It turns out CBC News is aware they describe Israel’s violence against Palestinians with sanitized language—and they actually believe it’s justified.
In a letter responding to a complaint filed by a reader, the public broadcaster acknowledged that they’ve used terms like “murderous,” “vicious,” “brutal,” “massacre,” and “slaughter” to refer only to Hamas’s attack on Israelis on Oct. 7.
But when it comes to the Israeli army’s bombing of Palestinians, which has killed more than 22,600 people as of Friday, CBC says they prefer to use terms like “intensive,” “unrelenting,” and “punishing.”
The more evocative and sympathy-generating terms don’t apply to Palestinian deaths, CBC argues, because Israel carries out its killings “remotely” instead of face-to-face.
CBC launched its highly revealing defence in an email reply to Jeff Winch, a retired professor at Humber College who had filed four complaints about CBC’s coverage with the CRTC, Canada’s telecoms regulator.
“The Hamas attack was referred to by the reporter as ‘vicious,’” Winch wrote in one complaint, citing an instance in early November on CBC Radio. “Why is it when Hamas attacks there is a toxic adjective attached but when Israel kills 8 times the number of people (including babies) no such adjectives are used?”
“This use of language attempts to minimize the ugliness of Israeli atrocities and get maximum hatred out of the Hamas attacks. It also serves to skew the reader’s empathy towards Israel and away from Palestinians—a further dehumanizing of an already downtrodden people.”
‘The events…are very different’
CBC’s senior manager of journalistic standards Nancy Waugh responded in a Dec. 5 email that Winch shared with The Breach:
You wrote that CBC reporters refer to the October 7 attacks as ‘murderous,’ ‘vicious,’ or ‘brutal,’ but don’t use the same words to describe Israeli attacks that kill Palestinians.
Different words are used because although both result in death and injury, the events they describe are very different. The raid saw Hamas gunmen stream through the border fence and attack Israelis directly with firearms, knives and explosives. Gunmen chased down festival goers, assaulted kibbutzniks then shot them, fought hand to hand, and threw grenades. The attack was brutal, often vicious, and certainly murderous.
Bombs dropped from thousands of feet and artillery shells lofted into Gaza from kilometers away result in death and destruction on a massive scale, but it is carried out remotely. The deadly results are unseen by those who caused them and the source unseen by those [who] suffer and die.
It’s a different kind of event and is described differently as ‘intensive,’ ‘unrelenting,’ and ‘punishing,’ raining death and destruction on one of the most densely populated places on earth…They are different stories, and we have tried to describe both accurately and vividly.
The former professor Winch called this “a terrible answer.”
“I don’t think the language should have to do with the comfort of the person delivering death,” he told The Breach in an interview. “It’s about the devastation and destruction and violence that’s happening to the victims.”
In an email, a CBC spokesperson told The Breach: “Respectfully, we flatly reject the suggestion Nancy Waugh’s response is an admission of a double standard.”
“Every story CBC News covers is different and as such may be described in different ways, but always in accordance with CBC’s journalistic standards and practices,” the spokesperson said. “With that in mind, we invite Canadians to review the complete archive of our journalism on this war since Oct 7 and judge for themselves whether we have lived up to our standards of balance, fairness, accuracy and impartiality.”
But on its broadcasts, CBC has featured more Israeli than Palestinian voices, portrayed Israelis in more humanizing ways, and allowed Israeli military officials to lie on air.
CBC has regularly used subjective descriptors for Hamas’ violence while not doing the same for the Israeli state. In articles, videos and episodes of The National, CBC has described Hamas’ attack as “brutal” and “vicious,” and the militants’ “barbarism” and “inhumanity” in carrying out “unimaginable slaughter.”
In the same pieces, Israel’s violence is described only as “retaliatory” and as “adding to the agony” of Gazans.
In her response to Winch, CBC’s Waugh elaborated on why the broadcaster does not use the same words to describe the killing of Israelis and Palestinians:
In a report on the November 6 edition of The World at Six you wrote that the reporter described the killing of some 1,400 Israelis as a “slaughter,” but later said some 10,000 Gazans had been “killed.” Why not say “massacre” or “slaughter” or “mass murder,” you asked. Other reports at the time referred to 1,400 Israelis “killed” in the Hamas raid and included accusations of collective punishment, genocide and the mass murder of Gazans. As I said earlier, balance does not mean precisely parallel language.
Waugh’s full response can be read at the bottom of this story.
CBC’s lack of balance has also extended to them barring journalists from sharing any information about the war on Gaza on social media that the public broadcaster has not itself reported.
This flies in the face of CBC’s general social policy which permits the sharing of “outside journalism if the story or piece is not available on CBC.ca and the source is credible”—meaning the broadcaster is indeed maintaining a double standard when it comes to Gaza.
