CTV Journalist Kai Nagata has quit his job - and he wants you to know why

Source: Kai Nagata

http://kainagata.com/


Why I quit my job

By: Kai Nagata

Until Thursday, I was CTV's Quebec City Bureau Chief, based at the National Assembly, mostly covering politics. It's a fascinating beat -- the most interesting provincial legislature in Canada, and the stories coming out of there lately have been huge. The near-implosion of the Parti Quebecois has kept the press gallery hopping well into summer. If you're not from Quebec, it's hard to explain the place the National Assembly holds in the popular imagination -- but suffice to say that within francophone journalistic circles it carries more prestige than Parliament Hill. I had the privilege to be working next to several of the sharpest reporters in the country.

The city is beautiful, ancient, and a great place to learn French. As master and commander of my own little outpost, I had significant editorial control over what I covered and how I treated it -- granted, within a recognizable TV news formula. My bosses trusted and encouraged me, my colleagues at the station in Montreal were supportive and fun to work with, and my closest collaborator, cameraman/editor Fred Bissonnette, quickly became a close friend.

I was a full-time employee making good money, with comprehensive benefits and retirement options (I was even lucky enough to be hired before Bell bought CTV and began clawing back some of those expensive perks.) It was what I would qualify as a "great job," especially for a 24-year old. Many of you told me how proud you were of my quick climb. But there was a growing gap between the reporter I played on TV, and the person I really am and want to become. I reached my breaking point suddenly, although when I look back now, the signposts were clear.

Not why I quit my job:

Let me pause for a minute and tell you the reasons for which I did not quit my job. I didn't quit my job because I had a falling out with anyone at CTV or the National Assembly or in my life outside work. And I didn't quit my job because it was too hard. It's true that the position demands responsibility. You have to know what's happening, what's important, and deploy your limited resources accordingly (namely, me and Fred). When I went to bed I turned email notifications off on my Blackberry, but I left the ringer on. After all, when you're the network's only reporter between Montreal and the Maritimes, they have to be able to reach you. But I would say, humbly, that I didn't just meet expectations -- I excelled. In everything I was asked to do, I performed consistently at a level above my experience. We made some good TV. So I didn't quit my job because I felt frustrated or that my career was peaking. I quit my job because the idea burrowed into my mind that, on the long list of things I could be doing, television news is not the best use of my short life. The ends no longer justified the means.

Of television news:

I'm trying to think of the reporters I know who would do their job as volunteers. The people who feel so strongly about the importance and social value of the evening news that, were they were offered somewhere to sleep, three meals a day, and free dry-cleaning -- they would do that for the rest of their days. I'm not saying those people don't exist, but such zeal is scarce. People do the job for all kinds of reasons. A few are raging narcissists. Many have kids to feed and mortgages to pay. Most believe they are fighting the good fight, if indirectly. In my case, I discovered it was something I was good at, I could see the potential to get better, and in the meantime, people were willing to trade me a lot of money to put the other things on hold. But even though I had the disposable income, I never bought a television. I was raised without one, and once I moved out on my own I decided I didn't want one in the house.

TV news is a curious medium. You don't always know whose interests are being served -- or ignored. Although bounded by certain federal regulations, most of what you see in a newscast is actually defined by an internal code -- an editorial tradition handed down from one generation to the next -- but the key is, it's self-enforced. Various industry associations hear complaints and can issue recommendations, or reward exemplary work with prizes. There are also watchdogs with varying degrees of clout. But these entities have no enforcement capacity. Underneath this lies the fact that information is a commodity, and private TV networks are supposed to make money. All stations, publicly funded or not, want to maintain or expand their viewership. This is what I'll call the elephant in the room.

Consider Fox News. What the Murdoch model demonstrated was that facts and truth could be replaced by ideology, with viewership and revenue going up. Simply put, you can tell less truth and make more money. When you have to balance the interests of your shareholders against the interests of the viewers you supposedly serve, the firewall between the boardroom and the newsroom becomes a very important bulwark indeed. CTV, in my experience, maintains high standards in factual accuracy. Its editorial staff is composed of fair-minded critical thinkers. But there is an underlying tension between "what the people want to see" and "the important stories we should be bringing to people." I remember as the latest takeover was all but finalized, Bellmedia executives came to talk about "growing eyeballs" in the "specialty channels." What they meant was, sports are profitable -- so as long they keep raking in cash, we can keep funding under-performing assets like our news division. (The same dynamic exists at the CBC, by the way.)

