UPDATE: 08/7/2014 On a very much related note, be sure to take a look at the comment from “terry” below. Remember the (presumably now defunct) JournoList? Well it seems that a bigger, better ‘n badder list, going by the oh-so-modest name of the “Gamechanger Salon” has been in operation behind closed screens for some time now!
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When it comes to the climate front – or Israel, for that matter – I long ago learned that Canada’s “national” broadcaster, the CBC has lost any reasonable right to call itself a credible news source.
In both matters, the CBC has dutifully followed in the footsteps of the U.K.’s BBC. But I do subscribe to CBC’s daily emailed news bulletins. And occasionally – as happened today – there’s a headline that grabs my attention, such as the following (at approx. 6:39 PM PDT, to be precise):
Burlington flood: Cities face ‘new breed’ of storms, climatologist says
Rainfall in Burlington, Ont., ‘off the scale’Canadians are facing a “new breed” of storms, and governments should change the way they plan for the kind of wild weather that caused a flash flood in Burlington, Ont., on Monday, says Dave Phillips, Environment Canada’s senior climatologist.
“These [once in] 50-year floods are occurring every 10 years, because our climate has changed,” he said.
Phillips added that planning for weather based on the past 100 years “masks” recent events that have dramatically changed how much rain falls. He said in the aftermath of the Toronto floods of August 2013, a look into the last 25 years of rainfall showed that there were three 100-year storms, and six 50-year storms.
CBC meteorologist Shelly James said that Monday’s flash flood was an extremely isolated event, with 190 mm of rain in Burlington, but nearly no rain on either side of the city, including next to none in nearby Hamilton.
Phillips said that in the past few decades, precipitation across Canada has increased 12 per cent, and the “predictable” storms of the past, which used to sweep across southern Ontario, have transformed into “little cells that affect a neighbourhood, a small area.”
“It’s like these are bull’s-eyes,” Phillips said.
[…]
It’s been quite some time since I’ve even bothered attempting to post a comment at the CBC. Because more often than not, their moderators just don’t seem to like what I have to say! I could be mistaken, but I believe that the last time I made such an attempt was over a year ago – during the course of their unabashed publicity campaign in favour of the (now) lone Green Party Member of the BC Legislative Assembly, Andrew <barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles> Weaver.
For the record, Weaver is also a fan of Greenpeace and a long-term Lead Author of the “climate bible“, aka the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Assessment Reports.
So, I think you get the CBC picture. But back to the new (improved?!) “breed of storms”. In all honesty, I have to say that I did not have any great expectations when I submitted the following comment, in response to the above CBC article:
YMMV, but I didn’t think I broke any CBC posting rules.
And I can now report that the CBC succeeded (once again!) in living down to my expectations. Their “rules“, evidently, are as follows:
Why did the moderators reject/disable my submission?
We do not provide rationales for moderation decisions but we do our best to reverse moderation actions as required, provided it is technically possible.
Please ensure that your submissions are in line with the Content Submission Guidelines. Some common guideline violations are; (sic) personal attacks, insults, defamatory statements.
That was (obviously!) the “short version”. And here’s the evidence of my <sniffle, sniffle> failure:
What’s a poor blogger to do, eh?!
Your mission, dear reader, should you choose to accept it will be to enlighten me as to which of their “Content Submission Guidelines” I must have contravened, because … well, because an unnamed, unaccountable “moderator” said so!
Amazing, eh?!
The View From Here 
A/B&CBC –
‘If I put my fingers in my ears and close my eyes, I can make you disappear. Na-na-na-na-nah’ 😉
Hilary – I had a comment removed a while back on the BBC site, I was however less nuanced in calling Richard Black a churnalist for his lack of fact checking (the article was a howler from the CBC). You questioned their professionalism and bias = bad, bad. Such a shame they lack integrity but as Noam Chomsky said to Andrew Marr
“If you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
And if that doesn’t work, craig, there’s always the “Gamechanger Salon” – See comment from terry below.
CBC is the only radio I listen to but do find myself cringing and screaming at it once in awhile .Ok quite often .It’s too bad because I find they parrot the same stuff other news outlets do as well . I thought I would pass along this link to a story that has come to light .I guess it doesn’t surprise me and wont ,most of your readers .
“WASHINGTON, D.C. – A prominent CNN commentator, the top two political reporters for The Huffington Post, a Reuters reporter, the editor of The Nation magazine, a producer for Al Jazeera America television, a U.S. News & World Report columnist, and approximately two dozen Huffington Post contributors are among the more than 1,000 members of Gamechanger Salon.
Founded by leftwing activist Billy Wimsatt, the group is a secretive digital gathering of writers, opinion leaders, activists and political hands who share information, ideas and strategy via a closed Google group.
