CBC refuses to livestream Travis Dhanraj’s committee testimony
CBC News refused to answer the call of former anchor Travis Dhanraj to livestream his testimony before a Parliamentary committee examining fairness in the media.
CBC News refused to answer the call of former anchor Travis Dhanraj to livestream his testimony before a Parliamentary committee examining fairness in the media.
Dhanraj dared the state broadcaster to livestream his testimony before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to discuss his experience at the CBC on Tuesday.
“CBC’s stated commitment to diversity contrasted with realities of tokenism,” Dhanraj told the committee. “Still, I pushed forward, creating a nightly panel to showcase real diversity, including of thought.”
The committee meeting was streamed by Juno News here:
However, he claimed his panel was cancelled after he attempted to “end the discriminatory practice of unequal pay” for guests that appeared on his program.
“When it came to politics, interviews were blocked under guard rails. Governed by an internal document never made public, titled, ‘Parameters for Political Guests.’ Political access was centralized. Booking decisions controlled elsewhere,” Dhanraj testified. “It did not happen once, it became a pattern. It became the standard.”
Dhanraj said he was “forced to resign” from the public broadcaster last summer after raising internal concerns about tokenism and editorial bias.
Last fall, Dhanraj filed a human rights complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, alleging the Crown corporation discriminated against him based on race, forcing him out of his role.
His complaint alleges he initially “took on the role of host of Canada Tonight because, based on representations made by CBC, he would be the driving force of the show.”
booking guests, and reflecting the range of opinions, lived experiences and interests of contemporary Canada.”
However, he “quickly realized that diversity was not a true practice of the CBC and would never be a part of their agenda” and was “met with resistance at every point” when attempting to book guests with differing opinions.
He later re-emerged with a podcast, Can’t Be Censored, alongside co-host Karman Wong, a former journalist and political staffer. His personal mission, he said, is not to destroy the CBC but to see if a “$1.6-billion taxpayer-funded broadcaster is playing by the rules it lectures everyone else about.”
The former anchor then called upon Brodie Fenlon, the CBC’s general manager and editor-in-chief, to air his upcoming hearing.
“If CBC believes in transparency, then prove it,” he said last week. “On March 10, carry the hearing live, no edits, no summaries, no carefully curated clips.”
Dhanraj noted the CBC could easily stream the entire hearing on its YouTube channel.
However, the state broadcaster chose not to.
Cowards! There were witnesses from the cbc side of things as well. I would wager, the cbc has no compunction about advertising their statements, if it suits the cbc interests. But not dissenting testimonies critical of the cbc. To iterate; Cowards.
CBC to true to form, which is not the truth.