Pul-eeee-ze!
I understand them getting upset, no question about it, but the source of their ire is gone, exorcised from the network’s lineup of star attractions, his arse fired out the door.
So, give it a rest.
In case you haven’t heard, an LGBTQ rights group has asked the CRTC to ban Fox News over “false and horrifying claims” made by ex-host Tucker Carlson regarding transgender individuals.
Worse, the CRTC has actually opened a public consultation on the complaint asking the broadcast regulator to ban Fox News from cable packages in Canada.
The group — Egale Canada — published an open letter following a March appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight in which it said Fox News’ “coverage aimed to provoke hatred and violence against 2SLGBTQI communities, particularly those who are Two Spirit, trans, nonbinary and gender non-conforming (2STNBGN).”
The group said Carlson made false claims about those communities, including “painting them as violent and dangerous.” The segment aimed to provoke resentment and violence against 2STNBGN people through false claims and “malicious misinformation,” Egale Canada executive director Helen Kennedy said in the open letter.
“During the segment, Carlson made the inflammatory and false claim that trans people are ‘targeting’ Christians. To position trans people in existential opposition to Christianity is an incitement of violence against trans people that is plain to any viewer.”
The letter also accused the segment of stoking resentment against 2STNBGN individuals through misinformation “including that trans people are given preferential treatment in employment and other opportunities.”
Carlson was fired from Fox for unrelated transgressions after Egale Canada went public with its request in early April.
The CRTC maintains a list of international channels, cable, satellite and IPTV providers can include in their packages. In March 2022, the CRTC removed Russia Today following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Now there is no law against Egale asking the CRTC to boot Fox News from its cable offerings, but quite another for the CRTC to actually begin the first steps at doing such.
Egale is angry, understandably, but there is a big difference between being offended as in Egale’s case and being invaded murderously by a hostile regime as in the case of Ukraine.
So booting Russia Today makes sense, Fox not so much.
Or am I wrong? Can Carlson truly and honestly be put in the same breath as Russia’s Vladimir Putin?
Now, I only have a vague idea what 2SLGBTQI stands for, other than it perhaps represents a sexual and-or nonsexual identity minority which doesn’t deserve discrimination or ridicule.
Perhaps Egale Canada will want me banned, too, for not being 100% empathetic and sympathetic. Or argumentative clumsy.
But I put a lot of weight on free speech, even its ugly side.
Had Carlson not been fired for an unrelated sin, I would be in total favour of picketing Fox News and/or demanding the head of Carlson be served on a spike. But not the spiked head of Fox News as a corporation, no matter its inability to steer what proper society might define as a proper course.
Not all right-wingers are nut bars, after all. In fact, fiscal conservatives can be quite likeable.
Now, I am trying not to offend people here. But I am offended.
I’m offended more by the CRTC considering opening consultations into the banning of Fox News, and less offended by Egale Canada calling for it.
Interested parties and the public can submit their comments through the CRTC website until June 2.
Go for it!
