Sarah Palin supporters wring Mallick apology from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Sarah Palin supporters managed to pull off what nobody else could do: They got an apology and retraction from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). So left leaning in its coverage that Canadian detractors call it the Communist Broadcasting Corporation, the publicly-funded CBC rarely apologizes for anything. Acknowledging the 300-plus complaints from readers, the CBC has issued an apology and retraction for posting an online column by freelancer Heather Mallick that attacked Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol.

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Attacks on CBC from Canadian and American media outlets included Canada Free Press (CFP), which received hundreds of letters from readers outraged by Mallick’s vitriol. The stream of angry letters to CFP intensified when Mallick immediately cut off access to reader dissent on her personal website. Indeed Mallick’s cowardly retreat may have led to the eventual CBC apology and retraction because readers who initially responded to her, forwarded their letters on to her employers. Publisher John Cruickshank admitted that the public broadcaster had erred in its “editorial judgment” and said the Mallick piece should never have been posted. (Pause here for loud rah-rahs from the peanut gallery!) “We are open to contentious reasoned argument but not to partisan attack,” Cruickshank said in a statement posted to the official CBC website. Anger hardened when the CBC made it clear they were standing by Mallick’s Sept. 5 piece, A Mighty Wind Blows Through the Republican Convention, indicating that it would not remove the rant from its publicly financed website. Last week The Canadian Press stepped in portraying the Mallick controversy as “an ugly onslaught from the U.S. right-wing media and its fans”. The CP seemed to blatantly ignore the angry letters from Canadians who cannot vote in the presidential election. Fox News’ heavy criticism on her “white trash vote” comment brought Mallick back into the foray. Now Mallick was arguing that her comments paled in comparison to the abuse that’s come her way. Mallick claimed to have been the recipient of violent and threatening e-mail, some branding her “an insane Pakistani Muslim” by commentators on Fox message boards and some of which included “anti-Semitic slurs”—despite the fact that she’s neither Jewish nor Muslim. One thing for certain: The “violent and threatening e-mails” were received by CBC and not her personal website which had shut down access to readers. The Toronto-based Mallick admitted to having been shaken by the violence, but took another shot at Republican supporters, saying that the messages had simply served to underscore her point “about the bigotry and small-mindedness of some Republican supporters”. “The responses to my column proved me correct about the extreme right in the United States: they have a great misogynist rage in them,” Mallick said in an interview from Toronto last week. Even then the CBC reiterated that it had no plans to remove Mallick’s article from its website despite the criticism. “She’s an opinion columnist, she expresses here opinion. Her opinions don’t represent the views of CBC in general or CBC News in particular,” said spokesman Jeff Keay. Ironically enough, if CBC officials can be taken at their word, Mallick has inadvertently brought about a welcome sea change: “As a result of the complaints, new editing procedures have been put in place to insure that in the future, work that is not appropriate for our platforms, will not appear,” Mr. Cruickshank wrote. Thank you, Ms. Mallick.