Rebel News is Journalism

Still taken from Rebel News Video. Credit: Rebel News

On January 8th News Reporter David Menzies approached Elected Member of Parliament Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and asked her a question about the IRGC. As she moved away from him a man stuck his arm out causing Menzies to bump into it. The man was an undercover Federal Police Officer who then grabbed Menzies and slammed him into a nearby billboard. After he announced that Menzies was under arrest. The video quickly went viral with many condemning what they believed was an excessive response and attack on the free press. Menzies was later released with no charges filed. Rebel News plans to sue.

Leftists Respond Online

The response from the left online was to immediately celebrate the arrest. Rebel News doesn’t hide their bias, they are a right leaning news agency. They don’t take any Government money and they generally tackle social issues that other news agencies handle with soft gloves. This has made them the boogeymen of journalism for the left in Canada. Many on the left don’t believe that Rebel News is real journalism so they don’t deserve the freedom of the press their coveted media sources get.

However I think it is key to note that Rebel News is an equal opportunity reporting agency. They have gone after Conservative Politicians as well and David has been arrested at Conservative events. One story in particular that Rebel broke is when Patrick Brown (Conservative) locked down his city and limited the use of public facilities over COVID while he and his friends enjoyed hockey time at the local arena.

I ended up making a statement on X(twitter) that got a much higher engagement level then I am used too and when it did then came the attacks from the left leaning mob. To summarize some key points they threw at me that I want to talk about in this article:

1. Rebel isn’t real news

2. You don’t have the right to approach the Deputy Prime Minister

3. Ezra Levant( Rebel News Owner) said they aren’t journalists

4. Journalists need to be accredited or have a license and/or a degree

Freedom of the Press in Canada

The Charter of rights and freedoms is a document that has merits and I believe it also has flaws, in the aspect of the freedom of the Press, they tend to get things right.

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

b. freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.

The media also have certain fundamental freedoms, and are free to print and broadcast news and other information. The government can only limit what the media prints for justifiable reasons set out in law. For example, a magazine cannot print slander, which is an untrue statement about a person that may hurt his or her reputation

Section 2(b) of the Charter protects the presenter of the news and the listener of the news from unjust interference from the Government. The Government doesn’t get to decide what constitutes news or not. In the end we are all citizen journalists. If you have a story and a platform to put it onto, congrats you are a journalist. As long as you are not committing slander, libel or making threats your right to be a journalist cannot be infringed in Canada.

This Charter section is, in my opinion, is the most powerful section for holding the powers that be to account. To say that Rebel News isn’t really news is a personal statement, not a statement of fact, Rebel News is as qualified as CBC when it comes to freedom of the Press. Some have argued they are even more transparent since they rely on their listeners to fund them, not the Government. They have an obligation to deliver the content their listeners want because it’s the market that drives success not subsidy.

Members of Parliament are Public Servants

One of the repeated insinuations is that the Deputy Prime Minister is somehow off limits in Canada to be approached by the Media. The media landscape in Canada has changed dramatically over the years. I think it has to do with our faux politeness we present to the world. Media presence is largely an organized routine of gathering around podiums to collect statements from public officials that have been rehearsed and run through their legal and Public Relations firms. Journalists don’t report from the actual scenes often anymore, they assemble in safe areas to receive canned updates from Government Officials that are self serving to the politician. The era of the press charging to a politician, a line of police holding them back as they hurl questions to them seems to be over.

Even investigative journalism has lost its luster as it has become largely a routine matter or hit pieces hoping to get people’s ideological opponents fired from their jobs. Just look at the footage taken from the LA Riots in 1992 and ask yourself if the modern media landscape is conducive to this type of reporting? This journalist was actually in the middle of a firefight and is calmly reporting on it. In recent years it’s independent journalists going into the dangerous situations and legacy news agencies buying (or often times stealing) their footage to broadcast.

