The Ben Mulroney Show - Travis Dhanraj and the CBC connundrum/CNN apologizes

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

GUEST:   Travis Dhanraj / former CBC anchor / host of podcast "can't be censored" GUEST:  MIKE van Soelen  / partner at Oyster Group / crisis communications expert If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. All right, this is what we're looking at on our podcast today. The World Baseball Classic, so many incredible subplots,

but one of them, I mean, if it doesn't become a Disney movie, I don't know what will. We're talking about a Czech electrician going toe to toe, with the best baseball player in history. That happened last year. The follow-up this year, storybook ending. And Travis Dan Raz, you'll remember him as the former CBC journalist

who left under a cloud of controversy. Well, revenge is a dish best served in front of a parliamentary committee. So he went before Ottawa. He came here to talk about what he thinks the future the CBC should be and what he thinks it will be. And then we talked to Mike Van Solan.

He's a crisis communications expert. what should the CBC do as well as the foot in mouth syndrome experienced at CNN. So let's get right to it, the Ben Mulroney Show podcast. One of the reasons we moved our show from earlier in the day to the time it's on now is so that we could be live in more parts of the country at once than we were in the past. And we are so proud to be broadcasting from Toronto, but live in places like Winnipe. And so today I want to speak directly to Winnipeg at the top of this show and wish C.JOB in Winnipeg a happy 80th birthday. It basically means this institution has been around longer than most people have been paying attention.

It is, so it basically makes it the wise old friend of Winnipeg Radio, the one that's seen everything, talked about everything and still shows up every day with something to say. Since 1946, it's been the place. There are people tune in for news and big opinions. No fountain of youth secret here. It's about great radio. And we should all be so lucky to be vibrant at 80. Seriously, to everybody who works there, to everybody who has worked there for the rich tradition of journalism and excellence

and city building and community. To everyone who loves CGOB, I say happy birthday, CGOB. and here's to 80 more years. Listen, one of the things that is sort of, I have stopped doing more or less at this new time slot is because we're not on, we normally start at 9 a.m., here in Toronto, eventually syndicated across the country. But I would tell you what I did the night before.

Sometimes it's interesting, sometimes it's not. Most of the times when it's not, I don't talk about it. But last night I had some time and I started watching a TV show called Paradise. I'm way behind you. the eight ball on this one. It's a show that stars Sterling K. Brown. You would remember him from This Is Us and James Marsden, Cyclops from X-Men, and a whole bunch of other great actors. And it starts out as a political drama slash whodunit murder. And by the end of the first

episode, your jaw is on the floor because it's a twist you just don't see coming. I don't even know what to tell you. I have no idea why I didn't start watching this before because that was one of my favorite first episodes of TV I've seen in a long time. It's got some shades of lost to it. And there could be a sci-fi element. I don't know. I don't know what to expect. But if you're looking for a new show and anything I said is interesting to you and you haven't seen Paradise yet, get on that.

Now, you may not be a paradise person. You may not like that type of TV. You may just be Jonesing for baseball. And one of the signs of spring is baseball. and right now the world baseball classic is going on. The top 20 teams in the world are fighting it out. And there's some great baseball happening. Look, Canada beat Puerto Rico last night, three to two.

And I think the most interesting story is how the United States lost to Italy, eight six. Now, let's be very clear. Yes, it's a massive upset. But Italy is mostly Americans with Italian heritage. And there's something about the world baseball classic because you don't often hear this. Let's hear the Italians getting excited

that Italy beat the US. Also, like now. The Kpa of Greg Weissert, Littalia fae, play that one more time. Played again. That's great. Also,

Like now. The Kappa, the Kpa of Greg Weissert, the Italia does the story. I'll tell you, one of the reasons I miss the Expos was listening to the radio calls in French. I used to listen to Expos games all the time and just bear with me for a second because this is how great it was. First of all, the mound is Le Monticule. I love that.

And a grand slam is a grand chelam. But, okay, a pick-off move. If you picked somebody off at first base, they called it a retress surprise. A surprise out. A retress-surprise. But if you were struck out, it was a retrait surprise. It was an out on strikes. You see where I'm going here?

Like, this is why I love it. This is why I love it. But anyway, congratulations to Italy. Italy makes history. But not all of these countries are baseball countries like Italy. There's a Czech pitcher named Andres Satoria. And he made his... history during the last world baseball classic because he struck out Shohei Otani.

