Why CBC refused to call 9/11 a terrorist attack in leaked memo

0:00Support comes from wise, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the world. Your life is global, your money should be too. Some providers promise no fees on overseas transfers. Don't be fooled. Extra costs often hide in bloated exchange rates. Choose wise. You can send, spend and receive money in over 40 currencies. Count on the exchange rates that you'd usually see on Google. That's how millions save billions on hidden fees. Be smart, get wise, visit wise.com, season C's apply. Welcome to Full Press, a media criticism podcast here at the hub where listeners and viewers can escape the mainstream media echo chambers for precious 35 minutes every two weeks. I'm Harrison Lohman, managing editor of the hub. What do we have on the docket today? CBC emphasizes then retracts an internal directive that has their journalists not calling 9-11 a terrorist attack. Why was that rule in the first place? Who told them to retract it? We'll get into that. Second, our journalists taking the politician bait when they do wall-to-wall coverage of Lake

1:04America. Also, who's telling the truth when it comes to why trade talks broke down between Canada and the US? We'll touch on that. And NDP leader Avi Lewis came to this studio here at the hub face-to-face with me to have a challenging but delightful interview. Why we think socialists should do center-right media. As always, I'm joined by my two co-hosts. First of all, I'll start with Sabrina, who's pinch hitting again for us with Tara being away on a remote island without internet connection apparently. We have Sabrina Maddo associate VP of comms at global public affairs, political columnist whose work has been found here at the hub at the national post, the Globe Toronto Star, etc., etc. And as always, Peter Menzies right there on the screen, the dependable Peter. Okay, I want to start off with something that made major news last week. The tie-right over CBC terrorism. No, I'm not saying that there's terrorist, the CBC. But CBC

2:05long-standing rule, they said after all, after the Rua Ha, CBC news finds itself once again in a swirl of confusion, I think the confusion is of their own making. A leaked memo went around in the lead up to the 25th anniversary of 9-11, which is in a few days, to reporters and editors across the country saying, hey, do not refer to the attacks that claimed 3,000 lives in some 25 Canadian lives. As terrorist attacks, they should be hijackings that led to passenger crashes. You should let institutions, government officials, authorities, etc., experts and politicians say that they were terrorist attacks. I'm going to start with Peter. Peter, when you saw this happen, what went through your mind? I thought, oh boy, that's going to be trouble by doing that. I mean, there's sort of three, two or three issues. One is the policy itself. The other is the application of the policy. And the last one, which I think not enough attention has been paid to, is did the CBC fold under political pressure? Who sent an email to who?

3:12I think that's an important issue because whether the policy was a good one or a bad one, I think it was a bad one in terms of its pedantic application. It should be the CBC's call to make in terms of that. But I think to the extent that, I'll just say this, to the extent that the attempt might have been with the policy to ensure objectivity in news, I sympathize with that. Because it can be tricky with a term like terrorism. Nelson Mandela was on a US terrorism watch list until shortly before his 90th birthday in 2008. You know, there's lots of one man's, you know, the old phrase one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. And that sort of stuff. And I can think of at least one person at CBC who would happily use the term terrorist to apply to the Israel, Israel defense forces. And use freedom fighter to apply to Gaza. So you have to have some guidelines. But you also have

4:13at the search for objectivity, you need to have a belief in such a thing as objective truth. And the objective truth is that the attacks on New York, Washington, and elsewhere on September the 11th, 2001 were clearly terrorism acts. So yes, the lack of having any flexibility and being into able to allow apply objective truth to the policy is a real failure of the policy. The editor-in-chief, Privary Leise said, Brody Fenland, that there's fear of these terms being loaded with meeting, politics, and emotion. But I don't think people understood this or saw this Sabrina at the very bottom of the guidance package. It says, use common sense. I think that's what is missing here. Like when we look at what we've talked about in the show many times, the gap between like the CBC's understanding of, you know, what's up for debate in Canadian

