Yesterday we revealed that Amanda Lang tried to sabotage the journalism of her colleague Kathy Tomlinson. How do we know that? Because, among other things, Lang took to the editorial pages of The Globe and Mail on April 12, 2013 to call Tomlinson’s story a “sideshow“.
CBC employees need to ask for management’s permission before writing for other news organizations. We had information suggesting that Lang never did so, that she broke the rules in order to trash her colleague’s journalism in the pages of a rival news org. So we asked if permission had been requested.
Neither the CBC or Lang answered the question. The CBC did respond with a statement, ignoring most of our questions. In this reply, CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson offered a curious detail:
“…the Globe approached Amanda to write an oped about outsourcing for Report on Business.”
This seemed dubious to us. Why would The Globe solicit a story on outsourcing from Lang? The idea that they did so certainly undercut the idea that Lang was on a mission to sabotage Tomlinson’s story. We didn’t include it in our coverage, and the CBC later complained that we “left out important facts”.
Problem is, it’s not a fact. This statement we received from The Globe and Mail directly contradicts the story put forward by the CBC:
“We have reviewed our records and we can confirm Amanda Lang contacted The Globe to write the outsourcing column we published on April 12, 2013.”
In other words, The Globe and Mail says that it was Lang who solicited The Globe and not, as the CBC explicitly told us, the other way around. And no, as the CBC has since admitted, Lang never did ask for management’s permission to write The Globe piece. From Jennifer McGuire’s blog:
” CBC News had no prior knowledge of Amanda Lang writing the editorial for the Globe and Mail in 2013. That matter was dealt with at the time and Amanda recognized that this was a breach of process.”
The information provided to CANADALAND by the CBC about how Lang behaved outside of her role as a CBC employee cannot be reconciled with the information provided by The Globe and Mail, which begs two questions:
1. Is the CBC lying, or repeating a lie told to them by Amanda Lang, or someone on her behalf? UPDATED
2. Why is the CBC speaking on behalf of Amanda Lang about her dealings with The Globe and Mail? UPDATED
Developing…
UPDATE: Chuck Thompson has admitted that the CBC sent CANADALAND erroneous information. From his tweet:
“I was mistakenly under the impression The Globe had approached Amanda Lang. In fact, the opposite is true; I stand corrected.”
CANADALAND then asked Thompson how he came to that mistaken impression. Thompson did not respond.