Now, if you don't know who Shohei Otani is, he is arguably, not arguably, he's the best baseball player playing today. He's from Japan. He is a world class pitcher and a hitter. And he had a performance early on in the playoffs last year that should leave no doubt that he is possibly the greatest baseball player of all time and indeed possibly one of the greatest one of the greatest athletes of all time. And this Andresh Satoria struck him out last time around.

And then you fast forward to this world baseball classic. And Shohei is a matchup of the Czech team versus Japan again. And Shohei did not play. Now it's entirely possible that they were just resting him because they had won that round. And he was already in the next round. but it's kind of cool to think that maybe Shohay blinked, didn't want to be embarrassed twice. So Satoria was on the mound, and he shut out Japan for 4.2 innings, and he got a standing ovation from the Japanese baseball fans. Why is this important?

Because this guy's not a professional baseball player. And he doesn't have a pitch that goes much higher than 80 miles an hour. He calls his change up the worker And why? Because he is When he is not playing baseball, which is frequently, he's an electrician. That's it. He's an electrician that every now and then plays baseball

And with his 80 mile an hour pitch, found a way to strike out possibly the greatest baseball player of all time. And so my producer is like, this could be a Disney movie. And yeah, it absolutely could be a Disney movie. I remember in my old old life as an entertainment reporter, I covered the movie junket for the Disney movie The Rookie.

And it was about like a 45 year old rookie who had like Tommy John surgery. And all of a sudden he had never pitched, he couldn't pitch very fast. And then he has a surgery. And next thing you know, he's throwing 95 miles an hour and he's an old, the oldest rookie in the league. I think he played for Tampa Bay. That was a great one. And then there was when they remade, when they made, when they, they did a Disney movie about the Miracle on Ice,

the 1980 Olympic victory against the Russians, which we've been talking about because that was the last time they won gold before this year. And Kurt Russell played the coach, and it was an amazing movie, and I was joked with them because the Americans know how to myth build. They know how to myth build. They know how to take these stories and keep them relevant

and reintroduce them to new audiences every few years. And so there are a whole bunch of people who look, learned about the Miracle on Ice from that movie. And I knew about it, but I never really lived it the way Disney took me on that roller coaster. And I was joking with them. And so just appreciate this as a joke. But I went into that junk and I said, damn it, you guys, I said, I'm a proud Canadian.

And that movie, like, there was a part of me that made me want to, like, trade in my passport for an American one. Again, I'll stress again. It was a joke. But that's what they do so very well. Later in the show, we've got somebody who I hope does that on his own scale with you every week. We've got Craig Baird, the host of Canadian History X, who comes in and teaches us every week about something we should know about Canadian history. Very, very proud to have him on the show.

So he's got a spotlight on that. But the spotlight across the country right now is on the CBC. We've got, yes, here. Let's listen to a former CBC reporter talking about the toxic work environment. It pictures on the outside. And then when you get inside, you know what the real story is and how people are treated. There's a two-tier system. And people who work hard, who are respectful, who want to be team players, they don't get recognized.

And it's really sad because the CBC has really taken the flame. and extinguished so many great careers of journalists out there from reporters to anchors to weather people for no reason at all. And it's like a little high school. It's favorites. It's, oh, if you go out for drinks with this one, you know, they have that clique. I'm sorry, I'm past high school. There are a lot of people who have been talking about what's wrong at the CBC for a very

long time, but somebody who was on the inside, who punched through, who may have really got a ball rolling that won't be able to get stopped is Travis Dan Raz. We're going to talk to him after the break. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Listen, I know you are all very busy people. Life is hard and so you keep your heads down and you try to pay your bills and be on time for work and hope to God that you can afford groceries and so you're not necessarily paying attention to the inner workings of the CBC. And so I'm going to assume that some of you, but not all of you, know my next guest. So Travis Dan Raj, he and I spent some time passing, you know, crossing paths in media for years as a matter of fact. But he, he's had, he worked at CTV News.

He worked at CB 24. He worked at Global News as a Queens Park Bureau Chief, General Assignment Reporter in Winnipeg. How long were you there? Oh my gosh. That was a year. So you're there for a couple of years. Five, five, six years it feels. I kid. I kid, I kid, I kid. That was the very first global location, by the way. Very first global location. And eventually he becomes a senior parliamentary reporter and co-host of the Consumer Affairs Program Marketplace on CBC News and then got a flagship show on the CBC itself. And from there, things took a turn. And so we're going to. And because of that, he was brought before the House Committee, parliamentary committee to discuss what he described as a toxic work environment as well as a few other ills that most of us suspected of the CBC.

but he knows for sure because in the parlance of our times, it's his lived experience, it's his truth. So please welcome former CBC anchor. And now the host of the podcast and YouTube show titled Can't Be Censored. I only realized what the initials were a few weeks ago. That's how dense I am. Travis Danrez, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. How you doing, man?