5:14society versus like what is settled. And I think it's fair to say like when it comes to 9-11, things are settled here, right? 100%. This was a policy that has been longstanding for them. I'm in applies to all situations, not just 9-11 again, because of like Peter said, that fear that there could be, and it, well, a maybe attack somewhere or an incident. People don't know what it is yet. And then you have someone publishing something saying something's a terrorist attack or terrorism. And then later it turns out that's not the case. But in the case of 9-11, we know it was terrorism. There is no argument about that. So this is a lack of common sense. And the self-inflicted wound. And my first reaction was what a time for this to come out in the middle of everything going on with the US and trade negotiations are now the lack of trade negotiations. And the fact that this became really an international incident does no favors to the CBC. But for me, it's a symptom of the massive

6:19bureaucracy there. This is what you see at large organizations that don't have any sort of like mechanism for introspection. And there's a lot of group think and there's not a lot of questioning of, are we doing this in a way that makes sense to our audience in the broader public? And then you end up with policies like this that just carry on. No one questions them until something breaks as it did in the scenario. Well, yeah, it's one thing to have a discussion about this in the faculty lounge or in the upper echelons of CBC HQ steps away from here at the hub. It's another thing. There are no there's no debate about this in the public. I tried to find a poll in terms of, you know, do you consider 9-11 a terrorism attack? In the Western world, this poll does not exist. I could not even find it. You talk about a becoming international incident, the FBI director, Cash Patel. He's a character, right? But we gave them this on a silver platter in terms of fodder for them to come after Canada. Any agency in Canada, he says that doesn't publicly reject this bastardization of history and an insult to the soul's lost during our largest terrorist

7:21attack in US history will no longer have a friend in the FBI. Pete Hoagstra, our American bastard comes out failure to recognize and confront radical terrorist ideologies significantly in dangers are efforts to establish and harmonize a shared national and economic security partnership. Republicans, Peter, have now revoked CBC's press access to its midterm convention. There are consequences here. The Canadian government comes back and I'll get to your understanding here of like how this plays out behind closed doors, but public safety minister comes out. This is the deadliest terrorist attack in history. We've always recognized it as so he says in the government side of things. Ceasus, we never hear from Ceasus. There's a spies for God's sake. They start piping up and saying stuff. The heritage minister, Mark Miller, I've never heard him use language this harshly when it comes to CBC. Pidentic and foolish guidance that caused legitimate anger. And then CBC reverses its guidance. After reviewing the current language, they're changing things. They say we never said it was not terrorism. Anyway, how does that play a Peter behind closed

8:25doors in terms of that happening? We've told people repeatedly here there's no red telephone in Carney's office that links up to the head of the CBC. But there is, you know, there are things that happen behind the scenes. What was going on behind the scenes? Do you think from your standpoint? Well, I think the first thing was Patel and Hokstra. Hokstra followed up just in case people didn't get what Patel was saying is that Canada's security is heavily dependent on US intelligence. And that's the point that Patel was making. That if you guys actually think this wasn't terrorism, we're not sure you guys are actually trustworthy partners. We're not actually sure. I mean, this was all implied. But I thought was pretty clear if you could read Teelies at all, we're going to cut you guys off. You know, you read news stories all the time about potential terrorists acts in Canada and you'll see a line that says the RCMP was tipped off by the FBI. Because they read the internet. They read your emails, you know, not specifically. But if there's

9:30something in your emails that becomes suspicious, they will start tracking and they can do that more so they could do that traditionally in the States. I'm not sure exactly where it stands right now, but because of the Patriot Act, which we don't do in this country. So we're heavily dependent on them. So Ceasus was right out the gate sort of like, dude, dude, dude, we believe it was terrorism. You know, like it's okay. It's okay. I calm down. That sort of thing. And then public safety follows up. And then Miller with a very strong statement after CBC had had had reversed its course. So you have all of that. So it was a reminder from the US very clear that without us, you guys are in trouble. And a concession, I thought very clearly on the Canadian side that, yeah, you're right. In terms of that. Now, then the next big issue is whether the CBC took political direction from the government to change its policy. So even if it's a dumb policy, it's the CBC should be the CBCs to make and defend or amend as it sees fit. But I would like to see a little bit of transparency on

