Amy MacPherson's Zombie "Journalism" : No Ethics, No Sources

As I set out to write this column, I realize that I can think of many, many ways to say that Amy MacPherson is not very bright, but that I didn't want to start this column by saying that MacPherson is not very bright.

I didn't want to do this, but then I realized that the defining characteristic of MacPherson's "reporting" is, in fact, that she isn't very bright. And her most recent "reporting" on L'affaire Ghomeshi proves it. To say that her "reporting" lacks gravitas would, frankly, be unduly complimentary to it. In fact, MacPherson's "reporting" is characterized by a deficit of gravitas.

In her most recent offering regarding Ghomeshi, MacPherson is somehow still on Ghomeshi's side. That much is crystal clear. But at least she almost seems to move beyond her "CPC is out to get Ghomeshi because Charter" conspiracy. Or at least, it seems that way at times.

But really what MacPherson is attempting to lambaste Canadaland's Jesse Brown over in this piece is ethics. And she fails at it because she doesn't understand the issue. Mostly because her own ethics are entirely bunk.

MacPherson's most recent attempt of a Brown takedown revolves around Brown's appearance on Ed the Sock's podcast.



Anyhow, MacPherson's deranged blogpost makes the following "ethical" complaints about Brown's reporting. She states that:

1. Brown did not disclose his personal relationship with a Ghomeshi victim.
2. Brown did not disclose his former position as a radio personality on the CBC.

Now, if MacPherson actually understood media ethics -- which is unlikely, as she doesn't have any -- she might have stopped to ponder, for a moment, the nature of the relationship between a journalist and their sources.

In cases where a journalist's source is a whistleblower it's always considered preferable that the source be identified. This can be considered an ethical disincentive to running with the story. However, in cases where the matter is a subject of public interest, it's considered to be perfectly acceptable to proceed with the story so long as the source's story can be factually verified.

The source's story was factually verified, much to MacPherson's chagrin. Everyone should remember that her original offering on the story was that Lucy DeCoutere was being put up to this whole thing by the military. That was an insanely -- literally deranged -- unethical attack on DeCoutere for reasons that were not then and not now entirely clear.

Once a source's story is verified and corroborated, it's considered perfectly ethical to print the story. And it's also considered entirely ethical for a journalist to protect their source from retaliation by protecting their identity.

As it pertains to Kathryn Borel, thinly-veiled threats made against other complainants at the CBC made it clear she had to fear for her job if it was aware she was a source -- although not the source -- for Brown's reporting. (More on this shortly.)

Admittedly, Brown had an ethical decision to make. He was caught between two ethical expectations: on one hand that he would disclose his personal relationship with Borel. But on the other there was his responsibility to protect his source from retaliation.

Brown passed this ethical hurdle in a novel way. Remember that Borel wasn't "the" source. She was "a" source. Brown sat on this particular allegation while he waited for more allegations to surface. And before long, they did.

I'm not surprised that MacPherson doesn't seem to understand the ethical nuances of the relationship between a journalist and their sources. Not only has she demonstrated on numerous occasions that her work is written with extreme indifference to ethical standards -- attempting, though failing, to smear Ghomeshi's victims was the most egregious example -- but she frequently writes without sources.

No ethics, no sources, no worries. I suppose.

But that's not a formula for quality journalism.

MacPherson's other ethical complaint about Brown's reporting is also utterly laughable. It may be true that Brown did not disclose his former employment at the CBC specifically within those stories. Here's the thing: Brown's previous tenure at the CBC is public knowledge.

What's more laughable yet is her insistence that, during his time at CBC, Brown and Ghomeshi were "competitors."

They were both employed by the CBC, on non-competing shows. Never did a Jesse Brown show go to air opposite Ghomeshi's Q. That's what you call a "competitor." In fact, Ghomeshi and Brown were what you actually call a "colleague."

Comically, MacPherson herself was formerly a CBC election blogger. She doesn't disclose this herself. Which, as this is readily-available public knowledge, would be fine if she herself wasn't demanding such disclosure from Brown. But because she does make that demand, it's simply hypocrisy.

As MacPherson drones on she makes a number of entirely-irrelevant yet comedic complaints.