Certainly it would be a poor move, optics-wise, to make cuts in local news. For some reason job losses and factory closures in the media sector tend to generate a lot of coverage. But at every network, the bean counters are looking at a shrinking, aging audience (fixed incomes are harder to sell to advertisers) and there is intense pressure to keep the numbers up.

Human beings don't always like good nourishment. We seem to love white sugar, and unless we understand why we feel nauseated and disoriented after binging on sweets, we'll just keep going. People like low-nutrition TV, too. And that shapes the internal, self-regulated editorial culture of news.

Take newsroom aesthetics as an example. I admit felt a profound discomfort working in an industry that so casually sexualizes its workforce. Every hiring decision is scrutinized using a skewed, unspoken ratio of talent to attractiveness, where attractiveness often compensates for a glaring lack of other qualifications. The insecurity, self doubt, and body-image issues endured by otherwise confident, intelligent journalists would break your heart. And clearly there's a double standard, a split along gender lines. But in an environment where a lot of top executives are women, what I'm talking about applies to men as well. The idea has taken root that if the people reporting the news look like your family and neighbours, instead of Barbie and Ken, the station will lose viewers.

The problem with the CBC:

Aside from feeling sexually attracted to the people on screen, the target viewer, according to consultants, is also supposed to like easy stories that reinforce beliefs they already hold. This is where the public broadcaster is caught in a tough spot. CBC Television, post-Stursberg, is failing in two ways. Despite modest gains in certain markets, (and bigger gains for reality shows like Dragon's Den and Battle of the Blades) it's still largely failing to broadcast to the public. More damnably, the resulting strategy is now to compete with for-profit networks for the lowest hanging fruit. In this race to the bottom, the less time and money the CBC devotes to enterprise journalism, the less motivation there is for the private networks to maintain credibility by funding their own investigative teams. Even then, "consumer protection" content has largely replaced political accountability.

It's a vicious cycle, and it creates things like the Kate and Will show. Wall-to-wall, breaking-news coverage of a stage-managed, spoon-fed celebrity visit, justified by the couple's symbolic relationship to a former colony, codified in a document most Canadians have never read (and one province has never signed). On a weekend where there was real news happening in Bangkok, Misrata, Athens, Washington, and around the world, what we saw instead was a breathless gaggle of normally credible journalists, gushing in live hit after live hit about how the prince is young and his wife is pretty. And the public broadcaster led the charge.

Aside from being overrun by "Action News" prophets from Iowa, the CBC has another problem: the perception that it's somehow a haven for left-wing subversives. True or not, the CBC was worried enough about its pinko problem to commission an independent audit of its coverage, in which more consultants tried to quantify "left-wing bias" and, presumably using stopwatches, demonstrate that the CBC gives the Conservative government airtime commensurate with the proportion of seats it holds in the House of Commons. Or something like that.

Jon Stewart talks about a "right-wing narrative of victimization," and what it has accomplished in Canada is the near-paralysis of progressive voices in broadcasting. In the States, even Fox News anchor Chris Wallace admitted there is an adversarial struggle afoot -- that, in his view, networks like NBC have a "liberal" bias and Fox is there to tell "the other side of the story." Well, Canada now has its Fox News. Krista Erickson, Brian Lilley, and Ezra Levant each do a wonderful send-up of the TV anchor character. The stodgy, neutral, unbiased broadcaster trope is played for jokes before the Sun News team gleefully rips into its targets. But Canada has no Jon Stewart to unravel their ideology and act as a counterweight. Our satirists are toothless and boring, with the notable exception of Jean-René Dufort. And on the more serious side, we have no Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow. So I don't see any true debate within the media world itself, in the sense of a national, public clash of ideas. The Canadian right wing, if you want to call it that, has had five years to get the gloves off. With a majority Conservative government in power, they're putting on brass knuckles. Meanwhile the left is grasping about in a pair of potholders. The only explanation I can think of is they're too polite, or too scared. If it's the latter, I think it's clear enough why.

Coming out of the closet:

I have serious problems with the direction taken by Canadian policy and politics in the last five years. But as a reporter, I feel like I've been holding my breath. Every question I asked, every Tweet I posted, and even what I said to other journalists and friends had to go through a filter, where my own opinions and values were carefully strained out. Even then I'm not sure I was always successful, but I always knew at the CBC and subsequently at CTV that there were serious consequences for editorial. Within the terms of my employment at CTV, there was a clause in which the corporation (now Bellmedia) literally took ownership of my intellectual property output. If I invented a better mouse trap, they owned the patent. If I wrote a novel, they got a cut. Rhymes on the back of a napkin? Bellmedia is hip to the jive, yo. And if I ever said anything out of line with my position as an "objective" TV reporter, they had grounds to fire me. I had a sinking feeling when I first read that clause, but I signed because I was 23 and I wanted the job. Now I want my opinions back.