Thanks for being. I was going to say thanks for being here. But you've been on Can't Be Censored. So it's a pleasure to be on your show now. Yeah, thank you very much. So a lot of people saw bits and pieces of your testimony yesterday. Give me a sense of, so you're no longer tied to the CBC, but you are in some sort of litigate, is it litigation?

Yeah, we are in a battle with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with the Canadian Human Rights Commission right now. And so that process is, you know, it's looking like it's going to take a long time because CBC is denying everything. I saw their kind of pre-written statement, I think it was, that they put out yesterday that they had to. revise again and they keep updating this statement. So we'll see. I mean, we'll see if, if this moves the needle on anything. I don't think it will because they've said, you know,

I mischaracterizing events and that, you know, there's nothing to see here. Seems like you came with a lot of, a lot of receipts. Yeah, I had two, three binders, actually. I didn't even be able, I wasn't even able to touch the surface of them. Okay. So, yeah, so you, you raised concerns while you were there over systemic issues at the national broadcaster, at the public broadcaster. Give me a flyover, generally, of those issues. Because I think you had four buckets you were talking about yesterday. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that there are, there are a number of things that were concerning to me. And I started to see this more and more the further up in the network that I rose. But there was this level of intimidation. There was centralized control.

there was bullying, there was tokenism. You know, I did not sign up. The pitch for me, when I got the pitch to do this program, wasn't to be a teleprompter reader. It was to have editorial input, to book, yes. It's all laid out in the job description. And to do a show like that is collaborative, right? Like it's, you were the most public part of the show,

but you're not the only part of the show, right? There's producers who chase ideas. they bring ideas to you. Like, so, so it's, it's supposed to be a very collaborative effort that culminates in the show that you do. Of course, just like this show right now, right? There are producers. There's, there's tech folks here. And so, yeah, of course, it's a, it's a collaborative effort.

However, as a host, if you were cut out of the, the booking process in terms of, you know, if you wanted to have a politician on, you're not even allowed to have a conversation. Yeah. Pick up the phone. I've worked at a number of newsrooms, as you outlined. I've never had a situation where there was a process for who I could call and who I could not call. Yeah. So how does that work? Because listen, and this was the one thing that I said I was going to push back on.

Go ahead. Which was in every organization I've worked in. Like there's a recognition of a pecking order. Meaning, for sure. Like when Canada AM had died, you know, it was a spent force. It had been a new, it was under the news umbrella. Absolutely. And when we built Your Morning, we built it as a lifestyle show that had to,

access to news. Yeah, because it fell under entertainment. Yeah, specifically so that we could go chase anyone we want because we recognize that pecking order at CTV news that if we were, you know, if the prime minister was being offered up for one interview at CTV, it was going to go to Lisa LaFlan. Sure. Right? This was not a just a simple, I get that. Listen, I'm not, I'm not new to newsrooms. I worked here. There was a pecking order in, at global. There was a pecking order at CTV. This was not a packing order. It was essentially, If we can't get them, no one can get them. You can't get them.

You can't even, you can't, I mean, and I said at one point in one of these meetings, I'm like, we have to have the ability to interview politicians. Ministers, premiers. So you're saying like, if you had been, I don't know, at a, I'm seeing it on TV, a basketball game, and you had bumped in to the chief of staff of a particular minister. Right. And you got along well and they said, you know what? I really want my, I really want that, this minister.

on your show. You might have been prevented from ever getting that, even though it came because of a personal relationship that you had developed. Sure, absolutely. But I mean, I understand how, you know,

if there's a big get, yes, there's a discussion about where that goes. But also even smaller politicians. Like, how many MPs are there? Yeah. We can't talk to any of these MPs. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's a bit of an issue, isn't it? We're only allowed to run like 30 second clips. If you only have a couple of people that are allowed to do interviews with decision makers across the board. You know, my show was prevented from doing that. You've got an issue because you only have a certain perspective that is presented through the interviewer. I've got to say, I'm realizing as you're discussing, it's quite rich that news organizations have criticized politicians.

