What is ‘Honest Reporting Canada’?
In the first issue of my newsletter, I gave a general overview of what the Israel lobby is, how it influences Canadian media and what you can expect from my project going forward. If you haven’t read it yet, or signed up after it was sent out (welcome!), please check it out now.
In that newsletter, I mentioned a few groups I consider to be part of the Israel lobby in Canada, meaning that they “count among [their] main purposes (or even [their] sole or primary one) defending Israel, often through pushing for changes to government policies and media coverage in Canada that benefits the Israeli government.” One of these groups, which I’ll focus on in this newsletter, is Honest Reporting Canada (HRC). The organization says that it’s dedicated to “promoting fairness and accuracy in Canadian media coverage of Israel and the Middle East.” (The featured image for this issue is taken from their website.)
Because they are, to my knowledge, the only group whose main purpose is monitoring media coverage (though many others do it as well), they’ll be particularly important in this newsletter. So, I want to tell you a bit more about them. (I’ll be quoting at points from an article I wrote in 2020.)
HRC was founded in 2003. There are other groups with the same name and similar purposes in other countries, but HRC claims to be independent from them. I outlined the way they operate in detail in the past issue, so please read that now if you haven’t. But, to sum it up again, here’s what they do: HRC staff and subscribers to their mailing list (they claim to have more than 50,000) scan Canadian media for coverage related to Israel that they believe is inaccurate or biased. When they find examples, HRC staff “work to get corrections, retractions, apologies or the chance to have favourable rebuttals published, by leaning on relationships with compliant journalists or using their email list to flood targets with complaints.” Their website currently notes that they’ve achieved “corrections” at more than 75 outlets.
HRC boasts of some high-profile endorsements, including Alan Baker, one of Israel’s former ambassadors to Canada. Baker notes that his endorsement was written while his time in the position was “drawing to a close,” meaning he was still the ambassador at that point (around 2008.) Baker writes, “As an organization dedicated exclusively to ensuring fair and accurate media coverage of Israel, you are a significant and vital element in this regard.” He adds that HRC’s “contribution as an organization that is publicly confronting media bias against Israel has been invaluable.”
The group also lists an endorsement from Yoram Elron, a former consul general of Israel in Montreal. Elron writes, “Honest Reporting Canada is an invaluable ally in the war against disinformation in the mainstream media. [...] I applaud HRC for its courageous work in educating the public and in making Canadian news outlets accountable for their reporting on Israel and the region.”
Another endorsement comes from former CanWest president and CEO, Leonard Asper. At one time, CanWest owned the following newspapers, among others: National Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Regina Leader Post, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province, Victoria Times Colonist and the Windsor Star. This gives you a sense of just how intertwined some influential higher ups at Canadian media outlets have been with Israel lobby groups. (Most CanWest newspapers were sold to Postmedia in 2010.)
HRC is also well-funded. Their donation page currently offers the following suggested contribution levels:
“Supporter” - $50
“Donor” - $100
“Contributor: Underwrite one month of research” - $250
“Sponsor: Underwrite an email communique” - $500
“Benefactor: Underwrite an HRC Special Report” - $1,000
“Patron: Sponsor an HRC Insider Briefing webinar” - $5,000
“Partner: Ensure vital projects are realized” - $10,000
Toward the end of 2021, they ran a campaign for donations. Emails mentioning the campaign noted, “Thanks to the incredible generosity of some HRC benefactors, your donation will be matched, dollar for dollar up to $125,000.”
I was not able to find a post noting if they achieved this goal or not. However, in a November 14 email they noted that they were 20 per cent there, meaning they’d raised about $25,000 at that point (which would be doubled due to the benefactors they mention.) Their revenue in 2020, meanwhile, was $186,650 ($117,743 from donations, and $69,100 from other charities.)
HRC was launched as a non-profit. However, in late 2019 they were also able to achieve charity status (under the name “HR Canada Charitable Organization”), meaning donations to the group are tax-deductible.
Their 2020 tax page notes their programs are the following: “To advance education by: 1. developing and delivering courses, lectures and workshops to the general public that address the issues of religious, racial, ethnic and/or cultural and linguistic intolerances, discrimination and prejudices; 2. conducting and compiling data, as well as short and long term media analysis surveys, about racism, anti--semitism and discriminations to increase understanding and awareness about the importance of unbiased representation of religious, ethnic and racial minorities in canada, and publicly disseminating the results thereof.”
Interestingly, there’s no mention here that the vast majority of their efforts (at least on the media side) are dedicated to monitoring coverage of Israel (remember, Baker said that was their sole focus), and not to the sort of analysis of antisemitism they mention here (though I’m sure they’d respond that poor coverage of Israel is a form of antisemitism.)
The HRC “Management Team” page currently lists six people. Their executive director, Mike Fegelman, has been with the organization since 2004. His LinkedIn page notes that as part of his job, he conducts “regular meetings with Canadian media elite,” and has, “Created & maintained strong relationships with Israeli government officials.” It also notes he has, “Organized and led missions to Israel.”
HRC’s other management members include Robert Walker, their marketing and community relations associate. His profile on the site notes that he previously “served as Executive Director for Hasbara Fellowships Canada” and “has also led communications strategy for Israel’s embassy in Ottawa.”
So, as a whole, you can see that HRC is a well-funded non-profit with a charity arm, that has had the support of at least some Israeli government officials and has managed to alter content at almost all of Canada’s major news outlets. I’m sure in future issues I will go into more detail about them, so this (along with last issue’s breakdown of their general methods) should just be considered a primer.
In the next issue, I’m going to look at some of the supposed “corrections” HRC and others managed to achieve in 2021.
Thank you for reading. If you found this to be useful, please consider sharing the newsletter with your friends and social networks. You can also follow me on Twitter.
Best wishes,
Davide Mastracci.
P.S., If you’d like to catch up on some of my past writing on the Israel lobby, pro-Israel media bias, etc., you can check out these articles: Uncovering Canadian Media’s Devastating Pro-Israel Bias; Media Is Ignoring Alleged Illegal Israeli Army Recruitment In Canada; Media Has Whitewashed The Anti-Palestinian Pogroms In Jerusalem; Exposing How Pro-Israel Groups Manufacture Antisemitism Narratives; Gaza Protests Led To More Articles On Antisemitism Than Mass Shooting; Debunking Politicians’ Falsities About The York University Protest; Canadian Media: Cheerleading War on Palestine.