10:37this and see whether the CBC has something to say about who spoke to who if anybody, because there's a lot of raised eyebrows about this. And it's the one part of the story that isn't being chased. And they're very unpleased when you make those connections. I myself have faced some anger from them when you infer that they're understanding. I can understand that they would be. But I mean, there's like Keith Boggs tweets and that sort of stuff. There's, you know, from retired CBC journalists, there is a sense that, you know, something isn't right. Okay, so let's get into that. I will say as well that we don't know Warren Cancella broke this story at the Toronto Sun. This is a long-standing policy that CBC folks said have been in place since the Mandela years. You mentioned Mandela. And it's interesting. Obviously, maximum impact. This thing is fed to Warren Cancella right before 9-11 in the midst of the trade talks. It could not be, this may be the worst, like, you talk about it being an international incident, but one of the worst

11:39controversies the CBC has had in my lifetime. Like, it is just brutal the timing. You talk about Keith Boggs. He worked for the CBC for 36 years, Peter. I wonder if you ever crossed paths with him, but he comes out, because, you know, not many people are defending the CBC here, but he comes out. It says CBC's capitulation and the face of criticism that's carefully considered policy on whether journalists should make judgments about contentious issues is cowardly pandering. But Peter, I want to go to you, because, you know, one thing we've done in this show is talked about how whether directly or indirectly through who they talked or don't talk to. Like, we can talk about the terrorism issue, but like, CBC makes, puts forward opinions about contentious issues through the reporting every day, whether it's about trans stuff, whether it's about opioid abuse, whether it's about immigration levels, all these things. So again, I just bring things back to it. It's very interesting how like, the terrorism stuff is up for debate in terms of the different shades of that.

12:41But then when it comes to these contentious issues domestically in Canada, we've basically had things decided you don't really need to debate these things and, and, and, you know, platforms, certain voices. Am I, am I onto something here? Or am I barking up the wrong tree? Yeah, you are, because there's the, there's the assumed varieties of the day and the, the problematic varieties of the day, then they can be in conflict when you do those, those policies. So there's some things that are assumed to be true. You know, it comes to the trans issue. I think it's very, very clear in CBC coverage that trans women are women. But then when it comes to the 9-11, it's not clear that it's terrorism. I mean, that's where organizations are going to go through this sort of stuff, right? I mean, they may, that might not be a written policy and if I overstated it, you know, I'm happy to take that back. But, but at the same time, there are assumed narratives that you see repeated. And you see

13:42them repeated in any news organization. Like I said, you need common sense and you need leadership, proper leadership, adult supervision, as I like to call it, in terms of that. So in this case, you know, the idea to send the memo out in advance of the 25th anniversary for heaven's sake, right? It's kind of like, did you not think that might get leaked? Because there are people who work at the CBC who obviously do not agree with that policy and would leak it and that's itself. And why would you do it? Why would you just resend it out? Right? What's the point of doing that? It's a part of the policy. You've got editors all over the place and producers to apply it and probably nobody would have known. So one of the things in his tweet, Sabrina Keith Boag talks about like, you know, once you start naming 9-11 a terrorist attack, then it's a slippery slope where you have to name, you know, what the ANC took part in in South Africa. Hiroshima,

14:44Nagasaki. I'm trying to remember some of the other terms he mentions there. But like lumping those things together, like is that fair? Like creating like a moral equivalency between these various acts he talks about Israel and Palestine. I don't know. I think, I don't know. Tara hates this term and she's not here. So maybe I'll use it with you. Like some of this requires a sort of like moral clarity. It's become a buzzword on the left and it's been a reaction to objectivity. But maybe let's use it ourselves here to perform what people, which is like, I don't know. It's almost like people say like, you know pornography when you see it. People know what terrorism is. The average person on the street, if pulled, I think you would see majority numbers swinging in certain directions. Like, am I getting at anything here, Sabrina, when it comes to like, we know what some of these things are. Yes, some of this is up for discussion. There's nuances here. But like, you know it when you see it. Well, I would say it's more critical thinking in this case,

