A University of Guelph professor who analyzed the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on its coverage of transgender student issues in Saskatchewan found the broadcaster to be one-sided.David Snow, an associate professor in political science at the University of Guelph released his findings in an opinion column for The Hub entitled, The CBC prioritizes allyship over objectivity in Sask. parental consent coverage.Premier Scott Moe drew attention to the study in an Instagram post Thursday, noting the “very well researched and documented analysis” is one readers “won’t see on CBC.”Snow wrote that Saskatchewan’s pronoun policy is an issue with competing perspectives where media should “establish and situate the facts, present the different points of view, and help Canadians work through the nuances” but the CBC did not.Snow looked at the CBC’s 38 written articles about Saskatchewan’s pronoun policy from August 22 to October 22, two days after the Parents’ Bill of Rights became law. Six of these were by Canadian Press journalists.The professor noticed the titles of 14 articles contained an “attributed criticism” of the policy, such as the opposition of activists and the opposition NDP, but none attributed praise for the policy from anyone outside the government.Among sources quoted, 81 were critics, 15 were supporters, and 5 were neutral. One-third of the voices in support came from a single article about competing public rallies. Only 6 of the 38 articles quoted supporters of the policy, while 36 quoted a critic. All six of the articles with a supporter also included a critic.The CBC quoted authority people to criticize the position and laypeople who opposed it.“Of the 59 critics whose opinions were sought out by the CBC, 26 were what I classify as ‘experts’—lawyers and legal scholars, professors, school board presidents, health professionals, and LGBTQ organizations—and a further six were teachers…Of the 22 critics who were quoted from the public record, twenty (91 percent) were experts or organizations representing experts,” Snow wrote.“By contrast, CBC reporters did not seek out a single ‘expert’ to speak in favour of Saskatchewan’s policy. Of the 13 quotes from supporters that were sought by the CBC, nine were from community members or protestors at rallies, while four were from the leaders of three small socially conservative interest groups.”The only expert the CBC quoted from the public record to defend the provincial policy was Dr. Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist and a trans woman who presented an affidavit for the Saskatchewan government in court.“The CBC article presented Dr. Anderson in a negative light, calling her a 'vocal critic' of youth gender transition while failing to mention her decades of research and clinical experience,” Snow wrote.“Most egregiously, the CBC article did not quote from Dr. Anderson’s affidavit even though the affidavit was the topic of the article (and even though much of it was quoted in the publicly available judicial injunction). Yet the same article included a quote from UR Pride’s legal counsel criticizing Dr. Anderson’s affidavit.”Snow said a possible middle position was never considered in any of e coverage.“Of the 81 criticisms of Saskatchewan’s policy quoted across 38 CBC articles, not one said, ‘We think the Saskatchewan law goes too far, but we support a middle ground where informing parents should be a requirement,’” Snow noted.In Snow’s assessment, the CBC also engaged in “sleight-of-hand” in the way it presented an Angus Reid opinion poll and completely ignored another two that suggested broad public support.Egale Canada, a sexual minority advocacy group that litigated against Saskatchewan’s law, issued a survey that CBC did report. However, language used in the preface to its questions slanted the results, Snow suggested.“Of course, by inserting the language of ‘credible risk’ and ‘irreparable harm,’ the spark*insights survey is a textbook example of how not to frame unbiased polling questions. This is clear when the results are contrasted with the Leger poll released only a day later.”The CBC ignored the Leger survey, although it was covered by CTV News, Global News, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the Canadian Press. Snow said this was “arguably the most damning aspect of the CBC’s coverage of Saskatchewan’s pronoun policy.”Snow concluded the CBC had an “ideological tilt” and demonstrated a “lack of curiosity” in its reporting. He said the articles were written by 15 different authors, 13 of whom were CBC employees, yet none made an effort to explain justifiable reasons for the pronoun policy.The results, Snow wrote, made the network’s annual $1.3 billion subsidy “harder to defend.”CBC defended their work."We welcome analysis of our journalism. Our coverage on Saskatchewan's Bill 137 reflected and will continue to reflect many points of view across all our platforms. We would note that the exclusion of 'quotes from the government, politicians, and the judicial injunction itself,' will have impacted the analysis," it said in a statement to the Western Standard.