One person whom I was talking with on twitter told me that in the modern press scene, ambush journalism is frowned upon and permission has to come from the top to do it. When did this job become so corporatized. What happened to “getting the scoop"? This is why in my opinion these cops don’t know how to handle journalists approaching MP’s on the street, because it doesn’t happen anymore. Instead everyone politely files into a controlled area with the list guy carefully checking who is present for press passes and in many cases the questions are sent in ahead of time so the answers can be vetted. This is how lame our media has become and how controlling our Public Servants have become over it.

So when Rebel and a few other independent media companies have the gall to go off script, everyone throws their hands up in the air and panics or over reacts because it isn’t the game that we’re supposed to play anymore but the Charter doesn’t dictate how reporting is to happen as long as it doesn’t involve illegal acts, libel or slander.

Rebel Says They Aren’t Journalists themselves

This was a common one thrown at me. You can’t take Rebel seriously because they themselves say they aren’t journalists. In Canada one does not need to be labelled a journalist to practice journalism. A journalist is merely a title the act of journalism is something that anyone can do. There is no doubt that Rebel’s reporting is eccentric, David Menzies impersonating the Ontario school teacher that wore ZZ prosthetic breasts to school showcases that there is certainly an entertainment aspect to their reporting but regardless it is still reporting.

Menzies dresses up to prove a point. Credit to Fox News

Rebel is accused of making themselves part of the news story, Gonzo journalism is yet another style of journalism that seems to have faded from the public sphere. It is still journalism and if Rebel wants to fundraise off of their reporting, there is nothing that says they can’t do that. For a leftist society that claims that we need to stop boxing people into labels, Rebel’s detractors seems hell-bent on boxing and labelling behavior that they don’t agree with. They want to imply their own ethical guardrails onto a news agency that reports things that they don’t like or agree with. In the end as long as they don’t break the law or commit slander or libel they really are free to do what they like. People don’t have to like it but it doesn’t disqualify them from practicing journalism.

Gatekeeping Journalism

My final discussion point is how people are very misinformed. In Canada you do not require a license to practice journalism. You do not have to have a four year degree to practice journalism and accreditation is optional. I had to continuously educate people that your right to access and be the free press is baked into the Charter. It’s one of the reasons why there hasn’t been licensing regime. You can’t gate keep the media in that way. There are plenty of cases of people submitting news and getting paid for it from news agencies, they didn’t need a license to collect that news and get paid. Even on this platform I report on my thoughts on social issues, sometimes I get comments from people in the community. I don’t need a license or special permission to do that. Anyone that tells you that Journalism would be better if people had to be licensed is someone who doesn’t value freedom and wants to avoid having critical thinking skills.

A journalism degree doesn’t make someone a qualified journalist. It makes them someone who went to school for four years and may have some experience or knowledge that others don’t. Don’t make the D&D mistake of confusing intelligence with wisdom. A person who went to school for four years may have developed some intelligence around the subject of journalism but it won’t beat the years of wisdom that someone who doesn’t have a degree has just doing the job. Also the aspect of having to have a four year degree to practice journalism in Canada is insulting to people who can’t afford overpriced Universities and is antithetical to a free press.

Press credentials do not make a journalist. That only signifies access level. Rebel News has been blocked from access and even used the Courts to force them to have access when denied to public events. In a private event the event hosts can choose whoever they want to attend but in a public event one would need to have a particularly good reason to deny the press access and it must hold up to the Charter.

Final Thoughts

In closing on this, if people don’t like Rebel News I would suggest they just not listen to them. It is not up to the left to police free speech in Canada but it is up to each of us when we receive news to use our critical thinking skills to determine if we view it as credible or not credible. We shouldn’t be arresting journalists even if they ask questions that make elected MP’s uncomfortable, even if they do ambush journalism. The media industry is saturated in Canada with yes people, we should be glad that there are some people still willing to push the envelope. Credentialism is not a good way to gate keep news because what you believe is real news could also be a lie. Remember these words from Jody Wilson-Raybould about what another Member of Parliament told her:

She was like “if Jody is nervous, we would of course line up all kinds of people to write OpEds saying that what she is doing is proper.” - Evidence JUST (42-1)

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