a MAP Alert for our media responders on February 12th. Disappointed by CTV’s continued unresponsiveness, we sent another email on February 15 asking that they promptly make the initially requested edits.