I'll say off the bat that my views don't completely mesh with any one political party. I'm not a partisan operative and I never was. Fiscally, I believe a government should be conservative. Caution seems like a good thing in stewarding the public purse. At the same time, I believe we should be taxed according to our capacity and that revenue invested, sometimes massively, in projects for the public good. Under those criteria, I see no sense in buying stealth fighters more than a decade after the Cold War, or building bigger prisons when crime rates are decreasing. If we have that kind of capital to spend, it should go on high-speed rail or renewable energy infrastructure.

On what we call the "social issues," I think a government ought to err on the side of keeping its mouth shut. If a woman needs to get an abortion or a gay couple wants to get married, one minister's opinion shouldn't be relevant. If a theatre festival wants to explore home-grown terrorism or an arm's-length agency criticizes a military ally, there better be a damn good justification for yanking their funding. And when science debunks ideology, reason should be allowed to prevail in determining public policy.

A caution: there are a number of small-c and big-C conservatives that I like a lot. My grandfather, for example. Or any number of federal staffers and MPs. But those blinded by tribal partisanship might not like what I have to say.

Right now, there's a war going on against science in Canada. In order to satisfy a small but powerful political base, the PMO is engaged in a not-so-clandestine operation to dismantle and silence the many credible opponents to the Harper doctrine. Why kill the census? Literally in order to make decisions in the dark, without the relevant data. Hence the prisons. Why de-fund scientific research? Because whole branches of the natural sciences are premised on things like evolution, a theory the minister responsible made it clear he doesn't understand -- and likely doesn't believe in. Why settle for weak platitudes on climate change? Because despite global scientific consensus, elements of the Conservative base don't believe human activity could warm the planet. Centuries of rational thought and academic tradition, dating back to the Renaissance, is being thrown out the window in favour of an ideology that doesn't reflect reality.

Meanwhile, we're wrapping up a real war, one that invites us to take stock of where we stand in the world ten years after it began. When I joined the infantry reserve, I asked about the possibility of volunteering for a peacekeeping mission (a practice this country invented). I was told by the warrant officer I spoke to that with all available resources tied up in Afghanistan, indefinitely, I could forget about wearing a blue beret. One Conservative campaign ad told us Canada is a "courageous warrior," and yet we lost our seat at the UN Security Council. The Canada whose values I thought I was signing up to promote and defend is increasingly unrecognizable from an international vantage point.

We have withdrawn from humanitarian projects because aspects might offend Evangelists back home. We have clung so tightly to our U.S. allies overseas that we figure on lists of terrorism targets where we didn't before. We are deporting people to be tortured and closing our borders to the family members of foreign professionals. We have become, in Mr. Harper's characterization, an island. A sea of troubles lapping at our shores. In other words, we are closing the harbours when we most need to be building bridges.

On climate change, the conclusion I am forced to draw is that the current federal government has completely abdicated its responsibility. The message to my generation is: figure it out yourselves. The dogmatic refusal to accept that people have created this crisis and people must do what they can to avert it reminds me of the flat-earth crew. Except this time, we really are going to sail off the edge. We need to be recruiting international scientists, funding research, stimulating the green economy, legislating disincentives to fossil fuel use, and most importantly, reaching out and building alliances with the countries who are already taking a proactive stance. As an Arctic nation -- a country of inventors, diplomats, and negotiators, we should be taking the lead in brokering global accords that might save the world as we know it. Instead we are closing ourselves off, alienating our neighbours, and looking inward, to our past achievements. In the interests of short-term political gain, and medium-term profits for energy companies, Conservative politicians are abandoning my generation and any that hope to come after.

Meanwhile, the people who are supposed to be holding decision makers to account are instead broadcasting useless tripe, or worse, stories that actively distract from the massive projects we need to be tackling instead of watching TV.

Next steps:

What I need is to better myself spiritually, physically, and intellectually, so I can effect meaningful change in the world around me. I don't know yet where this impulse will take me, but I know I can't go back to working parallel to the real problems, hiding my opinions and yet somehow hoping that one viewer every night might piece together what I wanted to say. I thought if I paid my dues and worked my way up through the ranks, I could maybe reach a position of enough influence and credibility that I could say what I truly feel. I've realized there's no time to wait.