15:45right? The ability to judge, okay, this is something that there is not debate. This is fact. This is objective. This is what this is. And situations that have still debate or more nuance and complexity to them. For me, the issue of the CBC comes down again to its bubble-like nature where still they're very insular, same upper management, same teams who have been there for a very long time, all located in Toronto and Ottawa, very resistant to any sort of outside criticism. Or, you know, any sort of outside accountability. And until that changes, like, this is a systemic, like, structural issue there more than anything else, rather than like individual morals or anything, that needs to change. And that's something that I think has to come through the government and a reform of their mandate. And until that happens, I think we're going to keep seeing blunders like this occur over and over again. And the other thing is the level of transparency

16:46and accountability on who, where does the backstop? Whether it's this decision or others, there was that controversy earlier this year about the prank show, supposedly, that was supposed to be funny, but was targeting conservatives. And then they had to walk that back, I believe, it's canceled now. But then who greenlit that, right? What was the decision making process there? We never did find out. And who decided ultimately to, once again, send out this policy, who's in charge of reviewing the policies every single year, there's just no light in, you know, that darkness that is the CBC decision making machine. And especially when you're funded by taxpayer dollars, there does need to be more transparency. So that when things happen, there is accountability. And then there's a path to making sure this doesn't happen again. If no one is responsible, then the wheels just keep on turning. Not only Peter, did they do the thing we hate when they put out a notice, which is don't take responsibility for any errors or admit any faults. But in the,

17:49like, a poll, I don't know what you want to call it, notice they put out retracting or changing the rule. They don't say that 9-11 was terrorism. Like they say you can now kind of call it, but they literally don't even do the thing, which is revealing. Even though I will say like I was reading all transcripts in CNN, Ben Laden was happy to say that he was a terrorism terrorist. He was happy to do that. But Peter, where does the buck stop? Like is okay. So we look at the Canadian press style guide. And it says after September 11, 2001, attacks almost everywhere, almost everyone accepted that slamming hijack passenger jets into office towers was terrorism. A piece says, you know, use terrorism. Don't use the phrase terrorist except when talking about historical events widely acknowledged as terrorist actions. So they've corrected things here. And I'm wondering if that was responding to blowback. But in terms of the CBC correction made, but skulls rolling, like does anyone face any consequences here? Is it just the reputation of our national public broadcaster that again takes a hit? It's more people turning off. But like no, I don't know, not wrestling with

18:55with the problem and no consequences after the fact. I feel like I've asked you this question many times over through. Yeah, the trick is this trick with this is all cultural. Every time, well, I won't say every time, but frequently when there are controversies at the CBC people ask, well, who's responsible for this? And the board will say, hey, no, we don't interfere in news at all. We don't we don't we don't we don't interfere at knows. And the president will say she doesn't interfere with with with news at all. And and senior news management will say they don't interfere at news at all, which makes we always wonder who the hell is running the place, right? Like I mean, if there's is there any leadership there at all, but possibly, you know, confessing to having made a mistake would be damaging to one's career. So I get that that sort of thing happens, but it's typically wrong with something wrong with the culture. And I think that the fact that CBC struggles for at least television ratings and that sort of stuff is that is that one of the jobs

19:56in media and this goes to this whole thing is you need to make sure that at the end of the day, you were speaking to people in a voice which they find familiar. If you are talking, you know, faculty lounge language to, you know, Martha and Henry, who are just trying to feed the kids and keep their job and keep ahead of inflation and that sort of stuff, you are disconnecting. And if you want to have, you know, no matter how complex some of these issues are, high, you know, moral preaching about the difficulty of using a word like terrorism, you know, I mean, you go down to your Tim Hortons or your neighborhood pub and start talking like that and people will look at you as if you're crazy. Not that you should talk politics and Tim Hortons or neighborhood pub anyway. But that's the best place to talk politics. Peter, I would just say this, reporters, we want them to be objective. But again, yeah, there's just truths we know to be true. Clark Hoyt in the New York Times in 2008 saying, in calling someone a

