Media top headlines February 14
In media news today, CNN changes a headline comparing Joe Rogan’s use of the N-word to Jan. 6, MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan suggests Supreme Court expansion a step to fight COVID, and NBC confronts ‘difficult Olympic rating amid China’s ‘complicated’ relationship with the rest of the world.
"Freedom" can’t seem to be defined or justified by some mainstream media voices that continue to bash Canadian truckers who say they are fighting for it, with CNN and Canadian broadcaster CBC disparaging the term in recent days.
CBC Radio released an article Sunday pinning the word "freedom" as a far-right term most recently taken on by participants of the Freedom Convoy who are advocating against restrictive coronavirus mandates. As the protests endure against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, CBC dissected that freedom is actually a "malleable" term that’s "open to interpretation."
According to Canadian Anti-Hate Network executive director Evan Balgord, the way Canadian protesters are calling for freedom renders the expression "meaningless."
INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST WRITES ‘WHAT THE TRUCKERS WANT’ FOLLOWING 100 FREEDOM CONVOY INTERVIEWS
"When they're yelling they care so much about their freedom, they're taking freedoms away from other people who don't have the same kind of agency and choice that they do," he said.
Protestors stand in front of the Parliament Buildings as truckers take part in a convoy to protest coronavirus vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, January 29, 2022. REUTERS/Patrick Doyle
"What they're really asking for is a shift in government policy that could potentially have a negative impact on others," CBC summarized.
The article went on to suggest how freedom as a concept is being used to reject equality. George Washington University political science associate professor Elisabeth Anker took aim at the right, asserting that conservatives have incited "violent" forms of freedom.
"On the far right, [individual freedom] is often translated into somebody who refuses to be bound by norms of equality, treating all people equally or norms to remedy inequality, whether that's trying to remedy racial discrimination or gender discrimination," she said.
Fox News has been available in Canada and fully distributed there since 1997. (Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press via AP)
CBC criticized the sale of "Mandate Freedom" bumper stickers and Freedom Convoy t-shirts while proposing that social good should be prioritized over personal freedom.
"While some in the U.S. may see mask mandates as a violation of individual rights, for example, citizens in many other countries wouldn't consider such rules to be an intrusion," they wrote. "In those places — and in Canada — it's likely there's a general consensus that wearing masks is for the benefit of society's most vulnerable."
CANADIAN STATE NEWS AGAIN SUGGESTS RUSSIAN FORCES BEHIND TRUCKERS FREEDOM CONVOY
At CNN, senior national correspondent Miguel Marquez described Monday how Canadians were "feeding" off the anger of the "far right" in the U.S. and around the world toward government restrictions.
"They want their freedom back," he said. "Whatever that means."
Freelance journalist Rupa Subramanya spoke with more than 100 truckers in Ottowa last week to uncover what they really want compared to the liberal media's villainization of the movement. Subramanya revealed that protesters are more focused on the bigger picture of endless mandates than about resistance to getting the jab.
"So it’s about something else," she wrote. "Or many things: a sense that things will never go back to normal, a sense that they are being ganged up on by the government, the media, Big Tech, Big Pharma."
A trucker named Ivan told Subramanya how he and his wife had emigrated to Canada from Ukraine with the vision of being free.
A French activist holds a Canadian flag before the start of their "Convoi de la liberte" (The Freedom Convoy), a vehicular convoy protest converging on Paris to protest coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine and restrictions in Nice, France, February 9, 2022. (Reuters/Eric Gaillard REFILE)
"We came to Canada to be free—not slaves," he said. "We lived under communism, and, in Canada, we’re now fighting for our freedom."
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Fox News' Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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