What's the deal with outlet that pushed sinophobic "Never Tracked China Agents" story?
Photo Credit: (Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada/Google Images)
Written by: Aidan Jonah
On November 17, Blacklock’s Reporter published a sinophobic story titled “Never Tracked China Agents”.
Blacklock’s Reporter describes itself as an outlet that covers “news you won’t find anywhere else: bills and regulations; reports and committees; Federal Court and public accounts.”
Holly Doan, Blacklock’s Reporter’s publisher, claims that their coverage is “non-partisan”, while denouncing left and right-wing media outlets and urging people to “drop narratives, uncover new facts instead.”
Blacklock’s Background
The outlet’s name was inspired by Thomas Hyland Blacklock, a WWI correspondent for the Montreal Gazette, who became a confidante of imperialist Prime Minister Robert Borden. Borden, who implemented conscription in 1917, forcing tens of thousands of Canadians to fight in a pointless, imperialist war, said “I always held him [Blacklock] in the warmest affection.” Blacklock clearly also had no issue with Borden’s decision to place “enemy aliens” in internment camps during WWI, who were pushed into forced labour and had their possessions stolen by the state.
The 8,579 “enemy aliens” rounded up included Germans, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Hungarians, Italians, Poles, Serbians, Turks, Romanians and Russians. Some of these innocent people were eventually paroled and “allowed to” work for private contractors who needed extra labourers, yet many were interned until 1920, two years after the war.
Even today, the “non-partisan” Doan expressed her appreciation for Liberal Prime Minister Wilfried Laurier.
Under Laurier’s leadership, Canadian troops featured in an imperialist war on foreign soil for the first time, in the Boer War (1899-1902). Laurier continued to perpetrate genocide against Indigenous nations, and refused to make any efforts to close residential schools.
Tom Korski, Managing Editor of Blacklock’s Reporter, has also pushed the false Conservative narrative against CERB that claims many Canadians illegally applied for CERB. In an interview with CKNW radio talk show host Linda Steele, Korski stated, “Your pot smoking friend outsmarted the Canadian Revenue Agency. How many people can say that?” PressProgress released an article on November 21, detailing how the National Post story on “CERB fraud” was certifiably false, and had been quietly removed off the Post’s platforms.
The anti-CERB narrative also pushes the idea that in a global pandemic, means testing is more important than making sure all Canadians have the funds to survive COVID-19.
Blacklock’s Reporter has a history of being lawsuit-happy, with one judge slamming the organization for bringing forward a case which the judge viewed as absolutely unnecessary.
Blacklock’s Reporter has also partnered up with right-wing media conglomerate Postmedia, owned by American hedge-funds. Their writing and research is often featured in various Postmedia-owned platforms, such as the Toronto Sun and the National Post.
Doan, who was CTV’s Beijing Bureau chief from 1995 to 1998, often retweets news articles and columns from right-wing figures such as Andrew Coyne.
Doan often appears on right-wing radio and talk hosts’ shows, including with Charles Adler to “discuss the source of the Wuhan coronavirus”, and with Mark Friesen, whose bio on Periscope reads “Canadian Nationalist Patriot. Nationalism Good, Globalism Bad”.
In 2012, Korski pushed for Chinese outlet Xinhua News to be removed from the Canadian Press Gallery. In a Hill Times op-ed, Korski said “The last thing Canadian journalism needs is ‘reporters’ who freelance as intelligence agents for Beijing.” This year, Korski made paranoid allegations of the spread of “Communist Party of China propaganda in Canada”. Korski called for Canada to institute a similar law to America’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). FARA was instituted in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda. However, since the Cold War, it has been used as a weapon against Communists and left-leaning organizations. In 2017, international news agency RT America was forced by the Department of Justice to register as a “foreign agent” despite a majority American staff. CGTN America was also forced to register as a “foreign agent” in 2019.
In Aaron Mate’s article on the issue, “RT sa[id] it could be forced to hand over the private data of its employees, disclose any contacts with US officials or media, and file its content with the Justice Department within two days of transmission.”
Instituting a similar act in Canada would likely lead to a similar wave of anti-communist hysteria, and targeting of Canadian international and leftist news organizations.
Blacklock’s Reporter and China in 2020
Blacklock’s Reporter has consistently put anti-Chinese narratives in their articles. They repeatedly title these articles with common anti-Chinese sentiments or blatantly false accusations against the country. Examples include: “Demand Ban on Slave Goods”, “China a ‘predatory’ nation”, “Convict labour made masks” and “Never shipped slave goods”. In attempting to be “neutral” and “unbiased”, Blacklock’s Reporter platforms blatant misinformation towards China within their articles as well.
Phrases allowed within articles include “Foreign agents have attempted to infiltrate Chinese-Canadian groups, he said: ‘The ultimate goal is to brainwash.’”, “The Department of Immigration last night said it does not track agents of the Communist Party of China posing as students, tourists and workers in Canada.”, “China is a ‘predatory country’ unfit to join any free trade pact with Canada, Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole yesterday told reporters,” and “The Department of Public Works has acknowledged it cannot be sure masks and other pandemic supplies it contracted in China were not made by forced labour.”
China’s ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, has been repeatedly targeted by Blacklock’s Reporter articles and headlines. The outlet portrays Peiwu as petulant for attempting to contradict the rising sinophobic narratives driven by Canada’s political and media elites.
The most problematic article was released only days ago, titled “Never Tracked China Agents”, is just another piece in Blacklock’s Reporter’s anti-China puzzle. It puts forward the sinophobic notion that Chinese citizens who move to Canada could be “agents of the Communist Party of China.” It plays into the notion of “Yellow Peril” advanced for centuries, in which Chinese citizens are falsely thought to be an imminent danger to Canadian citizens.
This notion has real world consequences, and anyone who pushes said notion is complicit in the spread of rising anti-Asian sentiment in Canada.
Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news site founded in 2019. He has written about Canadian imperialism, federal politics, and left-wing resistance to colonialism across the world. He is a second-year Bachelor of Journalism student at Ryerson University, who was the Head of Communications and Community Engagement for Etobicoke North NDP Candidate Naiima Farah in the 2019 Federal Election.
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