Panelled Wreck Room

Sun pundit, talks show host and moral conservative Michael Coren managed to find a berth on the perpetually anti-CBC op-ed page of the National Post today under the headline "Blacklisted by the CBC." Turns out that he had been booked only to be debooked for a political panel on CBC News Sunday, a program on which I have appeared. The topic? At first it was the federal budget but, according to a CBC spokesperson, that was subsequently changed to the first 100 days of the Stephen Harper government.

Coren detects an anti-conservative conspiracy in his cancellation.

I shouldn't, however, be surprised. I was once cancelled at the actual reception desk at the CBC, the show's booker telling me, "the union don't want you on." That incident produced an apology from the head of Newsworld.

I had an entire CBC radio interview prevented from going to air because, according to the producer, "it's extremely good but there are people here who simply hate you."

Nor am I alone. Dozens of genuinely conservative commentators in the country could tell you similar stories.

Perhaps. But so can many liberal ones. I can't tell you how many times I have been asked to appear on a panel about something or another, only to be later told that it's been rejigged, rethought, repeopled, rescheduled, whatever. They change things up to get a wider reflection of views, regional perspectives, gender diversity and other factors. I don't get all huffy about it. That's show bizz.

(The CBC News Sunday panel, by the way, was ultimately made up of former Reform MP Deb Grey, the Globe and Mail's parliamentary bureau chief Brian Laghi and the Hill-Times Kady O'Malley.)

But let's just say that Coren is correct that he, as he suggests, is banned because of his anti-choice, anti-same sex marriage, Mothers-should-stay-home-in-the-kitchen-making -babies views. If that's so, how to explain his previous appearances on the CBC airwaves? Or those of other conservatives and Conservatives? And what about CBC's inclusion of the whingiest of the right-whingosphere on its website during the elections?

All I can say is, this bungled incident is giving comfort to CBC's enemies. See this and this and this.

Funny thing is, for all their whining about ''freedom of the press,'' they didn't do much complaining last month when the Harpies were shutting out the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

Comments

[Jiminy C]

What's Coren's patented phrase - "It's my show and I can cut you off if I want"?....and of course he does, frequently, whenever he doesn't like what someone is saying.

I say - "hoisted" - "petard" - Michael!

I'm crying for you - honest!

[Maz]

Coren? Michael Coren? Oh, yes. Now I remember. Used to host a show on CFRB Radio. Until he staged a bogus interview with a 500
pound fat man whom he ridiculed, even citing scripture. A show in
such poor taste CFRB management had to give Coren the boot. I'm
sorry... but what was Coren's beef about the CBC?...

[Robert McClelland]

What is it with conservatives and their belief that they have some sort of divine right to dominate every form of media on the planet?

[sheena]

How come it's always the ugly unfunny guys who always find a need to jump on the women-need-to-make-more babies bandwagon?

Anyone else weirded out thinking this is another one of those "Those that can, do; those that can't, teach" thingies?

I'm new to Toronto and new to Michael Coren.

I thought the second-rate Englishman who comes out to the colonies to show the locals how it's done was an extinct species. But apparently not.

And what's up with the attire? He looks like he absent-mindingly raided the wardrobe trunk of of a touring music hall production, circa 1930.

Nor are his political views much more advanced. Then there's the smarmy mugging to the camera and the calculated use of oddball words like "palaver."

Yuck.

[Werner Patels on Media]

I commented on this story here:

http://patels-on-media.blogspot.com/2006/05/proof-of-left-wing-bias.html

[Dwight Williams]

A quick check through the likes of _The Current_'s archives will quickly put paid to the charge of "anti-conservative" bias, I think.

Now, as to an anti-Michael Coren bias...? Considering some of the stuff I've seen in his columns for the Quebecor/Sun chain of newspapers, I can't say that I'd be entirely surprised by such a thing.

[Maz]

There's a revolving door quality to opinion-maker Michael Coren.
First, he's a Catholic; then, an evangelical Protestant; now Catholic
all over again. He gives Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ 2
thumbs down; a few weeks later, 2 thumbs up. He will viciously trash the Kennedys (at the time of John Jr's death) and Princess
death ('round the time of her death), then crank out columns oily with pious sentiment. And so on. No 'foolish consistency' for Mr C.

[Bill-Muskoka]

Last night CNN's Anderson Cooper's 360 did a very long segment on this Jeffs character who has formed an offshoot of the Mormon Church. He is going to be the next Waco. He is on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted list.

http://us.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog//

Amazing how this guy can accumulate vast sums of money, buy large tracts of land, build a fortress temple, collect a harem, and after all that then becomes a Public Enemy?

Does this strike anyone else as a tad out there?

Maybe its a planet path thing where we pass through some weird region of space time?

[Huge Seagull]

Antonia, I heard from some media blogger in a chat room last night that Coren (a.k.a. Cornholio) has appeared on CBC's airwaves twice in the last few weeks. Can you confirm this factoid?

Whatta whiner.

[Antonia Z.]

No, that's past couple of years. I believe the most recent apperance was last fall.

[sooey]

i wonder if the public whining will work. whaddaya wanna bet cbc gives him an hour long once a week time slot: "COREN, ER..."

Si je ne me trompe pas, Coren began life as a north London Jew, converted to Catholicism, and flirted with evangelical Protestantism.

Oy.

At least Christopher Hitchens is a contrarian provocatuer with a drinking problem -- who is interesting on occasion.

But Coren? Patholigically third-rate and profoundly unimportant. He'd be a nobody in New York, London or even Montreal. In Toronto, he has a small measure of notoriety as the answer to an obscure trivia question.

Here's a test for you, Michael. Will you be able to resist quoting some of these comments on tonight's show?

[Antonia Z.]

He protesteth too much anyway. CBC has had all kinds of right-wingers and cons on, from Clare Hoy to Diane Francis.

By the way: I have heard from people who have said they wrote to the Post to crityique his oped but no negative letters were published. Just two letters in support of his column.

[sooey]

silly rabbit. negative letters get you much further.

[JC]

My boyfriend is an Englishman from South London who thinks Cornhole is a true git. Chelsea FC can kick his team's ass any day, too.

[Glowbull]

Q: What's the definition of an 'expert'?

A: An Englishman who's 50kms from home.

[Jim Trautman]

My experince with Mr. Coren and his lack of guts to set the record straight or even phone back.
About 18 months ago he created a stir on the morning CFRA show by comments he stated had been made on his Channel 36 show the previous evening. How the man making the comments was a racist, etc. Bill Carroll and eventually Christie Blatchford ran with the comments provided by Coren.
I phoned Bill Carroll and Blatchford and pointed out that I saw the show and he had left out the racist, violent comments made by a gentleman on that same show who was Jewish. He only mentioned the comments made by the Muslim man and the fact that the OPP was looking to see if hate crime charges should be laid against the Muslim man.
Both Carroll and Blatchford at least did phone and speak to me and admit that were not aware then of the full context of the events of the previous evening on the Coren show. When I phoned the OPP and brought the full matter to their attention once again the same thing. The investigation was dropped.
Calls to Coren's producer and him (several were never answered nor were several emails that I sent). What a great person to appear on a socalled Christian station. Having watched the blow hard for a number of years there is only one conclusion - loves himself and coward to discuss real issues.
Funny he never answered any of my calls when the phony car company he was shilling for was charged with fraud.

[Antonia Z.]

For more on what Jim Trautman is talking about ....

http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/fulltranscript.htm
http://www.cjc.ca/ptemplate.php?action=itn&Story=1020
http://www.bnaibrith.ca/article.php?id=804