If storytelling turns out to be my true passion and the best use of my skills, then I'll continue down that path. If elder care, academia, agriculture, activism, art, education, Budo, or as-yet unforeseen pursuits turn out to make the flame burn brighter, I'll make the switch, or do them all. I'm willing to work with anyone of any religion or political stripe, if they're sincere about doing what it takes.

Right now I need to undertake a long-delayed journey of personal discovery. Having given away all the possessions that didn't fit into my truck, I've set out on the road again, heading West. I know I need to go home for a while. I need to surround myself with family and friends. I need to consult, meditate, and plan the next steps.

I'm broke, and yet I know I'm rich in love. I'm unemployed and homeless, but I've never been more free.

Everything is possible.

The Plutocracy’s Hidden Agenda on Iran

I am sure you have noticed all the negative attention that Iran has received over the last few years especially now after the recent Iranian election. It’s not hard to see all the hyped up one-sided reporting by, dinosaurs like CNN FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC. These Deep State propaganda machines have been helping their owners push an aggressive agenda against Iran since the 1950’s. Of coarse CNN & FOX were not around then but their current owners sure were.

With any luck, Americans will awaken from this programming and turn off their TV’s before these monsters succeed in brainwashing them into another War…

The USA are not the only country saddled with this type of agenda, in fact Canada, my own Country, has been infiltrated with scumbags that have seized control through the Conservative and Liberal Parties. A dictatorship has arisen in Canada that pushes a false position of the Canadian people…and our media is in collusion with this agenda. The CBC and CTV are controlled by the same corporate and political lobby groups as their counter parts in the USA. In short, our countries have become dictatorships ruled by corporate and political lobby groups that push their agendas through their bought and paid for media.

The media are controlled by interests with very deep pockets and their agenda is total political, economic, and social control of the nation. Those behind the scenes, have an agenda on Iran that has not changed since BP hijacked the Iranian oil fields in the 1920’s! The Oligarchs lost control of the Iranian Oil fields in 1979 when the Shah was deposed. They desperately want Iran's Oil back and will continue in collusion with Israel to dominate the Middle East until they get it. Don’t be fooled into believing what they report because it is nothing but a one-sided smear campaign against the rulers of Iran, initiated by the Plutocracy for control of the oil.

What are the facts?

(01) In 1953, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower overthrew Iran’s Popular Prime Minister Mohammad Massadegh in favor of “Mohammad Reza Pahlavi” Strategic reasons = OIL.

(02) Ever since the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian people tossed out Dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi better know as the Shah in 1979, the US military Industrial complex has been planning their way back into Iran to take their Oil.

(03) Israel has been calling for military strikes on Iran for building a Nuclear reactor that will alleviate Iran’s severe shortage of electrical power.

(04) The CIA has been conducting destabilization plans within Iran for the last two years. Funded with hundreds of millions of dollars that Dick Cheney & George Bush funneled into covert CIA operation programs such as, “The National Endowment for Democracy”.

(05) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is the former President of Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad beat Rafsanjani in the 2005 Iranian Presidential Election. Rafsanjanni was very angry in defeat.

(06) Rafsanjani is associated with the Iranian Business Class (OIL lobby) and is openly hostile to Ahmadinejad.

(07) Rafsanjani supports Mir Housein Mousavi Khameneh the defeated opposition leader in the 2009 Iranian election.

(08) The Western Media have conducted a smear campaign of corruption against Ahmadinejad and favored Mousavi and a westernized Iran.

I ask you, “Why did opposition leader Mousavi claim political victory within 4 hours of the polls closing?” Why does the “twitter defiance” link back to Israel on June 13th? Why is the western media pushing their one sided reporting of a small pro western group as the victims of electoral fraud?

The word on the street is that Israeli mossad assisinated “Neda". Neda is a Farsi word for voice. However, western media claim she was allegedly shot dead by a Basij soldier. Why do you think the media are pushing a one sided story?

Have you thought about this? Did you let them form your opinion? Or did you seek out the truth by researching the last 100 years of history? The sheep always let the TV decide their thoughts. An awakened mind will do research and allow their intellect to form conclusions based on the facts. “OIL has everything to do with one sided propaganda reporting by corporate news and their sponsors.”

WHY!?!

A strengthened Iran is a threat to the Plutocracy’s greedy agenda of total economic control. To them Iran will always be an enemy until the IMF and World Bank have full control of the Iranian monetary system and the Western Military Industrial Complex has full control of Iran’s Oil.