One was that Brown received encouragement from Jeffrey Dvorkin, who mas made some radical suggestions on how to restructure the CBC. Another is that Brown allegedly co-created Bitstrips.

To either case, MacPherson seems to make no effort whatsoever to clear the first hurdle of public inquiry: the "so what?" question.

Literally: so what? What about it?

Perhaps the most insipid complaint MacPherson raises against Brown is that the Ghomeshi story effectively rejuvenated Brown's then-flagging Canadaland podcast. Again, MacPherson cannot clear the "so what?" hurdle.

Here's a detail that MacPherson herself should be very familiar with: individual stories very much can make or break an individual outlet, and an individual career. And L'affaire Ghomeshi should make that perfectly clear to her: L'affaire Ghomeshi has made Jesse Brown's career. And it's destroyed hers. Mostly because each took it in entirely different directions, and in each case the direction was conducive to the result.

MacPherson chose to set off with virtually no facts in hand, and spun bizarre conspiracy theories that were not supported by the scant few facts she had in hand. When additional facts came out she attempted -- inanely -- to twist them to support that conspiracy theory. And while she makes no mention of that conspiracy theory in her most recent blogpost, she does note that Ed the Sock puppeteer Ed Kerzner once ran for office as a candidate of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.

On the other hand, Jesse Brown adopted a "trust but verify" approach to his sources and to the story. Ghomeshi and the CBC attempted various methods -- not especially dissimilar from MacPherson's -- to deflect the story. But once the floodgates of additional complainants came forward, Brown was vindicated and a career (his career) was reinvigorated.

This is why Jesse Brown is a rising star in Canadian journalism, and Amy MacPherson's career is dead. And while she may choose to wander the wasteland of her Free the Press Canada blog, intelligent people recognize her for the zombie that she is.

On #Gamergate, CBC's Massive Ethical Fail

After months of waiting, viewers and readers concerned about the CBC's #Gamergate coverage have finally gotten a response. And that response is... underwhelming.

As One Angry Gamer reports,  CBC Ombudsman Esther Enkin has responded to these concerns by saying that everything with the CBC's coverage of #Gamergate is a-OK, despite the clear evidence that it is not. In particular, Enkin replied: "The fact that you reject the negative narrative does not mean it should not be discussed.”

Well. Is that what's been going on at the CBC? The negative narrative being discussed?

Well, a meaningful discussion of a narrative requires that both sides of it participate. And as it turns out, the CBC's coverage has permitted no participation by those on the business end of the "Gamergate harasses women" narrative.

This is made crystal clear by examining the following points of the reporting, on The National by Deana Sumanac-Johnson, and on the CBC's Community Blog by John Bowman.

Point 1 - #Gamergate has become a catchphrase for the online harassment of female gamers.

Sumanac-Johnson has repeated a claim made not by neutral observers, but by by #Gamergate's opponents. As such, Sumanac-Johnson has violated the CBC ethical code's guidelines on impartiality. It reads: “We provide professional judgment based on facts and expertise. We do not promote any particular point of view on matters of public debate.”

The story relies overwhelmingly on anecdotal evidence to support this claim. The anecdotal evidence may be offered by individuals judged by Sumanac-Johnson to have sufficient expertise to make that judgement, but expertise alone is not enough. Any judgement offered by Sumanac-Johnson must be backed by a sound basis in fact. Anecdotal evidence does not provice that basis, and should not be considered to provide that basis.

Sumanac-Johnson has taken numerous women on their word that they were harassed by #Gamergate. While it may not be unreasonable for her to take their word that they were harassed, it's not reasonable to take their word that they were harassed by #Gamergate. The hashtag has attracted a great number of third-party trolls, and Sumanac-Johnson seems to have made no effort whatsoever to confirm whether or not such harassment came from an individual truly sympathetic to #Gamergate's goals. If she did, that is not evident in her reporting.

Which takes us directly to the next point:

Point 2 - The exclusion of Jennifer Dawe.

When preparing reports, reporters make decisions not only regarding which facts to report, but also which facts to ignore. This also applies to voices. They make decisions not only regarding which voices to include, and which voices to exclude.

It's now a matter of public record that Jennifer Dawe, a game developer supportive of #Gamergate, was interviewed for this story. Yet her pro-#Gamergate voice is excluded while anti-#Gamergate voices were included -- exclusviely.