20:58terrorist, you're saying in effect, they're an enemy to all civilized people. And I hope we understand, you know, who those folks are. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9-11 is up for trial in June, 2028. And I hope that when reporters report on that here in Canada, we say, forcefully that that person is a terrorist. Okay, I want to move on here to block two, taking the bait. Sabrina, I'll get your take here. There's a lot of media oxygen sucked up by the trade talks and the antics go moving back and forth, people calling each other clowns, the political stunts, Trump coming in and renaming, renaming. I mean, your finger is getting in there. Lake Ontario, Lake America. I'm going to put up a photo here if you just want to put this up, Daphne. This is the front page of the Toronto star a few days ago, Lake Ontario, forever. And then we heard I think Blue Rodeo scream out Lake Ontario with their lyrics here at Bud stage very loudly with

22:00thousands cheering on. And then we saw ABC do a hit with Doug Ford after he made a Lake Ontario forever sign, massive sign in the shore of Ontario. And they do a live hit with them. Tons of streeters, power and politics goes on. We hound all these various different companies who are still using Google maps because they are maps apparently now show Lake, Lake America. Are the media giving the politicians what they what they want? Are politicians giving media what they want? Or is it both? I'd say both. I mean, obviously, the Canadian public is following this incredibly closely and is very emotional about this. You look at the Blue Rodeo show and the Lake Ontario line and the crowd going wild for that. So people are connected to this and when we talk about outlets, you know, speaking in a language that their readers and the general public understand this does get people's attention more than some of the, you know, more complex, nitty gritty about the actual, you know, tariffs and this percentage versus that and that industry

23:04in that sector. This is something everyone can understand. However, I do think that it's important that outlets do certainly provide, you know, more in-depth coverage of the actual implications here. And I do think a lot of what I have seen has been very surface. He said, he said, he said, he said, on both sides of the border and a lot of the political drama, rather than really getting into that analysis of what this means, what the paths forward are and looking at the, you know, real economic implications here and not just for, you know, the big automakers and not just mass layoffs, but, you know, what about, for example, workers, young workers who already are dealing with long-term unemployment. I haven't seen a lot of coverage about policy solutions for them. So looking at different angles and not just what side, in a presser. Peter, is this not giving the people what they want? We just talked about needing to speak to the people. Do the people want this?

24:05Are we actually giving them information they need to go about their daily lives and to form opinions around the trade war? Or is all, is all of this just theatrics? Well, I think there's, I think there's a lot more useful information you could give people than, than the, the, the emotional, look, Trump is a, but Trump is a, but Trump is a high-end troller, right? And he knows what he's doing, right? I mean, exactly doing it. And we take the bait every time. I mean, who cares you not Peter? How can you not? How can you? Well, I'm not as close to Lake Ontario as you are. So I get that. Yes, but it's, this is the lake effect. It's the effect of us carrying so much with the lake. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they could, I mean, waterton lake just soth of here, goes across the border too, and they haven't changed the southern, no, southern part of that to Lake America yet. I find it honestly like to see it as, I know that people care and I know they're insulted, right? So, sorry, I'm losing my voice. So I can, I can sympathize with that. But at the same time to sort of

25:11whip people into an emotional state, and when you're in an emotional state, you don't always make the best decisions. So we need to have some level of context for this event. And to me, you know, I mean, I don't want to insult anybody. To me, it shows a lack of confidence. I couldn't care less what Donald Trump's call something, right? We are our own country, our own culture. It's what we call things that matters. We can call the Grand Banks, the Sea of Newfoundland if we want. And I don't care what anybody else calls it, because we're our own country. And we call our own things. And it really doesn't, you know, if somebody else wants to be goof about it, calling things other names, I don't really care. So I think there's a certain responsibility on the part of media to A, match people's interest in terms of that, but also try to keep a little context to things, and be reassuring in the sense that, you know, he just renamed a link. They're not

