The damage done when the journalists get the story wrong

Al Jazeera

14-02-2025

Patience is a virtue ill-used by most columnists.
Too often, writers are consumed by the urgent here and now. As a result, they fail to look back and devote time and space to important topics that once caught their critical eye.
The other, broader, and much more important failing of journalists and the news organisations – big and small – that they work for is the stubborn refusal to make honest and tangible amends for the damage they have caused to people – known and unknown – by their reporting that turns out to be defective and wrong.
Almost two years ago, I penned a number of columns warning that a racist-tinged hysteria was gripping Canada. The McCarthyism-drenched frenzy impugned the loyalty of dedicated police officers, a past governor general of Canada, as well as Chinese-Canadian citizens, including sitting parliamentarians.
That deeply corrosive, 'yellow-peril'-like furore was ginned up largely by a handful of scoop-thirsty reporters working hand-in-too-comfortable glove with, I suspect, a few so-called 'intelligence officers' – still serving or retired.
The gaggle of scheming spies, who supplied snippets of cropped 'intelligence' to gullible scribes, made scurrilous accusations about whole ethnic communities and several prominent figures who were obliged, of course, to plead their innocence publicly at draining emotional and financial cost while their Cheshire-cat-like accusers remained in the agreeable shadows – handsome salaries and pensions intact.
For two years, the hyperbolic handiwork of this nexus of cocky spies and credulous reporters dominated Canada's political and media landscape.
The spigot of stories alleged, among other nefarious escapades, that parliament harboured a nest of 'traitors' who plotted with foreign powers to undermine Canadian democracy; a Liberal member of parliament [MP] of Chinese descent thwarted diplomatic attempts to release two Canadians jailed in China on suspicion of spying; and Beijing ran a vast political 'interference' campaign to alter the outcome of at least two federal elections.
The breathless tales of subterfuge and treason were picked up by other media eager not to be left behind and given extended life and legitimacy by a host of braying columnists who know little to nothing about the subterranean world of espionage, the pedestrian types who populate it nor how 'intelligence' is gathered and can be moulded to create the illusion of credibility.
In late January, Commissioner Marie-Josee Hogue – who headed an inquiry triggered by the sensational reports – released her findings after hearing from scores of witnesses and reviewing thousands of classified documents over 15 months.
The commissioner's conclusions constitute a damning indictment of the reporters and major domestic news outlets who ought to have treated their coveted sources with a lot more caution and scepticism, rather than accepting, almost verbatim, their self-aggrandising interpretation and use of selective secrets to pursue personal agendas at the expense of the reputations of honourable Canadians and the public interest.
Hogue delivered a categorical refutation of every major allegation served up by The Globe and Mail – Canada's self-anointed 'national' newspaper of record – and a second-tier national broadcaster, Global News.
The commissioner 'found no evidence' of any 'traitors' lurking in parliament nor that Canada's democratic institutions were swayed or 'seriously affected' by any 'interference.'
'I have found no evidence that any election has been swung by a foreign actor,' she wrote.
Hogue added that there may have been 'attempts to curry favour with Parliamentarians…[but] the phenomenon remains marginal and largely ineffective.'
'There is no cause,' she declared, 'for widespread alarm.'
That 'alarm' was raised by front-page and top-of-the-newscast-attention-addicted politicians and reporters who, together, persuaded many Canadians that China, in particular, posed what amounted to an existential threat to the nation's sovereignty and integrity of its 'sacrosanct' elections.
Hogue wrote, in effect, that the supposed threat had been 'overblown'.
To her credit, the commissioner erased a disfiguring stain that Liberal MP Han Dong has endured with grace and contested with an uncompromising determination to clear his good name.
She dismissed dubious, thinly sourced stories charging that Dong had contacted Chinese diplomats with the intent to stall the release of two Canadians – Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor – accused of spying by the People's Republic of China (PRC) – as unequivocally false.
'The classified information corroborates Mr. Dong's denial,' she wrote, 'of the allegation that he suggested the PRC should hold off releasing Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor.' And that '[Mr. Dong] did not suggest that the PRC extend their detention.'
The commissioner condemned the grievous, lasting harm that can be caused by spies trafficking in 'untested intelligence' with easily convinced reporters.
'Examples like these demonstrate why it would be entirely unfair to rely on untested intelligence to publicly label an individual parliamentarian a traitor,' Hogue wrote. 'This would have a profound impact on the individual, one that cannot be justified in light of the frailties of intelligence.'
In a press release, Dong demanded – quite rightly – that 'Global News … retract their false stories about me and apologize for the harm they have caused'.
To date, to my knowledge, Global News has not retracted the stories nor apologised.
That is shameful.
Hogue confirmed the thrust of my testimony before a variety of House of Commons committees in spring 2023 where I cautioned parliamentarians to treat the 'revelations' cautiously since 'intelligence' is far from proof.
In that critical regard, the commissioner warned of the 'inherent limitations,' incompleteness, and insufficiency of 'intelligence'.
'Just because intelligence says something does not make it true, accurate, or complete,' Hogue wrote. 'The credibility of sources can also be a concern. Sources may, for example, intentionally mislead their audiences.'
The Quebec Court of Appeal justice's voluminous report mirrored to the syllable the verdict of David Johnston, Canada's one-time governor general who was appointed 'special rapporteur' by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to investigate the claims of Chinese interference.
Her study was just longer than his.
But, incredibly, Johnston's impeccable character, allegiance to Canada, and independence came under sustained and egregious assault by frothing opposition politicians and media personalities more interested in 'scandal' than the truth.
The Globe and Mail led the charge on this outrageous score.
I was appalled when a Conservative MP asked another witness during a committee hearing whether the Queen's former representative was a closet Chinese 'asset'.
The baseless insinuations and smears culminated in Johnston's resignation as 'special rapporteur'.
Now, Hogue's report stands as a marquee-sized vindication of Johnston's intelligent, sober, and deliberate work.
Johnston is owed an apology, too.
Still, an unimpressed Globe editorial writer insisted that Hogue had committed a 'disservice' to the 'courageous people inside Canada's intelligence community' who 'were concerned that the Trudeau government was ignoring a threat to the federal electoral system'.
An old Globe hand told me that the paper's editors were disappointed by Hogue's exhaustive rebuttal of its reportage and that the consensus among journalists inside and outside its insular orbit was that they had been 'played' by those 'courageous' spooks who have, like the agitated band of China-bashing columnists, gone suddenly mute.
Meanwhile, the president of the United States – Canada's dearest and closest neighbour – has been busy hatching plans to annex and convert the great white, mostly uninhabited north into America's 51st state, through punitive economic force.
Apparently, Canada's 'courageous' spies were too preoccupied with pointing an accusatory finger at Beijing to notice the real and present danger nearby.