Dawe was advised that her interview could be published as a "reaction" to stories on #Gamergate. That would be very good in principle.

There was only one problem with that: Dawe's interview never aired. Ever.

Her voice -- that of a female video game developer -- was excluded from a story about alleged attempts to exclude female voices from video gaming.

That's rather ironic.

Point 3 - Gamerella.

Again, what is every bit as interesting about Sumanac-Johnson's piece isn't just information she includes, but rather information that she chooses to omit.

Sumanac-Johnson spends a great deal of time on the Gamerella gamejam, in which women interested in video games get together to to develop video games. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself. Gamerella sounds like a great way to support women choosing to enter the video gaming field. However, the inclusion of Gamerella makes the omission of Zoe Quinn's past behaviour all the more interesting.

An early event in the #Gamergate saga was Quinn's attack on a gamejam with a similar goal. This one was organized by the Fine Young Capitalists, an Ontario-based second wave feminist organization.

Quinn accused them of "enslaving women," despite the detail that 8% of the proceeds from the sale of the gamejam's product would go to the woman on whose idea the game was based. Undeterred by this fact, Quinn then accused TFYC of being "transphobic" despite the fact that their policy on the inclusion of transexuals had been written by a human rights lawyer, and was later given a thumbs-up by an Ontario Human Rights Commissioner. (One of the few times that organization has been of any worth.)

As Quinn stepped up her attacks on TFYC,  the tactics her supporters used included DDOS attacks -- which Quinn herself was clearly well aware of -- and hacking their IndieGogo page in order to shut it down. Quinn's Twitter output during these episodes seemed to indicate that she was well aware of what was going on and condoned it.

If the topic was harassment of game developers keeping women out of the video gaming field, why did the harassment -- often by third-party trolls -- warrant mention, but Quinn's harassment of video game developers did not? Particularly as Quinn's deliberate torpedoing of the TFYC gamejam reduced opportunities for women to get involved in the video game field?

Point 4 - Video games victimize women?

Anita Sarkeesian herself could have written Sumanac-Johnson's line about Gamerella participants demanding "games that don't victimize women."

Of all the clear signs that Sumanac-Johnson has subscribed to a particular point-of-view and is promoting it via her reporting, this line is it.

Even if Sumanac-Johnson were simply conveying the opinion of the participants of the Gamerella gamejam, why not simply have included footage of one of the participants uttering such a remark (provided that she had such footage)? Even the optics of Sumanac-Johnson appearing to editorialize in her report contributes to an appearance of bias.

Point 5 - The CBC's coverage of #Gamergate has exclusively been of an anti-#Gamergate angle.

Sumanac-Johnson's reporting hasn't been the only CBC reporting on #Gamergate.  John Bowman, of the CBC's Community Blog, wrote an article going on at length about harassment experienced by female gamers in social media.

The article focuses intently on the harassment that Anita Sarkeesian -- allegedly at the hands of #Gamergate supporters, but with the number of third-party trolls active in the hashtag it's nigh-impossible to know -- and includes the following paragraph:
/
"It's difficult to understand why a series of videos on sexist portrayals of women in video games would bring about such an extreme reaction..."

No mention is made by Bowman of the number of Sarkeesian's critiques have been confirmed as factually inaccurate. In particular, her claims that Hitman: Absolution "invites" players to murder strippers during a mission that actually penalizes the player if they happen to do so. (YouTube playthroughs of that mission posted by players invariably feature the player sneaking around the characters rather than interact with them.)

To have someone insinuate that you're misogynistic for enjoying a game that is not in fact misogynistic, and is in fact demonstrably not misogynistic, would make anyone angry. That Sarkeesian and her followers insist upon giving the targets of her critique no opporunity to confront their accuser makes it that much worse.

(I have to take a time out here for some full disclosure: I've encountered and confronted misguided pro-#Gamergate individualswho believed it would be perfectly acceptable to produce revenge porn with a Sarkeesian look-alike character. This is a taste of the anger that Sarkeesian has inspired with her demagoguery. The number of pro-#Gamergate individuals active in that discussion who condemned and discouraged this outnumbered the misguided individuals in question. Take note: while this is anecdotal evidence, those accusing #Gamergate of harassing Sarkeesian -- particularly at the CBC -- carry a burden of proof they've never satisfied, and in fact never even tried to satisfy.)

