Shameful CTV One-Sided Reporting

Recently, CTV did an 'investigative' journalism on a counselling session at one of Vancouver's crisis pregnancy center. The reporter concerned, pretended to be pregnant and sought 'counselling.' Finally, the whole 'investigative report' compresses the entire investigation into a less than 5 minutes video clip shown on national TV. If you watch the video carefully, note the following:

• Pregnancy Pretense: Controversial ethics in question about falsifying one's identity and bringing in hidden cameras to 'expose' a non-profit organization as if the organization is guilty-until-proven-innocent;
• Why only one point of view? Clearly the report is geared toward casting doubts on the credibility of the crisis pregnancy center.
• Biased reporting: The reporter appears to be bent on hammering the organization that is against abortion.

The MP has raised concerns about such one-sided reporting, which clearly goes against the spirit of fair reporting. In the press release, Maurice Vellacort writes:

“It is CTV’s duty, as a Canadian broadcaster, to treat fairly all sides of a controversial issue,... It is no secret that abortion is a controversial issue. Relying almost exclusively on views espoused by abortion providers and abortion advocacy organizations for a story about pregnancy options is like relying solely on the views espoused by tobacco companies and smokers’ rights groups for a story about whether to take up smoking or not,”

CTV is one of the news stations I regularly tune into. I am beginning to doubt its credibility as a fair news station. This type of 'investigative reporting' that is one-sided, seems to be planted by pro-choice activists to unfairly cast the non-profit crisis pregnancy center into negative light is totally uncalled for. I am disgusted by the lack of transparency on CTV's part with regards to humiliating the workers at the crisis pregnancy center. Come on. The crisis pregnancy center needs to be given sufficient room to present their side of the story. CTV has shamelessly cut and past what CTV wants, promote the short 5-minute clip as if that 5-minutes is ALL that the crisis pregnancy is talking about, and worse, creating hypocrites out of themselves. If CTV is so bent on saying that the crisis pregnancy center concerned is NOT giving women sufficient options, why is CTV not giving normal viewers sufficient options to see BOTH sides of the story. Why not show the full clip of the entire hidden camera footage? Why only the short 5 minutes?

I think CTV owes an explanation to ordinary viewers like me to explain why they are doing what they are doing. The media must not take sides. This investigative reporting appears to show only the Pro-Choice side of the story. Shame on you CTV.

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