The group’s existence was discovered by Media Trackers through an open records request filed with a University of Wisconsin professor who happened to be a member of the network http://eagnews.org/1000-member-secretive-progressive-journalist-group-uncovered/
This is another link with more .” In addition to working at the left-leaning American Sustainable Business Council, David Brodwin writes an online column for U.S. News & World Report. Brodwin is a member of Gamechanger Salon, and on July 14 he published a column arguing that small business owners support a minimum wage increase. Fascinatingly, the Obama Administration’s U.S. Department of Labor relies on Brodwin’s American Sustainable Business Council to argue that very point in a recent “fact-sheet” advocating for a minimum wage hike.
Dozens of members of the leftwing network have contributed columns to The Huffington Post, and others have written opinion pieces for several other publications. The full extent of the network’s activity and effectiveness at amplifying and coordinating left-leaning messaging campaigns has yet to be fully explored. http://mediatrackers.org/national/2014/08/05/cnn-huffpo-reuters-contributors-reporters-part-leftwing-network
I know exactly what you mean about CBC radio, terry!
But I hadn’t heard about the Gamechanger Salon! However, it does not surprise me in the least. It’s almost as though it’s a “reincarnation” of the former (and presumably) now dissolved/dormant “JournoList” which came to light circa June 2010, as I recall.
Ezra Klein was the prime mover (and dissolver) of this particular little group of charmers.
You can read all about their antics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList and see also The Daily Caller‘s archives at http://dailycaller.com/search/?q=JournoList
But these “Gamechangers” seem to be a much larger and (quite possibly, from what I’ve now read) more emboldened and even less scrupled group than their predecessor.
Kinda makes one wonder what’s actually being taught in the ethics and scruples departments in journalism schools, these days, doesn’t it?!
So, thanks so much for sharing, as the saying goes! I’ll do my best in the next little while to spread the word.
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
Thanks for highlighting to me and to Terry for the comment and links. Not surprised by that list at all. It’s just one ‘cell’ though.
The insidious merry-go-round between media, banks, green groups and policymakers/advisers/writers etc – you can see how they can do similar to Gamechanger Salon let alone the periferal interests and next gen wannabes. The only oversight tends to be pal review.
*sigh*
Perhaps that rainstorm was meant for Hamilton and missed. Oh well,have to wait another 50 years.
Hillary, you may be amused to know that CBC contracts out the moderation of comments to a private company with the amusing name of “I see, you see”. Wonder who else they service?
“For CBC.ca, although CBC sets the guidelines and administers them through a Moderation Manager, in view of the volume of comments readers submit – in excess of 80,000 comments are processed every week – we contract the moderation to ICUC Moderation Services, an internationally recognized private company that specializes in such work. ICUC does not release the names of those employees who work as moderators. The relationship between CBC/Radio-Canada and ICUC began in 2007 and we continue to work in close and ongoing collaboration to ensure accuracy and consistency of moderation across CBC/Radio-Canada’s online communities.”
http://www.cbc.ca/help/faq/view/category/moderation#faq_body
47 years of CBC listening has witnessed a huge shift from news reporting to ideological framing.
Very interesting.
http://www.icucmoderation.com/our-team/
President, CEO & Co-Founder of ICUC is Keith Bilous, I think he may have missed an “i” out of his name….
Sorry for the long delay, Betapug but I wanted to take a look at your (very amusing) find, and only yesterday (prompted by dennisambler above) got around to doing so!
On the heels of his comment, my mouse and I decided to take a quick tour of ICUC, which appears to be based in Winnipeg (of all places!)
Needless to say it was a most enlightening experience. They appear to have a good number of high profile clients and their most recent addition would appear to be a capacity to serve and protect Arab sites from the scourge of “negative social content”. For details of my explorations (and a somewhat telling “chat”) pls see:
https://hro001.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/chatwithelegantdancersaticuc.pdf
And wouldn’t it be nice to know CBC’s criteria for “accuracy and consistency”, eh?!
The CBC may be the most censorial broadcaster in North America.They censor in order to preserve their reputation for being liberal! Talk about ironic! They have taken to censoring every comment I make even though I am so very careful to meet their submission guidelines, and even though they invite readers to “challenge” anything and everything. I would honestly rather live somewhere where censorship is out in the open. CBC is done, over, kaput. They are not honest, not truth tellers – and without journalistic integrity. (except for Neil MacDonald)
claire, CBC is probably no worse than the U.K.’s BBC and Australia’s ABC – or the US’s closest counterpart, NPR. But it’s certainly no better! Furthermore, the only CBC exception I would recommend is Rex Murphy. IMHO, MacDonald has his own biases (unfounded in reality!) So I’m not inclined to share your assessment of the extent of his journalistic integrity!