From the way the CBC has reported on #Gamergate an otherwise-uninformed person would never guess that there's two sides of the story. That there's no debate. And that simply isn't so.

Deana Sumanac-Johnson knows this. She interviewed Jennifer Dawe. So while John Bowman can theoretically feign ignorance on this point -- though few would believe him based on the anti-Gamergate agitprop appearing in his Twitter timeline -- Sumanac-Johnson cannot.

At a certain point when there is enough evidence that the CBC has set aside the very notion of its own impartiality standards it simply cannot be accepted as coincidental. So for CBC ombudsman Esther Enkin to tell individuals lodging complaints that the narrative should be discussed is pure hogwash.

In saying that the narrative should be discussed she's not wrong. The narrative should be discussed. But perhaps the narrative should be discussed by those on both sides of it. Such as, say... Jennifer Dawe. And yet we happen to know full well that while the CBC discusses the "#Gamergate harasses women" narrative exclusively from an anti-#Gamergate perspective, they sit on an interview from a woman of a pro-#Gamergate perspective.

That's not discussing the narrative. That's dictating the narrative.

Discussing the #Gamergate narrative meaningfully requires both sides to discuss it together. If the CBC is serious about discussing the narrative, my biggest question is this:

When can we expect that Jennifer Dawe interview to finally see airtime? When can those of us supportive of #Gamergate expect any kind of opportunity to rebut the anti-#Gamergate narrative being pushed by the CBC? When will we see any kind of research put into any of the CBC's #Gamergate reporting?

These are questions Enkin cannot expect to sweep aside.

Now That I've Been Convinced About Jian Ghomeshi...

Let me start out by noting that Jian Ghomeshi has not yet been charged criminally, nor has he been convicted. I'm told that Lucy DeCouture will press charges, but we'll see about that.

That being said, I think I'd like to see if Jian Ghomeshi would like it if I choked him and slapped him around just a little bit. I'm going to draw the line at pushing him down and groping him, but I will declare myself thusly: if I ever encounter this guy I'm going to fuck him up.

But there's more yet that needs to be said. People who do the things Ghomeshi has been now-convincingly-alleged to have done are half the problem with sexual violence against women. But there's another half of the problem, and I'm going to go ahead and say what it is. Even knowing that I'll face a rhetorical swarming over it, I'll say it:

The other half of the problem is the women who stay quiet about it.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to be callous about this: I feel like I understand that it's not easy for a woman who has been victimized to come forward. They have a lot to worry about. I understand that sometimes their assailant is in a position of power over them. I understand that there are some who blame the victim. I understand it can be painful to recount their experiences. I get all that. I get that coming forward is tough. I understand it, and I sympathize.

But here's what must be said: predators thrive off the silence of their victims. Unstopped, they continue to claim more victims, and it's in no small part because their victims don't speak up.

Whether their victims are intimidated, persuaded, or rationalized into silence there is one thing that is certain: the silence of the victim always, always, always works to the advantage of the predator. Always. Always. Always.

That doesn't make them to blame for future victimizations. The only one to blame is the predator. But in staying silent they become an unwilling enabler to the predator. No one has to like this, but that doesn't mean that it's not true.

I'd hope that Lucy DeCouture -- who may have found her courage late, but found it nonetheless -- would tell women to never stay silent about this kind of an attack. To stop the predator dead in their tracks, and never allow them to victimize again. Just like Jian Ghomeshi should have been stopped.

In closing, Moxy Fruvous was a shitty band.

Just Another Reason to Privatize the CBC

So just what purpose does the CBC serve in Canada? Is it to provide Canadians with news and information programming? Or is it to campaign for the Liberal Party?

Following the recent Ontario election, Premier Kathleen Wynne -- who got herself and her government reelected despite a stunning level of incompetence and corruption -- made it perfectly clear: the media party, and the CBC in particular, were valuable allies to her and her party. She thanked the CBC correspondent at her party's victory party for working with them, and working hard.


So at least as Kathleen Wynne has it -- and a great many people would be inclined to agree -- the media party, and the CBC in particular, openly campaigned for the Liberals. And at least so far as the CBC goes, taxpayers paid for it.

