Global TV

Global TV News caught cheating – updated with video link

By on • ( 44 Comments )

Global TV caught cheating again in January 2011.

With almost 60,000 Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20 at Facebook, it is a mistake for authorities to think protesters are losing momentum. On the contrary, it is being gained.

Pay attention to the final sentences of Mike Drolet’s report. Who expected 5,000? Who counted fewer than 2,000? Did Drolet pull numbers out of thin air to deprecate the protest movement?

“The hardcore protesters are still yelling.  But, are they starting to lose their followers? Over 5,000 were expected for this rally. Fewer than two showed up.”

July 10, the In-Sights posting I’m wondering related how Global TV salted its report by adding unrelated footage to its video report on the Toronto G20 demonstrations. People trust TV news in Canada to be honest and video should reflect reality not fiction.

Some readers indicated that I must have been mistaken, they could not believe that a national news service would broadcast a fake video report. Therefore, it is important to publish the evidence. During the live newscast, I recognized footage that originated in Vancouver during the Olympics when vandals broke a few windows and tipped over newspaper boxes.

As you will see in the photos, captured from Global TV’s July 10 5:30pm national news, one of the newspaper boxes being tipped was The Province. This happened on a Vancouver street February 13, 2010. In a case of yellow journalism, Global was trying to make the Toronto demonstrations more dramatic by spicing it with extra footage.

Categories: Global TV, Journalism

44 replies »

  1. I has quit buying any newspapers out of Vancouver, some time back. I only watch one TV media station. Good journalism is very hard to find these days. There was one journalist, that took me forever to spot the subtle innuendo's , in the items. That was it. Now I depend on the bloggers, to ferret out the truth. They say it the way it is. I don't think I am imagining, all the corruption in this province. Someone had posted, the corrupt sale of the BC rail trial, is being tried in a corrupt court, by a corrupt judge. It is being said, there is too much foreign influence in BC. Perhaps, Fadden's shot over the bow, is a warning. Clean up your act, BC.

    Like

    Reply

  2. Well as of July 17, 2010, Global National apologized for the 3 second use of the Vancouver olympics protests footage in the G20 story.

    Like

    Reply

  6. Seriously? You're talking about a 3 second clip that was probably a human error. Stop being outraged by what is clearly a mistake and get over it. This isn't some sort of media conspiracy. Maybe you should find something better to do with your time than annoy the CBSC or CRTC about a 3 second clip!

    Like

    Reply

  7. Leah has it right. This nothing-to-see-here approach is precisely what's wrong with media today. Our friend Chris (hope he comes back, by the way) may well be right: it could have just been a dumb mistake. But shouldn't a quality of a good reporter be skepticism? Shouldn't that skepticism lead to questions, and shouldn't those questions lead to answers?

    That our media is so damned complacent is precisely why the full story of the BC Rail debacle is only now dribbling out, seven years later, and only because of the court case. The whiff of scandal used to be all it took to get reporters' backs up, and they would do some actual investigating. Now, if it's not handed to them on a plate, the story doesn't come out, by and large, and rather than looking for the truth, they are placated by a plausible story.

    Chris, c'mon back and tell me I'm wrong. I won't believe you, however, unless you have something more than a plausible story, however. Please bring me some stellar examples of your own work, in which you saw through the plausible story and sought out the truth.

    Like

    Reply

  10. I find it somewhat alarming, and telling, that the editor of a newspaper is willing to brush this off so lightly.

    Chris, we don't need more people excusing the media – (especially members of said media!) we need the media to become a tad alarmist! Enough to dig for, and print, the real truth. I'd like to think that when I'm reading your paper, I'm getting unvarnished truth…am I?

    Like

    Reply

  12. The red box being pushed over says “The Vancouver Sun” on it. I was wondering about authenticity, until I watched the video and saw that at 1:55. Nice catch man. I will be reading here again, that's for sure.

    Like

    Reply

  15. This is the Toronto Star article that originally said the July 10 demonstration was expecting 5000 people. http://bit.ly/bb30qd But I've noticed looking at it now that it has been changed to say 2600 people confirmed on facebook. It seems like more media manipulation but in favour of the protesters.

    I was at the demonstration on Canada Day and on July 10 and they seemed about the same size. So it doesn't look like it's losing steam in any significant way.