Most recently, Pierre Pollyev in his campaign for trying to control the message. And now we're hearing from somebody on the other side that pretty much the exact same thing has been happening at a place like the CBC. And I mean, they wrap these things up in documents like I talked about yesterday when I was in committee, right? That they look like coordination,

but they're really veto control. Yeah. Right? And so when we're constantly experiencing blocks, And it, you know, my team on that show, essentially, they would just not even go near it because they knew they couldn't chase these guests. Yeah. And you would get in trouble. Didn't you get run up?

Yeah, man. That's really weird. And that was the thing, right? I mean, it started because when I went in, I thought this would operate like any other place I had worked. Yeah. And it was, oh, no, no, no, no, not that. Nope, not that. You can't interview any of these folks.

And just to be clear, you weren't looking to be a conservative voice on the show. You just wanted to reflect the conversations that were happening by the street. Rachel Gilmore, Rakeem Muhammad on the same panel. I mean, Fay Johnstone, Brian Lilly, Sheila Copps. Yeah. Is that a conservative panel? You know what I mean? It was a diversity of opinion, and that's really what I wanted to highlight.

So this whole narrative, which I'm so, you know, it is kind of discouraging that it has become that. I'm somewhat not surprised that this was, this is a conservative effort. This show was going to be conservative, and I just wanted to put conservatives on. It's BS. It really is. And if you actually look at the program, which folks can go back and look at the program, it was not that. And correct me if I'm wrong, but you actually said that we are in contravention of the broadcast. Yeah, it gave them

the subsection. I said that a number of times. It's an e-mails. They didn't care. It's, it's, it's a look, I agree with you. I don't know if this is going to go anywhere, but it should. But Ben, like, even if it was, even if this was the liberal

party, I would have a problem with it as well. If we're blocking liberal voices from coming on the network, what I was saying is that we have a robust, you know, a number of liberal voices on, we don't have as many conservative voices. And so we do need to have balance on the network. Yeah, yeah.

If they're not going to go here for whatever, you got to wrap. Yeah. We're going to pick this up after the break. Don't go anywhere. Chat with Travis Dan Raj, a journalist extraordinaire, who peeled the onion and let us see Oz behind the curtain in Ottawa yesterday. Don't go anywhere. The Ben Mulrudey show continues.

I've been in conversation with journalist Travis. Dan Raj, he's been on a roller coaster ride of building up a career until he got that. He grabbed the brass ring. The brass ring was offered to him for having his own primetime show on the CBC. And he had grand designs on making it a conversation for Canadians, by Canadians, about Canadians, only to be told and to realize that the organization he was working for wanted something different. And Travis, I want to thank you for being here. Look, I think what I want to come out of this,

is even if those listening and watching this believe that Canada needs the CBC, which I don't think, but some might. I do. But okay. And if you believe that, then this is, and we've told the stories before. I mean, the most egregious from my perspective was to hear that somebody at CBC News at the beginning of October 7th told everybody don't call Hamas terrorists. That's insane to me. They are, that's what they're called by the Canadian government.

It's not political. It's a reflection of reality. and I found that an affront, I found that disgusting, and I found that, I found that decision to be political. But that amongst many, many, many other stories and examples is to me a demonstration that if you believe in a strong CBC, this is not about, this is not about simply rearranging the deck chairs. This is about taking the thing down to the studs.

Okay, you know, it's so funny. And first of all, I'm going to say, I consider myself a former journalist now, but it's when I said rearranging the deck chairs. I said in one of these meetings, right? I said it's like, you know, all the executives are playing the violins while we've hit the iceberg and I'm screaming, we've got to get the lifeboats or plug the hole, right? There is not a recognition from executive leadership there, which I said repeatedly yesterday at committee, that there's even a problem, right?

And if, you know, they are, they know that these stories that I highlighted yesterday are true. They have the names, right? They know that it's much deeper than that. This whole thing with the NDAs, how many people are under gag orders? I find that just, I find it so rich again. Yeah. That this organization. With taxpayer money.

With taxpayer money, their high, that they're, they, their end goal is to silence people from speaking what they think is the truth. And meanwhile, if this were happening anywhere else, they would be the ones trying to uncover the truth. Yeah. Or maybe. Well, there's a level of arrogance there. There's a level of, you know what, we're just going to bury our heads and get through this storm. and will come out on the other side of it and there won't be any real repercussions.