Which brings me to my recent proposal to privatize the CBC -- by selling it to the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. No one could promise that the CBC wouldn't mold their coverage to effectively campaign for any political party. In fact, if the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were running the CBC you could pretty much guarantee it.

But if Kathleen Wynne is to be taken at her word, that's already happening. At least if the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were footing the bill to operate the mothercorp, then taxpayers wouldn't be footing the bill for this: the incredibly-partisan Superfriends would.

If you, like I, would prefer to see that, please sign my petition to this effect.

Free the CBC From Harper's "Interference?" Here's How

If you've surfed the #CdnPoli hashtag of Twitter in recent months, you've undoubtedly seen this. It's a video being passed around by the so-called "Friends of Canadian Broadcasting."

Apparently they're absolutely outraged -- outraged! -- that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would make any appointments to the CBC Board of Directors. (This despite the fact that, as Prime Minister, it's actually Harper's responsibility to do so. It's called providing for the governance of crown corporations. FCB never made such objections when it was Liberal Prime Ministers making such appointments, but whatevs.

Here's the thing the FCB are choosing to gloss over: so long as the CBC remains taxpayer owned and funded, it will be up to someone -- most likely the Prime Minister -- to make such appointments. Someone has to do it. Any and all Prime Ministers, regardless of whether or not FCB share their politics or not, will have to do so.

So long as the CBC remains government owned and taxpayer funded.

So if the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting really want to ensure there is no political interference in the operations of the CBC, there's one simple way they can ensure that:

They can buy it.

Apparently the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting have plenty of dough kicking around. Those fear mongering ads they've been making look real expensive. The production value is fantastic; several times better, in fact, than the typical CBC production. So if they can raise money to make deceptive ads to scare the living shit out of people, perhaps they can raise enough money to buy the CBC.

They could organize it as a cooperative, sell shares or memberships to the general public, raise their operating revenue from advertising and pledge drives, and have every right in the world to appoint whoever they want to its Board of Governors. The only form of taxpayer support they'll get to do it would be the tax deductions donors would be entitled to, and the same production grants privately-owned networks have to apply for. If it's good enough for PBS or NPR in the United States, it should be good enough for the CBC.

It might deny the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting the perverse thrill of having the CBC push their political agenda on someone else's dime, because for the first time they'd be doing it on their own dime.

Make no mistake about it: not only do I offer this as a serious suggestion, I in fact challenge the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting to take this proposal to the federal government.

It's time for the would-be Superfriends of Canadian Broadcasting to put their moneys where their mouths are.

Swapping Apples & Oranges

CBC's Evan Solomon is the worst magician ever.

On a recent edition of Power and Politics, Solomon made a decision: to take the side of Sierra Club executive director John Bennett against Ethical Oil Institute spokesperson Kathryn Marshall. In doing so, he attempted a magic trick:

He would take an apple -- Marshall's reference to the generous foreign funding enjoyed by environmental groups attempting to block the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline -- make it disappear, and as with all good magic tricks, make it reappear.

There was just one problem: when Solomon made the apple reappear, it was an orange. But he and Bennett tried to pretend it was still an apple.

Solomon countered Marshall's comments about the foreign funding enjoyed by these environmental groups by asking if the Ethical Oil institute received any funding from Enbridge.

The unintentional punchline is that Enbridge is a Canadian company.

Oops.

Of course, the next trick in the far-left anti-oil sands arsenal is then to attempt to write off the Ethical Oil institute as corporate shills. See, in the eyes of the far-left, even Canadian corporations are inherently evil and villainous, no matter what. Even if they're Canadian.

So then they'll try to make the issue about that: a classic bait-and-switch tactic.

Naturally, it never occurs to them that Enbridge might be donating to the Ethical Oil institute because they share common values, and because the work of the Ethical Oil institute is already beneficial to them.

Heaven forbid corporations donate money to organizations that share their values.

John Doyle is His Own Political Santa Claus

There's something about a television critic whose work seems to be far more about politics than it is about what's actually on TV that provokes a cringe among so many Canadians.

That cringe becomes more cringe-y still when one considers just how invested Doyle is in the soul-crushing status quo of the Canadian media. But when he takes that devotion and applies it to playing Santa Claus... well, the results are not pretty.