26:13tanks rolling across the bridges. We are a visual medium. We love sound bites. And again, we've talked about this before, you want to know who just recovered from his pole slump over the last few weeks? Mr. Ford, who spends a quarter of his time on American news channels, pumping his fists in the air. So it seems to be working. Well, working for him. I'm not sure that it's working for the public at large. You can get people jacked up. It definitely works for you. If you get, if you can throw gasoline on every fire, you find. Okay, I have the most important question to ask Sabrina here, because I don't know if she's made sense of the last two days. And I don't know how reporters, journalists, commentators can parse what took place in a closed room in Washington a few days when it comes to the breakdown of those trade talks in Canada walking out is how are to loud? Nick, responsible. Our medium to heavy-duty trucks responsible is the French

27:16language responsible, you know, them influencing trade deals that we'd have with other countries in the future, supply management, Doug Ford protecting the audio industry. Sabrina, what the heck is the answer to this? How do you report on something that you when you don't have really anything to report on it? And it's he said, she said, they said, what the heck? Yeah, there will never be a definitive answer to what happened because our side is going to continue to say one thing. The U.S. side is going to oppose that and say other things, both are pointing fingers, calling each other liars. And there really is no way for anyone who wasn't actually in those rooms to verify what happened. So of course, there's like that intrigue and the initial reporting on what happened and people want to know at this stage, like, honestly, it doesn't matter anymore. What happens, what matters is that negotiations aren't happening right now. We have devastating tariffs that are going to kick in. If negotiations don't resume and the focus does need to be on policy, and then also how we're supporting people through this, right? The palace intrigue and gossip,

28:22there was some space for that, but that's not the real story here and that is distracting. I mean, even when we're talking about the lakeside, right? The story isn't just like the photo of the lakeside in and of itself. Let's talk about, okay, so taxpayer dollars paid for that sign could those have gone to something more useful considering the crisis that we're in? Same with all the advertising that the forward government has done over the airwaves in the last year, huge, huge budgets there. And then when you look at, okay, these companies still have like Americans, like Ontario on their websites, that speaks to digital sovereignty. And maybe this is, you know, a bit more of a silly issue, but there could be really implications there in the future. And I'd like to see more analysis on that. And I think that's missing in coverage. Peter, in terms of coverage, the New York Times, I think, did a pretty decent job, which again sucks because we're relying on an American outlet to tell us how our trade talks broke down in terms of giving the different sides to what happened and a play by play of what

29:22what happened there. But at the same time, I finished reading it and like it could all be not, you know, the word isn't untrue, but like you're just relying, again, as Sabrina said, on like the gossip of people who are there and hell, maybe not even people there, but the, you know, the assistant secretary who is in the back fiddling with her pen. Like, how do you navigate this as journalists when there's just a black hole in terms of what the hell happened a few days ago? It's pretty tricky because I mean, as any police officer, we'll tell you everybody has a different story as to just what happened. You can, you can gather a crowd around a, you know, a car accident or, you know, some violent behavior in that. And you'll get one person will tell you that the perpetrator was five foot six and blonde and another person will tell you that they thought they were a red head in about six feet tall. Everybody has walks away with different perceptions from these things. I really liked the New York Times piece because it was written in a calm, reasonable voice that just went through. And it was, you know, he said, he said, she said, she said, in terms of that, but it gave you, you know,

30:27the perceptions of both sides. And often in negotiations of any kind, your conversations we even have, you know, with, in our own relationships, you know, you can say something and somebody else interprets it. So what I'm hearing you say is that you hate me. No, no, I'm trying to say, I love you. No, no, you, but I heard you say you hate me and everything goes sideways from there, right? But, but, but those are, those are sort of natural human foibles. So the journalist job is to just try to get as much balance and place that sort of context around things as possible. Because we could get, you know, a copy of what they agreed to. And we would still get different interpretations as to what it means. Well, this is the thing. It's very important. The emphasis we put on things because there are political currents running through this whole thing. It is within the interest of the Carnegie government to emphasize highlight and make the headline the fact that they were about to steal our sovereignty through affecting these future trade negotiations. It is within the interest of the Trump administration to say like, hey, at the last minute they came in

