It’s essential to provide the full video to the Canadian People, and let the People decide.
Early Friday morning, I wrote about how CTV News was sharing a shortened clip of the controversial interaction between Chief Allan Adam and the RCMP.
As I noted, very few people watching the video are defending the actions of the second police officer, who tackles Adam and then punches him in the face, leaving Chief Adam bleeding.
However, the short clip shared by CTV News – including by CTV News Executive Producer Rosa Hwang and Evan Solomon, gave the mistaken impression that the takedown occurred a mere 4 seconds after Chief Adam exited his truck.
That obscured the context of the full video, which reveals that the takedown occurred 7 minutes after the interaction started. Additionally, the full video shows Chief Adam acting in a somewhat belligerent manner towards the police, which again provides a very different context to the overall situation.
By sharing the shortened clip, members of the media were showing total disrespect for their audience. Especially in such a divisive time, when tensions are rising on the issue of the police, sharing a shortened clip that obscures the full context is a move designed to inflame tensions and generate more rage.
Shortly after I directly Tweeted about Hwang’s Tweet and wrote an article criticizing the media for sharing a shortened clip, it seems CTV realized their error.
Hwang deleted a Tweet, and posted a link to CTV’s Chief News Anchor Lisa LaFlamme sharing the full video:
“I deleted the previous tweet to this thread because it did not link to the full video as some asked for. So, here it is. Runs just under 12 minutes. #RCMP”
I deleted the previous tweet to this thread because it did not link to the full video as some asked for. So, here it is. Runs just under 12 minutes. #RCMP https://t.co/PI9KNNd50T
— Rosa Hwang (@journorosa) June 12, 2020
“Here is the entire RCMP dash-cam footage of Chief Allan Adam confrontation.”
Here is the entire RCMP dash-cam footage of Chief Allan Adam confrontation. https://t.co/c72sOzAjfz
— Lisa LaFlamme (@LisaLaFlammeCTV) June 12, 2020
This is the Tweet Hwang deleted:
It’s good that CTV made this clarification, and it’s in large part because of people like us – Truth Tellers – who pushed back against a manipulative media narrative.
Notably, CTV made those clarifications around 2:00 am, a time when they usually aren’t Tweeting. This means they were noticing the criticism and realized a big mistake was made.
This isn’t about defending everything the police do. The police wield immense power, and that power must come with an equal amount of responsibility and accountability.
But that accountability can’t be effective if the media is trying to stoke anger by releasing partial clips of police interactions.
We need to trust the wisdom of the Canadian People and let the People decide.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – Twitter
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