That's precisely what Doyle does in his most recent Globe and Mail column, and the results of his political "naughty and nice" list are predictable to anyone who paid any attention whatsoever to Doyle during 2011.

Topping his list is federal Minister of the Environment Peter Kent. Because Doyle doesn't like him. That seems to be pretty much it.

The second is Sun News Network anchor Krista Erickson. Erickson, you see, asked "iconic" interpretive dancer Margie Gillis some forbidden questions back in June, and Doyle has never forgiven her. The consensus media -- the keepers of the aforementioned soul-crushing status quo -- never forgive anyone who asks forbidden questions. Just ask Dan Gardner.

Coming in third is Rex Murphy -- a familiar target of hatred for the far-left. The far-left find Murphy to be a comforting locus for their hatred because he is skeptical of their causes celibre on, of all networks, the CBC. The CBC, they assure us, is theirs, and no viewpoints can be tolerated there other than their own.

Thus Doyle's revulsion at Don Cherry -- another far-left hate magnet -- and Kevin O'Leary. Cherry is, well... Cherry, and O'Leary was seen to be insufficiently deferential to American journalist Chris Hedges.

Closing out the list at #9 was another Sun News Network anchor, Brian Lilley. Doyle seems to resent Lilley for asking tough questions about the CBC, but there's more to it than that. Although Doyle ridiculed Sun News for not being an instant success at a time when it wasn't airing in all of Canada's media markets, Doyle likely hasn't forgiven the network for promptly beginning to break ratings records just two months later.

Also mentioned was Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, although seemingly not formally included on the list. Ford, you see, committed the grievous sin of not being sufficiently jovial when accosted at his home by no-talent "comedienne" Mary Walsh. Remember that Walsh was conducting that particular ambush, and the real reason for Ford's inclusion becomes crystal clear.

Well, if John Doyle is handing out Santa's presents to anyone this year -- be it to TV producers and personalities or to anyone else -- the people who rightly belong on the naughty list can expect generous presents, and the people who rightly belong on the nice list. Not only does this particular Santa suck at his job, he's also ass-backward.

Not Friends of All Canadian Broadcasters

In all fairness, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting's "Stop the CBC Smackdown" campaign has probably gone unnoticed by most Canadians. In fact, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting has probably gone unnoticed by most Canadians.

In the ad, FCB presents a fictional -- purely fictional -- scenario in which the government privatizes the CBC and sells it to an American pro wrestling promoter. The ad has Bret Hart offended, and rightfully so.

In every sense, the campaign is an example of FCB playing at dog whistle politics. They've assumed that most of their supporters look down on pro wrestling, and so they've singled it out as a means to ridicule any notion that the CBC may not continue as it always has. In other words, that there may be any sort of changes.

But in singling out pro wrestling, FCB very clearly forgot about one of Canada's pioneering broadcasters: none other than Bret Hart's father, Stu Hart.

For decades, Hart was Canada's most successful wrestling promoter -- which, unfortunately, isn't saying much in terms of financial success. But Stampede Wrestling was broadcasted across Canada, into the United States, and in markets around the world. It's left an indelible mark on this form of entertainment that apparently FCB hate so deeply.

If the mark of success is how many viewers his programs reached, and how many dreams it has helped create, than Hart was an incomparable success.

Some of the Canadian stars to emerge out of Stampede Wrestling include Bret Hart, Owen Hart and Chris Jericho. Other stars to emerge out of the company included the British Bulldog and Andre the Giant.

Not that the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting have any respect for this.

Nor did they have much respect for Pat Patterson, a Quebec-born wrestler who was openly gay within the industry. The homophobic crack from their Lance Fury character is deeply disrespectful.

I fully expect to hear some ridicule for even bringing these things up, and I'm prepared for it. Frankly, I don't care.

Children across the world grew up watching pro wrestling, and for people of my particular generation, Stampede Wrestling was a big part of that. It was one hour of every Saturday afternoon remembered with fond memories.

For an organization that purports itself to be a supportive pillar of broadcasting in Canada to so callously and contemptuously disregard the contributions of wrestling to Canadian broadcasting simply reveals the group for what it is: a sham.