We can say, okay, maybe we need to make tweaks here or maybe we need to make tweaks there. You need to lift up the hood and actually deal with the problem and nobody is doing that. And look, the poll after poll suggests that Canadians trust legacy media far less today than they ever did before.

And the numbers that came out of that at exposed study that said that, I mean, the numbers for the viewing at the CBC are not even in the toilet anymore. They're gone out to see. So why somebody is not paying attention and saying maybe there's a causal relationship between these decisions that we've made and our lower viewership numbers. And if they cared about the viewership numbers,

maybe they would change the underlying culture. Well, let me ask you this, though. Like, what is the motivation right now for them to change if they're continuing to get funding? To push back against the increasing reality that people don't trust. them and don't watch them. Okay, fine. But if they're going to continue to get funding and they're going to continue to operate, is their motivation? Yeah. Right? So that's why I really think that there does need to be accountability. And, you know, you said you don't, you don't think the CBC should exist.

No, I think if it's going to exist, it's got to change. It's got to change. And I think that, and as I said yesterday, this public institution has the ability and the infrastructure to bring this country together. The CBC should not be this partisan force in the country. And I don't know when that started to happen, but it's happened. And so there needs to be a recognition of, there's a problem first. How do we solve the problem? And I gave 11 recommendations in terms of how to start doing that.

And one of the things that I think that we really need are metrics. So you look at all of the content and you can use AI tools now. Honest reporting did that as it related to the bias that they found in the reporting, as it related to the Warren. Gaza. Right, but there needs to be an effort to actually to do that work. Yeah, yeah. But it's a chicken or egg thing because we're currently living in what a lot of people believe is a mutually beneficial dynamic of the CBC reporting positively or in a heavily biased way towards a particular political bent and those people who are of that bent reward them with money. That's what it looks

like whether or not it's true is irrelevant because the messenger is the message. And so to me, if this is going to change, then it has to come from somebody with leadership and balls, I'll say it, in the liberal government to say this is unacceptable and we demand massive change, even though we have been benefiting from this current paradigm. Let me say something positive, though, about something that I think that they have done recently. They're investing in local newsrooms again, which I think is very important, right? Because local news is really the touch point for communities. and there was kind of a move away from that for a while.

Now they are moving more towards that. But there are these structural issues that exist across the system. If some of the folks that I've talked to and I have statements from, and there's more that have come out since yesterday that have been contacting me, are across the country in the north, in Vancouver, in Toronto, in Newfoundland. You know what I mean? Then we've got larger issues with the whole system here. So yes, there does need to be some motivation in terms of.

of executives actually dealing with this, and that actually needs to come from Parliament at this point, because shame has done nothing either. I want to finish up with you on two questions. What would you like this, how would you like for this story to end? And how do you think it's going to end? I said yesterday that I would be open tomorrow to going to the CBC, you know, down the street here on front street, and sitting down with the president and looking at some of these issues. And, you know, I don't expect to go back there anytime soon. But if you want to talk to me

about my experience, you know, there was somebody I talked to who was very high up who said, you know, when they left, they had some real concerns. And they were just tossed aside when they asked for an exit interview. You have to, you have to talk to the staff that are leaving. You have to look at what are the root causes for this. And you have to open up the hood and you have to replace the engine because, you know, it's going to run out of steam. And I really fear that we are going to lose something if this country loses the CBC. But it's gotten so far away from what it was and what it can be that I don't know. I don't know.

I don't remember in the last election, one of the promises by the liberals on the election campaign was not only to increase their funding, but put entrenched their funding in law. Yeah. It's, again, I liken that to the solution that is. always brought to bear on the healthcare system, which is we just got to throw more money at it. Never before have we put more money into it, and the outcome's been worse. So the solution isn't more money necessarily.

It's how the money is spent. And the same goes with the CBC. So I don't know if you watch Northern Perspective. It's this podcast. I watched the host go through this slide deck the other day of, you know, CBC's numbers, right? Their financials.

If this was a private company, it would be shut down tomorrow. If somebody pushed a button made this private company, boom, goodbye. Yeah. But again, it goes to what is the motivation for them to change those financials, right? And actually to look at things like they are actually a private entity. So there's some motivation to get your ratings up.

To look at the actual content that you're doing. Yeah. Is it engaging enough? That's what I was trying to do with my show. Yeah. Right? It was a microcosm for something that the CBC is not doing enough, which is engaging with wider audiences. Yeah.

