Rebel News’ ability to capture the spotlight at the recent election debate should embarrass left media. Socialist, internationalist and ecologically minded outlets were largely absent from the debate and, more importantly, from disruptive video journalism.
At Wednesday and Thursday’s party leaders debate the far-right Rebel News and True North successfully inserted themselves into the event. I saw Rebel filming inside the security zone and outside the wire interviewing those rallying. They also asked multiple questions in the post-election scrum.
Their impact in the post-debate scrum on Wednesday prompted the Debate Commission to cancel the question period after Thursday’s English debate. They then questioned Liberal officials and CBC figures, which caused a stir.
Four years ago Rebel won a legal ruling granting them access to the debate. And last week they used the legal ruling effectively to garner attention for their platform and odious politics.
Conversely, where was left media? I questioned a few media and politicians outside the wire while Andre Queery took some photos for his site. Inside the media zone, Ricochet’s Ethan Cox confronted Rebel founder Ezra Levant after the Thursday debate but, as discussed below, by defending establishment media.
Outside the debate on Wednesday, I queried Rebel correspondent David Menzies about his support for slaughtering Palestinian children. He came across as incapable of pivoting beyond his talking points. How can someone like “The Menzoid” be outdoing us? Menzies has 50,000 Twitter followers and Rebel’s correspondent in Montreal, who is only slightly more creative, has over 100,000. With 1.7 million YouTube followers and significant traffic on its site, Rebel has built modestly skilled journalists into significant media personalities.
Among the socialist inclined there are many more knowledgeable, creative, and hard-working individuals who should be able to do much better. But where is Canada’s egalitarian, ecologically minded, ‘street’ media?
In recent years I’ve engaged in some of what could be described as disruptive video journalism. Through Twitter and other platforms many millions have watched me ask politicians and others tough questions. (Some of my interventions cross over from disruptive populist journalism into disruptive activism that could be covered by a ‘Left Rebel’ but probably shouldn’t be done by its correspondents.) Many of my videos have been repurposed by international outlets such as Palestine Online, Middle East Monitor, RT, TRT, MintPress and others.
When considering the lack of a socialist Rebel News it struck me that no left Canadian media (as far as I remember) have repurposed my videos. There is little left video infrastructure, which is a major limitation as people increasingly access news from video and audio rather than the written word.
We need an outlet that tracks down oil executives to ask their thoughts about how the tar sands will impact their children’s prospects and puts a camera in the face of an Amazon representative to ask them about shuttering their Quebec warehouses in response to unionization. The outlet’s Parliament Hill reporter could seek to embarrass the Conservatives by questioning their more socially regressive MPs about abortion and gay rights or ask representatives of military funded think tanks if their arms industry donors shape their perspectives. We need a disruptive outlet that punches up (Rebel often punches down).
Resources are an obvious obstacle to such an endeavour. Without wealthy sponsors it’s hard to find the seed money to get this type of project off the ground. But if one or two committed individuals were able to get it going, it wouldn’t be that difficult to find $300,000 or $400,000 a year from monthly contributions and small donors as well as YouTube monetization and other sources.
It could theoretically be housed within, or be part of, a current left publication. But one obstacle to that is that most left media have an unhealthy relationship to ‘professional’ establishment journalism. Ricochet editor Andrea Houston was a staff reporter at the Toronto Star and Peterborough Examiner for a decade while columnist Adrian Harewood was a longtime CBC host. The Rabble.ca biography for Parliament Hill correspondent Karl Nerenberg boasts that he worked “two and a half decades at CBC/Radio-Canada.” For his part, Canadian Dimension media critic Mark Edge spent two decades at the Vancouver Province and Calgary Herald. In a column headlined “Rebel News again proves that it’s not doing journalism” Edge criticized the right-wing outlet’s role at the debate. Edge argued, “If Levant wants to play politics, he should do so as a politician and see how well his extreme views go over with voters.” But that’s missing how Rebel has impacted the public conversation and left media should not be defending a claimed ‘impartial’ media sphere that’s enabled significant injustice by systematically marginalizing socialist, internationalist and ecologically minded voices.
Taking this line a step further, Ricochet’s Ethan Cox explicitly defended the establishment media bubble when he challenged Levant at the debate. Cox complained to Levant that Rebel’s actions led to the cancellation of the post-debate press conference and “prevented us from asking questions on behalf of the public”. While this type of statement may win accolades from establishment media colleagues, it is an affront to (among others) Palestinians victimized by a Canadian media deeply complicit in Israel’s genocide.
Why does the left leave in-your-face, asking uncomfortable questions, ‘rebellious’ journalism to right wing media? What does this say about our relationship to the system? What social change was ever accomplished by being deferential and polite?
A ‘Left Rebel’ would seek to disrupt power, including the corporate/CBC media sphere. It would be a real rebel, not a Conservative Party and billionaire friendly one and it would be popular.
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