UN experts have warned that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “a genocide in the making.” In addition to the tens of thousands of Palestinians whom Israel has killed, 7,000 more people remain missing and presumed dead. Nearly 60,000 others have been wounded and hundreds of thousands are facing disease because of the conditions created by Israel’s bombing of Gaza and blocking of food, water, electricity and other necessities.
Bias seen across Canadian media
This double standard is part of an industry-wide bias that has been well documented by The Breach.
Like CBC, CTV National News has featured disproportionately more Israeli voices than Palestinian on its broadcasts.
An analysis by The Breach found that The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and National Post used the term “slaughter” to describe the deaths of Israelis scores of times, while never applying that word to Israel’s killing of Palestinians.
The newspapers also described the Hamas attack as a “massacre” on hundreds of occasions, while only using the word to describe the killing of Gazans when quoting Hamas spokespeople or Palestinians.
Winch, one of the creators of the oral history project Voices of Palestine, said he’s been concerned with the Canadian media’s coverage of this issue since 2002, when Israel killed 22 civilians in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
“I remember thinking something was wrong with the news. I remember thinking the pictures and the words were not lining up for me,” he said. “I started reading and the more I read, the more it became clear that this whole conflict had been flipped upside down.”
Winch said he believes the Canadian media has inaccurately portrayed the Israeli state as the victim of “savage Arab terrorists” by systematically distorting the context about the state’s history of military occupation of the Palestinian territories.
“I had been duped by our media.”
Disclaimer: The Breach’s senior editor Emma Paling was a temporary worker at CBC News from 2021 to 2022.
Support for The Breach’s work has been provided by the Inspirit Foundation. Inspirit does not endorse, influence, edit, or vet journalistic content in advance of or following any publication.
When I went to journalism school 10 years ago, my parents thought that they would eventually read my articles in The Montreal Gazette. Today, that newspaper is a husk of its former self. But I get to explain that I’m working towards critical, independent, and sustainable journalism.
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– Amanda Siino, Development Director, The Breach
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19 comments
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Thank you for your article on this biased language, which has angered me for some time. Perhaps you could also write about videos shown on CBC, such as the one by Terence McKenna about Sinwar, the Hamas commander in Gaza: “The ‘Ruthless and Cunning’ Leader of Hamas in Gaza.” It was particularly offensive, supposedly “proving” all the Israeli “justifications” for the continuing attacks on Gaza. The video aired on December 1 and was rerun on January 3 (coincidentally after Israel announced it would defend itself at the ICJ). Clearly there is no “balance” in CBC coverage of the Middle East.
This pro-Israel, anti-Palestine bias was apparent immediately the Hamas violent killings of citizens, as firstly our Federal Government stood 100% with Israel, ignoring the decades of ongoing suppression of Palestinians, as Israel took to murdering 1,000’s of innocent citizens. The media did not try for balanced coverage and joined the excoriation of only 1 side. My daughters and I have cried over this immoral, indecent ignoring of where true ethnic cleansing has been occurring.
Of course most Canadian media is biased. They report Israeli claims as valid while Palestinian death tolls are questionable. The National Post should be the Israeli Post since it is totally one sided and their journalists have undermined their credibility. No one expects anything from the CBC. I find I get more balanced news on American public broadcasting.
Co-op Radio in Vancouver has a radio program called “Redeye” which calls out Israel for the slaughter of Palestinians. Israelis have been killing Palestinians ever since the Balfour Declaration.
Thank you for this reporting. Since the genocide began, CBC has been very biased in its reporting of it, and so I have stopped listening to CBC. I’ve go to other sources online like Democracy Now and read independent news coverage like yours. It’s the only way to deconstruct the barrage of propaganda.
Me too! Wow, when I read your comment, I felt like I could have written it. I’m glad I’m not the only one!
A willingness to kill anybody in order to kill the ones you really want to kill. is a total abdication of Humanity. Oh Israel what have you done ? Oh Hamas what have you done?
This article raises many interesting points. As an elderly Canadian (born not too long after WW2) I wonder how much of our Canadian media is being influenced by historical guilt. The atrocities perpetrated on Jews during the war and the historical European mindset (in which I include Canada) having excluded desperate Jewish refugees fleeing from the Nazis may explain the traditional media response to the Middle East. Remember our war time Minister of Immigration turned away boat loads of refugees saying, ‘None is one too many.’ I am not suggesting collective historical guilt is an excuse for our media’s response to the current issue. It may be a partial reason for it though. However much media tries to be impartial it will always be driven by human beings who are subject to unrecognized bias. Media like yours, and people like Mr. Winch are essential to reminding us that there must always be watch dogs who hold our newspapers and broadcasters to the highest possible standards. Thank you for doing so.
I am disgusted that the CBC is so clearly biased against Palestine, in essence, complicit in Israel’s ongoing propaganda to rationalize the IDF’s heinous, vicious slaughter of Palestinians. Our tax dollars should not be funding this now radical right-wing channel. #DefundCBC
Breach letter
As a financial supporter of The Breach, however small, I was quite dismayed to read the article requesting better treatment of Hamas by CBC News. (I hasten to point out that I never watch CBC or CTV News because they never fulfill my needs for informative reports on the major issues of the day. I get my news from the Conversation, The Breach and UWN)).