    Like

    Reply

  17. Chris, is it possible that such carelessness or poor standard of performance should not happen, particularly in a national newscast? Every day, surgeons assemble their team to do business, they don't leave untrained, unsupervised quasi-volunteers to perform any part of their work. Professionals ensure that every link in the chain carries its weight.

    Do media folk forget the seriousness of their responsibility? Does happy talk mean that slap dash, careless reporting is ok, not preferred maybe, but ok. When Global's BC political reporter reads a summary of false economic stats or misreports polling data, we say, “That's alright, just simple mistakes. Relax.”

    Is that what politicians can say when they carelessly or purposely misinform the public? If professional journalists don't put the highest priority on accuracy and balanced reporting, he/she is not a professional, just a partisan hack.

    I don't read your journal regularly so I'm not expressing an opinion on your work, only on your comment.

    Like

    Reply

  20. Chris, as a journalist yourself, don't you think that Global has an obligation to acknowledge that the footage that they showed as a backdrop to this report was not accurate? Is there any indication that they did this?

    I'm more of a believer in Hanlon's Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” And I tend to have a generous enough nature to believe that people will generally try to do what's right.

    We're left with two options here: either they intentionally got it wrong, or they got it wrong and don't care that their journalistic integrity is even further diminished. Find me the middle ground.

    Like

    Reply

  21. This is hardly a case of “cheating” by Global or any other nefarious intent. Hell, there is more than enough footage of idiots vandalizing Toronto that Global need not insert shots from Vancouver. It should be obvious to a damn monkey that an intern or overworked staffer accidentally grabbed footage from the Olympic vandals and got it mixed up with coverage of the G20 criminals. No great conspiracy here; just a simple mistake. Relax . . . the black helicopters have not taken off …..

    Like

    Reply

  23. Amazing that you spotted this but it is not very important IMHO. They already showed loads of other “spicier” footage. I would put it down to overwork or incompetance myself. Worth pointing out to them though so that they understand that some people are paying exceptionally close attention. I found the report in general to be pretty balanced compared to much of the main stream media except for the last few seconds. The reporter wonders aloud if the fact that only 2000 people showed up when “5000 were expected” is an indication that we have all decided it was no big deal after all. Considering the number of protests in the last few weeks with thousands of demonstrators, I was amazed at how many people showed up. When the marching started I went to a bar and watched my first world cup match which made up for all those that I missed.
    Anyway, I hope that Norman Farell will continue to watch so closely and that he or someone else will go through the dozens of hours of footage in a systematic way to trace the movements of the window breakers and that amazing group of plainclothes police that seemed to be glued to them the whole way. I suspect that such a study would reveal that the majority of damage was done by a dozen or two. Regardless of what such a study might mean to those people, I think it is important that it happen. If I was the systematic type, I would do it myself.

    Like

    Reply

  24. @vicadm44 …nope it's simply inserted into G20 riot footage…good work Justin!
    Shame on you global national…

    Like

    Reply

  28. Are you sure they weren't showing a “flashback” or a piece like that? I work at a TV station that did the same thing, but we used the footage to show the “black block” technique, and how it was the same story in Vancouver.

    Like

    Reply

  31. Great Eye!
    I seriously doubt this was anything more than the incompetence of the entire chain from editor up to senior producer. Global National used to be a class act but after years of mismanagement and managerial nepotism it's become a sloppy slapdash outfit…Maybe the Shaw folks will perform some much needed surgery…It's no wonder Kevin Newman bailed out of that mess…

    Like

    Reply

  35. Well, it's a useful chink in the propaganda machine used to justify the hundreds of millions of dollars of plummy security contracts awarded to friends of the Cons and of technological weaponry purchased for the RCMP, also friends of the Cons.

    It'll be interesting to watch if the other media, including the supposedly progressive CBC, report this.

    Like

    Reply

  36. Carolyn Jarvis anchoring for Global TV, Mike Drolet reporting but these are the public faces, the stray footage was inserted by some agenda driven editor or producer. We have the Canwest Global executives named to interact with CBSC but can wait for the official response before throwing out more names.

    See the following blog entry for details of the CBSC complaint.

    Like

    Reply

  37. Please research and name names: the reporter, the anchor, the producer, the head of programming. The culprits need to be discredited to sow some fear in the hearts of the others.

    Like

    Reply

  41. We are surrounded by all these criminals. Some in office, some on the streets. Some are in the media, and they are very good at distorting the truth. Keep up the good work Norman.

    Kam Lee

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to Ken Butland Cancel reply