Some of the Woke Are Slowly Awakening

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, known as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television, and is funded by the government. It is Canada’s version of our very own ABC.

In December, last year, Tara Henley resigned from her job with the CBC. Why did she quit her job? She detailed her reasons in this article in Substack.

Speaking Freely
Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.

Henley describes herself as the person in the newsroom who was the furthest to the left. Eighteen months later, she was the most conservative person, in that same room. But she was not the one who had changed her politics. She says:

To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity …

It is to consent to the idea that a growing list of subjects are off the table, that dialogue itself can be harmful. That the big issues of our time are all already settled.

It is to capitulate to certainty, to shut down critical thinking, to stamp out curiosity. To keep one’s mouth shut, to not ask questions, to not rock the boat.

This, while the world burns.

This post was picked up and reproduced by some of the Canadian newspapers, the day after it was published on Substack. The blog post attracted nearly 2,000 comments. It is not just conservatives voicing agreement, but also lefties. This was one of the replies:

I’m 71 yrs old. I’ve voted Left/progressive for 50 years. I’ve been a dedicated CBC listener for about 45-50 years. I’ve raised 4 kids to be listeners (one, in fact, to be a CBC staffer). Recently I’ve turned the radio off, probably, 4-5 times a day as the interview/topic shifts into what I call “Identity Radio”

Virtually every show I listen to – national, provincial, local – looks for an identity angle or guest for interviews. Are you a First Nations poet/potter/performer? Is there a non-binary musician we can feature? Do you have an immigrant story (don’t worry – all my grandparents were immigrants)?

Time after time over the past 2 years or so I’ve talked to MY demographic about it, almost all being progressives, and there’s almost universal agreement. A friend finally said it out loud: the CBC is in some kind of triage: it’s dumping our (older) demographic for a younger cohort.

Here is Tara Henley, in an interview with The Sun’s Editor-in-Chief, Adrienne Batra, speaking about the CBC’s woke agenda.