31:32and screwed everything up by demanding, you know, various things around the manufacturing of automotive, et cetera. So like it's all, yeah, like it's not just like what was on the table. It's like the emphasis put on various things and not, not feeding into the political narratives of various parties. Sabrina, anything else you'd add on this in terms of like what takes place over the next few days? There's going to be back to our negotiations. I assume they're going to come back to the table. And again, how do you like report on that when we don't know what is even going on? Let alone, apparently industry associations are not being updated on this thing. There's a very small handful of people that actually know what's going on. Sorry, go ahead. Of course, it's a good reminder in general that when dealing with political sources, especially if people are choosing to be anonymous, to always think about the ulterior motives. I mean, so often we see it in political coverage these days. So-and-so sore said, they're not named. Even if they are named or there's a leak, like what is the bigger motive in picture here, rather than just reporting

32:34because someone said something and they're in a position of power that therefore it must be true. Okay. Yeah. Politicians have been known to have a shaky relationship with the truth. Really? Oh my gosh. I didn't know. Imagine. Okay. I'm going to end with this and I'll get your guys take on this because after six months of chasing him, Avi Lewis sat in this chair across from me, new leader of the federal NDP and was a real sport. And he came on the hub to in some way defend his ideas and also I guess persuade some folks to come back on the orange side, the NDP's lost a fair amount of worker voters to the conservatives in the last few years. I can tell you from behind the scenes they weren't fussy at all in terms of what I asked him. Everything was on the table. And I think I told him this afterwards. I think he's probably the best communicator of the three major party leaders. Got feisty at points, but he was also a very

33:34good sport. I'm wondering, yeah, I guess what you guys made of the interview, feel free to say I was shit. But also this idea that we put forward that like it's such a real, it's such a breath of fresh air to see political leaders like go on television, go on media places where they, might disagree, but like to forcefully defend their ideas to allow them to be challenged. And then like practice the forgotten art of persuasion in terms of bringing voters onto your side, rather just leaning back and allowing your brace to embrace you, your base to embrace you. Peter, what do you think? I thought it was great. I thought it was I think we need to see a lot more interchanges like that. There's a lot of segmentation silos silos in media these days where people could go in. And I think credit to you, a little bouquet to yourself, Harrison. I mean, you can have these conversations without attacking somebody. You can keep it to ideas.

34:37And I think in an age where we're dehumanizing each other constantly online and in other political venues, it's important to just have conversations. You don't have to agree with everybody, but you don't have to people don't have to be attacking each other and calling each other names. And that's sort of stuff. And I think it's really useful to have forums like that, like you've got mostly conservative viewers where they can listen to the guy and they can disagree with them, but at least they at least they heard him out. Right? And yeah, I'm more, please read and listen widely, I say, to even publications who disagree with even if it means, you know, a vein is pumping in your forehead right here. Sabrina, any final comments on, you know, listening and reading widely? Yeah, do more of it. This shouldn't be as rare as it is. So a kudos to him for coming on. And I think leaders across the political spectrum should get back in the habit of doing media that

35:41isn't just the media that agrees with them and is cheering them on. And then at the same time, also I'm going to echo Peter of bouquet to you in the hub, because a lot of outlets are just playing into their own silos more and more these days as well, where they wouldn't extend that interview request. Or if they did include someone, it would be in a more, you know, negative fashion or with the goal of just feeding into what their audience wants, which is to attack or criticize that figure. So on both sides, I think there needs to be more openness to conversations and not just feeding the audience, you know, below is common denominator of what they already want. And that will help our political discourse and also our media environment as well. Let's jump in the water. Okay, thank you, you two for your very kind words. Thank you for joining us again, Sabrina, Penn Shedding. It's been a real pleasure and we'll see everyone again in two weeks. All the best.

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