The Media Accountability Project  

"Overall, your article lacks balance and impartiality. Your article gives hugely disproportionately more space and importance to antisemitic hate crimes than it does to Islamophobic ones. Good Journalism is based on fairness and balance, and this article fails to uphold even this most basic journalistic principle."

"The one-sided reporting of these controversial events gives the impression that they represent a surge of antisemitism, but this is only possible by ignoring the perspectives of others involved. Making this worse, the voiceover in the video claims that the country prides itself on diversity and inclusion but now is struggling to suppress rising hate, while showing images of pro-Palestine actions which put them in a bad light."

"The term “Arab Israelis” has been propagated by Israel to downplay the identity and indigeneity of Palestinians, thus constituting a form of anti-Palestinian racism. The term “Israeli Arab” was never chosen by the Palestinian people, and it doesn’t take into consideration their separate identity from Arabs as a whole."

"The effect of this is to paint Palestinians and pro-Palestine demonstrators as the reason behind the rising hate and surge of antisemitic cases, and as out of touch with Canadian values. This framing risks inciting hateful attitudes towards Palestinians and Muslims in Canada, in a context in which incidents of anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia are also skyrocketing."

"To many, Zionism, therefore, represents dispossession, apartheid, and genocide. Perhaps Barber needs to look at these long-standing injustices to understand why so many people today adopt the cause of anti-Zionism."

"Specifically, you write that the "war has led to tens of thousands of Palestinians dying." This passive voice, "dying," makes it appear that the deaths were spontaneous, and it conceals from the reader the fact that these people were killed by Israeli military actions."

On February 15, 2024, CJPME sent a letter to the Toronto Star, pushing the newspaper to add more context to accurately and completely describe the intentions of the organizers of the Sunday, February 11, 2024, pro-Palestine rally in Toronto.

CJPME wrote that the article did not even acknowledge the ongoing situation in Gaza, and specifically Rafah amidst Israel’s assault, which was the intention behind the rally.

CJPME asked to balance the article by adding more information about the intentions behind the protest and more context about the situation in Gaza, specifically Rafah.

On February 16, 2024, following our letter, Toronto Star added the following sentence: The protest was organized in opposition to Israel's bombardment of Rafah city in the Gaza Strip on Sunday night. Toronto Star also added an editor’s note. In this editor’s note, Toronto Star specified that the story has been updated to provide more context on the reasons why the rally was held.

This small change helps give a more accurate and complete picture of the Pro-Palestine rally and the organizers’ intentions.

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 5^th, and a letter expressing our concerns was promptly emailed on February 6^th. Lacking a response from the author/editors, CJPME launched a MAP Alert for our media responders on February 12^th.  Disappointed by CTV’s continued unresponsiveness, we sent another email on February 15 asking that they promptly make the initially requested edits.

"It is disappointing that certain voices are taken at face value and that specific interpretations are selected as an attempt to frame the action of the man climbing the front of the Mount Sinai hospital as antisemitic while disregarding that this framing contributes to anti-Palestinian racism (APR) left unacknowledged in your article."

"The only space and voice you give are a one-sentence paragraph to one of the organizers, Toronto4Palestine, which doesn’t even correctly assess their intentions behind the rally: to bring awareness to Rafah amidst Israel’s assault. I, therefore, ask you to balance the article by adding more context about the protest by giving voice to the organizers and the protesters."