Catching up on MediaPolicy – Dhanraj tells his CBC story – Kimmel is back, really back – Unifor launches CheckFactHere – Western Standard cashs a federal cheque

September 27, 2025

Last week Culture and Identity Minister Steven Guilbeault showed up at the House of Commons’ heritage committee for his root canal.

The Conservatives were on him immediately about former CBC host Travis Dhanraj’s charges that the public broadcaster violated the Human Rights Act by treating him as a token “brown guy.”  MP Rachel Thomas cited CBC’s “toxic environment” as a fact.

Guilbeault appeared to take Dhanraj’s allegations at face value, expressing “regret” at “what happened to him” but distanced himself from the CBC’s handling of the dispute.

MediaPolicy has covered the story here, here and here but I was waiting for more details on Dhanraj’s claims against unnamed colleagues in CBC’s Ottawa bureau and how CBC management handled the whole situation.

Now Dhanraj has given a more fulsome version of his story on episode one of his new podcast, Can’t Be Censored, produced with former CP24 reporter Karman Wong. 

The episode is over an hour long and it’s pretty clear that without naming David Cochrane, the host of CBC’s parliamentary show Power and Politics, that is who Dhanraj is identifying as his nemesis (Cochrane has declined comment). Dhanraj says that “three or four” journalists are running the Ottawa bureau’s news coverage as their own club. 

Dhanraj’s narrative is that CBC headhunted him, first as a national reporter and then as the host of Canada Tonight, a current affairs show. Dhanraj tried to make the show edgy and popular by inviting controversial guests. They included former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whose appearance CBC management vetoed on the grounds that Carlson is a white nationalist, although Dhanraj says in the podcast he doesn’t agree with that description.

What got him into hotter water was inviting Conservative Party deputy leader Melissa Lantsman onto his show while the Conservatives were boycotting Cochrane’s hot seat on Power & Politics. As it turns out, CBC management already had an internal protocol that forbade the Conservatives end-running Cochrane in favour of a preferred host. Dhanraj tried to convince his boss that it was good journalism and better for the CBC’s reputation as a big tent public broadcaster to get the Conservatives onto any CBC show at all. He even quoted the Broadcasting Act. His boss didn’t buy it.

There’s more in the podcast episode on other friction points between Dhanraj and the Corp. Assuming he has offered his best arguments, it’s hard to see his allegation of racist tokenism as anything other than his editorial gloss. Rather his story comes across as a tale of an ambitious television anchor making a play to upgrade a lesser show into a bigger one, some colleagues resenting that, and CBC not accommodating it. 

If David Cayley’s new book critiquing the CBC had gone to press a little later, I am sure he would have devoted a chapter to Dhanraj. Earlier this week, MediaPolicy posted a review of Cayley’s book.

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Bob Iger is writing his own history, day by day.

Iger is the Disney CEO responsible for suspending Live! host Jimmy Kimmel for his mockery of the US President’s odd reply to a journalist’s question about grieving Charlie Kirk’s death. Then the viewer and political backlash hit Disney. Iger turned Kimmel’s “indefinite” suspension into a one week cancellation.

US media commentator Evan Shapiro has a LinkedIn post breaking down the events leading up to Iger’s actions against Kimmel.

Bottom line: the threat by Trump’s FCC chair Brendan Carr to strip Disney’s ABC affiliate stations of their broadcasting licenses was an idle one. Up until now media moguls have blinked because they won’t play the long game against the Trump administration’s campaign to tame mainstream media.

Kimmel’s show is back on the ABC network, but initially two major station affiliates refused to air it. One of them is a big Trump supporter. The other needs the FCC to approve a merger. 

That lasted three days. Yesterday the two affiliates that include 56 stations across the US reversed course and agreed to resume airing the show.

It ain’t over. Trump replied on Truth Social, “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do.”

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It’s World News Day tomorrow which is a reminder from major newsrooms around the liberal democratic globe that you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Pairing up with that, my alma mater Unifor —-which represents journalists and media workers across the country—- has launched a middle brow version of the same, a public service campaign branded CheckFactHere.

Video and print ads created by Unifor will appear in Canadian media who are donating the inventory. 

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A few sunny weeks ago MediaPolicy posted a dissent from a Canadian Press story concluding that PM Mark Carney was considering repeal of the government’s Online News Act C-18 and its $100 million tithe on Google that compensates Canadian newsrooms for their stories appearing on Search. I didn’t think that Carney’s mangled response to a Kelowna journalist’s question about C-18 actually said that.

It took some time to pin down the government for a clarification, but Politico.com asked Culture and Identity Minister Steven Guilbeault for comment and his press secretary replied “the federal government has no intention of repealing either of the acts,” referencing both C-18 and the Online Streaming Act C-11.

Then the National Post story added that Guilbeault’s office hedged a bit, saying “for us, currently, the intention is not to repeal those acts… But I can’t pretend to know the end result of the negotiations with the United States” which are “very much” the main factor that will determine the future of both acts.

Somebody needs to put this question to Carney.

While we are talking about C-18, when the Canadian Journalism Collective announced the distribution of the $100 million in August, Media Policy posted that the conservative news outlet Western Standard was getting a $68,000 cheque. What I didn’t mention is that I e-mailed publisher Derek Fildebrandt asking him to confirm that he wasn’t also receiving the federal government’s “QCJO” journalist subsidy. His publication was part of a coterie of anti-subsidy news outlets who published a public oath they would never take that kind of money. Fildebrandt didn’t reply to my e-mail.

Now we know why. He’s taking the money. In an email to his subscribers, Fildebrandt said he couldn’t compete without the federal cash and ——I am reading between his lines here— without Pierre Poilievre in power those subsidies will continue to flow to his competitors. 

Fildebrandt’s books aren’t public, so it’s also possible he couldn’t remain solvent without federal and Google money. In any event, my condolences, climbing down from high moral ground is never fun. Just ask Mark Carney.

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This blog post is copyrighted by Howard Law, all rights reserved. 2025.