Surely you must know that Hamas is a terrorist Party whose only campaign is violent jihad. And that they believe that the Day of Judgement will only arrive when every Jew is murdered. Yet this is the organization for which you plead. You must realize that such views have weakened my loyalty to The Breach and raised suspicions about your motives. Would you have written the same about Hitler’s Nazis? I make those remarks against a background where a terrorist organization launched an unprovoked attack against innocent civilians, tortured and murdered little children and their parents etc. Therefore, I stand firm in asserting the right of the victims to take vengeful responses. Nevertheless, I am becoming worried about the extent of the collateral damage to civilians. In retrospect I have always felt the same way about the Dresden massacre.
I hasten to add that I have been for some considerable time a supporter for an independent Palestinian republic. Now for the answer to the question you posed as follows: “Why is it when Hamas attacks there is a toxic adjective attached but when Israel kills 8 times the number of people (including babies) no such adjectives are used?”
Answer: could it possibly be that Hamas attacks are deliberate murders of targeted civilian’s according to the demands of their Party Constitution, while Israeli attacks are a response where civilian deaths are collateral damage? I’m surprised you never thought about that.
The foregoing is by no means a condemnation of the Breach or any of its writers. I am confident you will have an intelligent rejoinder.
Wonder if they are convinced while writing and reporting Israel crimes with soft language, or they hate it and have to do it while having trouble sleeping.
Jeff Winch is 100 percent correct. The CBC’s coverage of the Hamas-Israeli war is embarrassingly one-sided.
That’s not journalism; it’s public relations.
The use of emotive language should apply to BOTH sides in the conflict. The rationale that the killing of innocent people through air strikes is not murder is beyond me. I thought this line of thinking would have ended with the collapse of Nazi Germany.
The killing of innocent civilians is and always will be a war crime.
An often unreported fact is that Israel’s greatest ally — the United States of America — is a convicted terrorist state. [The World Court, The Hague in the 1980s]. Another under-reported fact is that the Israelis murdered in the Hamas attack were living in what neutral journalists would call “disputed territory.”
As for the CBC not being able to get into Gaza, let’s not forget how courageous CBC reporters were during the first Iraqi war. They fled to Lebanon before the first bombs fell in Baghdad fearing they might get hurt or killed. I was working at CBC at the time and I remember the shame.
At times, MotherCorp does a better job of covering its ass than the news — and that hurts all Canadians, especially those who pay federal taxes to support the CBC.
Yes, Mr. Winch was duped. Unfortunately, he’s not alone.
Oh. Let’s not get out hopes up about complaining about the CBC to the CRTC. Right off the bat, one government-funded organization investigating another government-funded organization lacks credibility.
My faith group (Mennonite) has had aid workers in the Gaza strip for many decades, as we go wherever there are people displaced by or effected by war and natural disasters. They have reported to us the many human and civil rights violations committed by the State of Israel, both while they occupied this strip, and after they abandoned it to Hamas. None of this was covered by mainstream media at the time. Even though many members of my faith group are Zionists, both in Canada and the US, we do not condone such actions by Israel. One must realize that any state government is secular by nature, even if it has a state religion. The criticisms brought to us were also supported by testimonies from Jewish rabbis and lawyers. Since its inception, the state of Israel has acted as oppressively toward any Palestinians within and without its borders, as they themselves as been treated by the world. Their leadership does not seem to have learned that simply exchanging one’s status from that of victim to schoolyard bully, does not make one’s life better. It seems that they are unaware of the fact that sometimes dealing with monsters, can turn oneself into a monster.
Thank you for this.
I too am disgusted by the CBC’s shameful bias in its coverage of the war in Gaza and have stopped watching the CBC as a source of news.
Brilliant article by Australia’s brilliant Caitlin Johnstone to highlight your story at: https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/westerners-have-an-absolutely-psychotic
It is worth noting a point here that might be missed by most:
The CBC’s assertion that the words used differentially for the actions of Israel vs those of Hamas are simply the most accurate, is in fact, correct.
The English lexicon itself is short of adjectives, etc for remote killing which carry anywhere near the charge of those terms used to describe up close and personal slaughter.
There is a bias in the CBC coverage, this is true; but it owes as much or more of it’s originatin in what may be an outgrowth of human construal levels and/or embedded colonial egoism, than to deliberate and systemic intentional partisanship.
(That does not excuse it, rather it points to factors that require vigilance on the part of everyone)
Incredible to think that the privilege of aerial bombing affords you the entitlement of euphemism in international news. Since the beginning of this the CBC has been destroying my trust in them again and again.
If you’re going to print the ” 22,600 casualties” line, you can’t just say “people”. You have to break out how many of those are civilians vs. Hamas soldiers. Otherwise we have no idea what the civilian casualties really are.