I'd like to follow up on the role of ombudsman.
In another life, I was a part-time stringer for CBC, and I often ran afoul of that little book. I never saw the book, but I was always told, “Well this is not how we do things here. There are certain things we don't cover the way the private broadcasters do.” For example, there was a poll that was released by a politician on a very controversial issue. I wanted to run the story, and they said “This isn't a scientific poll. We will not run this.” And I said “This is a big story in the region. The private broadcasters are on there, and we're sitting on the sidelines.” They said “We have a standard that we meet.”
So I'm interested in this standard, because we often hear about how the CBC polices itself. I'll give you an example. Last summer, during the Lebanese invasion, on two consecutive days I received e-mails, one from someone who said that the coverage of CBC was outrageously pro-Israeli, and wanted me to check out a news show. The next day I got an e-mail that said it was outrageously anti-Israeli, and they wanted me to check out a news show.
News is fluid. It's moving all the time. In a controversial issue, how do you pinpoint one broadcast and say whether this one piece was over the line or not? When you're looking at an objective standard to see if someone has breached their role in terms of impartiality, do you look at it in the particular news clip? Do you look at it in a cycle? How is this done in order to maintain a sense of journalistic balance?