Dick Cheney and George Bush were hell bent on attacking Iran and had met with Israeli officials to plan their attack back in 2007 and 2008. They did not trust the incoming administration as you may recall and decided to leave ALL options on the table. Including military strikes. They decided to fund covert operations to destabilize Iran through programs like “The National Endowment for Democracy” or the “Open Society Institute” chaired by George Soros. Remember George Bush’s speech in December 2007; about a third World War, and mushroom clouds?

I would like to point out that Iran has been a peaceful Country for a very long time. For those that disagree, I would then ask you, “When was the last time Iran invaded another sovereign Country?”

Until recently, Iran had been in a positive light and grew by leaps and bounds in internet popularity especially when compared to Israel. After all, Israel destroyed Gaza and murdered 1,500 people many of them children after a lengthy starvation blockade not seen since the World War 2 Warsaw Ghetto blockade.

Iran grew in popularity with the common people of the Western World and had the US and Israel seething in hatred because U.S. / Israeli plans of domination for the Middle East and the World had been derailed. They were, and continue to be, desperate to regain control of people’s minds through planned information. Israel and the US will stop at nothing to get what they want, and that is why we now see one-sided views of protests in Iran. Notice the signs of the pro western youths were written in English and touted by the MSM as the opinion of the majority of Iranians. These one sided reports were nothing more than a propaganda build up of planned suggestion to take control of a western television audience 's opinion.

Tools of Control:

The once powerful M.S.M. or mainstream media with its pro Israeli propaganda stance has been way laid by the publics thirst for the truth and accuracy in reporting. The catalyst to their end is of their own making. It was the aggressive and brutal attacks by Israel and the USA on the sovereign people of Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine that has woken up the sleeping silent majority called humanity.

More and more people have turned to the Internet for their news and information, and turned away from old dinosaur propaganda Titans like CBC, ABC, NBC, FOX, and CNN because of their glaringly obvious one sided reporting. Over the last 8 years, these mainstream media bigots have become drunk and disorderly rude with anger on their TV entertainment news programs with an agenda to sway populations to their ignorance. They are completely repulsive and lack any kind of morality, truth or respect.

The thirst for truth has logged a whole generation onto the Internet with a desire to investigate information and seek out both sides of a story. Truth seekers ask many questions that are never asked by the mainstream media and it is this line of questioning that un-nerves the Plutocracy in charge of our nations. The search for truth should be viewed as a noble act not as a terrorist ploy. When truth is treated as a crime, we will then be living in a police state. Indeed, that is where we are today.

“The pursuit of Truth is a quest by people that have higher moral standards than the actual class that seeks to silence them.”

Have we not evolved over the last 2000 years? Are we to continue on this road of ruination and repeat the fall of Rome? The quest for power and insatiable greed with immoral reasoning that the Plutocracy has taken will lead to the Fall of Rome but it will echo 10,000 fold as the World falls to systematic planned division and World conquest.

The Western World, lead by the USA and its Israeli lobby, are pushing for control of the Worlds diminishing oil supply. It is OIL that powers growth in an economy and fuels military expansion. Right now, Independent Russia and their Independent allies control a large part of the Worlds Oil, friends that include Iran and Venezuela. The USA is NOT happy with this prospect, and has taken to drawing lines in the sands of the Middle East. We are being subjected to intense propaganda designed to make us choose a side in their pending conflict. The World is in an economic tailspin brought on by the Plutocracy’s insatiable thirst for power, and it is no secret that Israel wants to attack Iran.

If the Plutocracy continues to enforce their will and control over the entire planet, conflict will increase exponentially wherever they try to enforce their dominance. However, the public has become more educated and given rise to revolutionary ideas like peace, morality, and common sense. The Plutocracy fears a public armed with knowledge, especially when their own master plan of absolute control has been exposed.

But it is their fear that we should be most worried about, because fear will make a man do desperate things, and with an arsenal of weapons to cull the perceived threat to them, they will attack first for their lack of a moral conscience. The very few influential people that control the game of life such as, Ted Turned, David Rockefeller, Zbignew Brzezinski, Prince Phillip and others have come out with statements of population reduction as a preferred method of population control.

The Western media have crossed the line and require a massive lesson in common courtesy and respect for the global population.

I say lets choose a different way. Let us start rebuilding community. Offer your hand in friendship to someone, who like you, is only trying to live their life. Let us change the system that governs us. Turn away from mainstream media and television. Get yourself online to communicate with other people around the world. Do your own research to get the information they refuse to show you. Get others involved. Use common sense and reject their fear mongering. All we need is each other to make this World work. We don’t need them. They need us.

Have a great day!

By; Stewart Brennan