I'm from Alberta, right? There's a certain narrative when I go back to Alberta when I talk to my friends when I was at the CBC, and I would always push back against that. Well, but it's this argument that diversity of opinion is secondary to diversity of race. I mean, look, back in the day, that show the social, haven't watched it in years. Every one of those girls looked the same. But the difference in opinion was differences of shade. Well, that's it.

And what I was trying to do with the panels actually have really, kind of opposing viewpoints. And, you know, I was chatting with Brian Lilly yesterday and he said, you know, I was on a panel with Gortan Singh, Jugmeet Singh's brother. And we had it out on the panel. It's awesome. And then we walked to the subway together. Yeah. How Canadian is that?

Look, the first thing I learned in TV for my producer, who now works over at the morning show, was there is nothing less interesting than five people sitting around agreeing with each other. That was the first thing I learned on day one and I've never forgotten it. Yeah.

It makes for good television as well. Exactly. It makes for good radio as well. And having your ideas tested against somebody who believes passionately in the opposite is how we build better ideas. And it's how we get out of silos and bubbles as well. Travis, I want to thank you. The last few years, I'm sure I have not been easy for you. But every time I see you got a smile on your face, you got kindness in your heart.

We need more people like you out there. I wish you the very best. Come back anytime. And anytime you want to, if a guest cancels on you on can't be censored, bring me back. Although I don't know if we got any more to talk about, but thank you very much, my friend. Thank you, my friend. All right, when we come back, we're going to be talking with a partner at Oyster Group, a crisis communications expert on what we just talked about here.

What should the CBC do? Do they even think they're in crisis? And, of course, the Fubar that was CNN the past couple of days. My goodness. We're going to talk about that next on the Ben Mulroney show. So I just had a great conversation with, as he says, self-described, former journalist, Travis Dan Raj, about the roller coaster that he had at the CBC, which led him to eventually part ways with them,

and now he's in litigation with them. And if we were living, if we weren't living in the upside down, then they would be in crisis mode right now. They've got no one watching. They're hemorrhaging money. And more and more people are coming out accusing them of terrible, terrible systemic issues

and toxic work culture. And sadly, Travis said, I don't even think they think there's a problem. So we're joined now by Mike Van Solan. He's a partner at the Oyster Group and a crisis communications expert. Mike, what do you make of it? Is the CBC in a crisis or are they in such a protected bubble that doesn't matter how bad things get over there? Both of those things can be true.

Conservatives, of course, forever and ever have been talking about the CBC being biased, that they use their incredible advantage that they have in this media marketplace to push their own agenda. And, you know, conservatives, I think, broadly, have no issue with a progressive left media voice in the country. But we're giving that one voice $1.3 billion, and how are they using it? They've always been able to stand by the idea that there's a national mandate that they are executing against. And they have to be there. We have to reach the far corners of the country. But that mandate and that purpose sort of begins to crumble when you have people like Travis coming out and saying,

this is a horrid place to live. And we're not even able to as a journalist to bring in the guests that I want, to tell the stories that I want, to recognize that the Canadian story is one of many different perspectives. And he was shut down in that. And I saw good on him. It's a whistleblower moment for him. It's one thing for conservatives in Ottawa to say it's a biased place.

It's another thing to have a host come out of CBC and say, yeah, this place is biased, and I have the binders and the receipts to prove it. Well, and I think, look, if Mark Carney wants to show that he's going to do things differently, and if he's a guy who wants people to believe they mines the dollars and cents, then before he gives them another penny, he should be directing his minister of heritage, Mark Miller, to come out and say, yeah, we're going to overhaul this place because this isn't right. They need to do a review, root to stem, and decide, you know,

how much of that $1.3 billion, $1.6, whatever it is now, do they really get to have to do. It would be a substantive and a symbolic change in direction that would be well, well received. Yeah. And I think a lot of people like myself who've been in media and watched them, viewed them at, not only as a competitor, but also as this sacred cow that can't be criticized. I mean, every time I would show up at an event with, with three people working, they'd show up with a truck, a brand new truck with brand new stuff. I mean, it was, the, the budgets that they were operating under is insane. Look at what we're doing here. Yeah. Look at what we're doing here. We've got three people.

working on this show and doing probably the work of six or seven people. I see the duct tape. You know, this place is barely held together. But we're making it work. One of the other reasons we wanted you to come in is what's happening at CNN. I mean, the story of the two men who drove from Pennsylvania during a right-wing, I mean, it was a right-wing protest in front of Gracie Mansion, the home of Mayor Mom Dani. the hot takes by CNN were so egregious that a lot of people are wondering what the heck's going on there.

