OTTAWA — A news report about now former U.S. president Donald Trump’s approach to the pandemic, which aired on CTV National News on September 9, 2020, misrepresented a comment made by Trump and breached clauses related to accuracy in the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics and the Radio Television Digital News Association of Canada’s Code of Journalistic Ethics, according to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
In a decision released today, the CBSC said while the misrepresentation of the U.S. president’s statement rendered the report inaccurate, the council’s English-language panel concluded there was no breach of the ethics codes with respect to bias.
The CTV National News report in question was about a recorded interview between Trump and journalist Bob Woodward in which Trump acknowledged the Covid-19 pandemic was serious, but he wanted to play it down because he didn’t want to create a panic in the American population.
The report included the sentence, “Calling the virus a hoax, Trump continued to hold packed rallies, minimizing the danger to young people when he knew better.” A viewer who had seen the report on CTV Ottawa complained to the CBSC and pointed out Trump had never called the virus itself a hoax; rather, what he had characterized as a hoax was the Democrats’ efforts to politicize Trump’s response to the pandemic. (Trump’s “hoax” comment regarding the Democrats politicizing the coronavirus was made at a rally in February 2020.) The viewer also suggested CTV frequently demonstrated disdain for Trump.
In its response to the complaint, CTV acknowledged the “hoax” comment had been taken out of context, but felt that it did not affect the main message of the report about the taped interview between Trump and Woodward. CTV also emphasized it did not demonstrate any pattern of “disdain” for the American president.
The majority of the CBSC panel concluded the mischaracterization of what Trump had actually called a “hoax” was a material error that constituted a breach of the CAB and RTDNA codes of ethics with regard to accuracy. In addition, given Trump made his hoax comment more than six months before the CTV news report at issue, the panel concluded CTV had ample time to verify and clarify its context, and by not doing so, also breached the RTDNA ethics code by failing to correct the error. The panel also concluded there was no inherent bias in the report.
CTV Ottawa is now required to: announce the CBSC’s decision, in audio and video format, once during prime time within three days following the release of this decision and once more within seven days following the release of this decision during the time period in which CTV National News was broadcast, but not on the same day as the first mandated announcement; within the 14 days following the broadcasts of the announcements, to provide written confirmation of the airing of the statement to the complainant who filed the ruling request; and at that time, to provide the CBSC with a copy of that written confirmation and with air check copies of the broadcasts of the two announcements which must be made by CTV.
For more, please click here.