And I'll just, I'll read for our listeners. So just, again, to give you the context, these were, this was a right-wing protest that essentially wanted, I don't know, controls on who had, who lived in New York City. To Pennsylvania, this is what they said, because these two Pennsylvania teens who were, by the way, claimed that said, claim that they were inspired. by ISIS showed up with IEDs and through them they could have exploded and mercifully they didn't. This is how it was described in a tweet. Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed

into New York City Saturday morning for what could have been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather. But in less than an hour their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Mom Donny's home. Here's what we know so far. I mean that is such a hot

take. That is such a hot take And then Abby Philip, and we're going to listen to this real quick, here's how Abby Philip, who a lot of people believe is the lightweight among lightweights on a network that should only employ the best, and clearly doesn't. Here's how she interpret it. Republicans say Muslims don't belong here after an attempted terror attack against New York's mayor, Zoran Mamdani, and the House Speaker, Mike Johnson says nothing really to condemn those comments. another special guest is going to be with us at the table. I mean, they threw the bombs at 20 right-wing protesters. It happened to be in front of Mayor Mom Donnie's house, but to suggest it was anything other than what it clearly was

is not just bad journalism, it's outright misinformation. I mean, they have to turn yourself into a pretzel to come up with that analysis and to offer it out there. And this is, you know, as we live in this age where mainstream media is credibility is challenged. You know, and I think mainstream media has a real important place in news, news delivery. But mainstream media, to do well, to earn the spot that it has, has to hold itself

to a higher standard. And this just did not make it. And you can't shut, you can't say this is just sloppy journalism or sloppy tweet that people, you know, got offended by. This was, this is, when people offer a tweet like that, and when it's, it's kind of a quick opinion. It gives you a little snap, look into their mind. How do they think about the issue? And it's very interesting to me. It was citizen journalists who picked up and people online who took it them to call it out. They said tens of thousands of complaints came into CNN. Abby Philip wrote

on Twitter, I want to correct something. I said last night the bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS-inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protesters and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamm Dani. That wording was in accurate. I think it was inaccurate. I think it was a falsehood. And I didn't catch it ahead of time. I apologize for the error. So she's suggesting she was just reading somebody else's copy. As soon as you have an incident where someone's throwing a bomb, I think you should recognize this is serious. And there's people involved. You're in a dense urban environment. How, again, how you have to turn yourself into a pretzel to come up with the analysis that this is just sort of a Sunday drive gone bad is wild. So what would you recommend to CBC if they hired you for some crisis consulting?

CNN. Yeah. CNN. I mean, I think there should be, I think the host should be given a temporary leave at minimum. Should be, should think carefully, you know, put her into journalism training for some time. I think there should be a proper, there should be a review. Perhaps you bring the CNN, CNN should ask, you know, we're going to do a two-week thing. We're going to bring in a third-party independent,

reviewer to look at this and provide some recommendations. We have to recognize, they have to hold the, they have to not only correct the misdeed, they have to be seen to be championing, correcting it. They have to be so out front and lead on this. Or if they try to kind of cut it down the middle, people will have the conclusion that naturally folds from this. This is a biased left-wing media outlet that is, has a hard time when the, when the, when, in in the dynamics of Islamic people taking action against radical right-wing people.

It's, yeah, that looks at the fact that we've now talked about two organizations whose sole raison d'etre is communication, right? That they have dropped the ball so thoroughly on communicating with people. I don't know what you do. I mean, it's going to be a long slog for them to get back to relevance and to get back to being in a place where most people trust them. Or maybe not. Maybe they don't care. but I want to thank you so much for being here. I'm sure, and I'd love to have you back.

Mike Van Solan, come back anytime. I'm sure we've got lots to talk about. My name is Mickey Fox. Friday, February 27th on Global. I'm Sheriff of Edgewater. For her, keeping the peace. Cartel's moving in. Means every investigation.

People are getting threats. It's close to home. At the end of the day, I'm responsible for this town. Secrets, loyalties, and small town justice collide in the new hit drama. I'm a damn good sheriff. Sheriff Country returns Friday, February 27th on Global. Stream on Stack TV.