More from Andrew Mitrovica available More fromavailable here

Blacklists. They’re a dirty little secret of Canada’s cozy — and often vindictive — media industry.

They seldom admit it, but the people running major public and private news organizations in this country keep informal, up-to-date lists of disagreeable writers and journalists who are effectively barred from appearing on a variety of print, TV or radio outlets.

These nudge-wink blacklists are kept confidential — usually. I suppose we should thank Jennifer Harwood, managing editor of CBC News Network, for an internal memo in which she recorded her cockeyed reasons for banning veteran Fifth Estate host Linden MacIntyre from being interviewed on the network where he’s worked at for 38 years. Her reasons are as instructive as the ban itself.

Harwood was miffed that MacIntyre publicly made some uncharitable remarks about CBC’s “toxic atmosphere” and, more particularly, about the network’s chief correspondent, Peter Mansbridge, in connection with the Jian Ghomeshi scandal.

After digesting MacIntyre’s pointed comments in The Globe and Mail — which painted Mansbridge and other CBC ‘stars’, dead and alive, as abusive prima donnas — Harwood instructed her CBC underlings in writing that it was time to “stand up” not only for the besieged Mansbridge, but also for “all that’s good and right about the CBC.” Hence the ban.

Happily, someone inside the CBC promptly made Harwood’s directive public, triggering a swift and angry response from MacIntyre’s supporters in and outside the press. It also prompted various establishment media types to say that they were shocked — shocked! — to learn that someone of MacIntyre’s stature could be blacklisted by a senior CBC editor.

MacIntyre appeared to have been taken aback by the ban. “I’m frankly extraordinarily disappointed in this unilateral action,” he said. “I think it’s really sad that the retaliation for a casual — even if it was careless — comment would go to this extreme.”

Harwood’s “unilateral” act of “retaliation” (MacIntryre’s words, not mine) is a fair and accurate characterization of how blacklists are fashioned and enforced by powerful editors far beyond the CBC.

CBC News Editor-in-Chief Jennifer McGuire had to clean up the PR mess in her back yard by overturning MacIntyre’s ban and trying, in vain, to dismiss Harwood’s actions as a misguided decision made by a loyal colleague of Mansbridge.

“It was really was an e-mail in the moment,” McGuire said in an interview. “The truth of the matter is that we don’t make editorial decisions based on personal relationships or based on bad press or even comments in other media that we don’t think are true or supportable.”

What a crock.

Despite all their self-serving rhetoric about being able to take a punch from their critics, the MacIntyre/CBC News spat proves once again that mainstream media types in this country tend to have glass chins.

The intrepid host of the Canadaland podcast, Jesse Brown, is reporting that senior CBC News executives were so angered by MacIntyre’s remarks that they conspired to demand that the Fifth Estate kill his story as payback. To its credit, The Fifth Estate told Harwood and company to take a hike.

It’s widely understood among Canadian scribes that the CBC and many other old school news organizations exact this kind of retribution precisely because journalists like Jesse Brown — and now, surprisingly, Linden MacIntyre — write and say critical things about them. It’s clear that Brown, once a regular on CBC radio and TV, became persona non grata in the eyes of CBC mandarins long before his big Ghomeshi scoop.

McGuire acknowledged that Harwood’s chief motivation for banning MacIntyre was his biting remarks about Mansbridge. (MacIntyre has since apologized to Mansbridge for his clumsy reference to Ghomeshi.)

“Many people were very upset by comments that they saw as totally counter to the reality of the real situation, in terms of Peter and his behaviour on his show and in terms of his relationships,” McGuire said.

So if the CBC’s policy is to keep “personal” considerations out of such “editorial decisions”, what was behind the acidic personal attack launched on MacIntyre by CBC’s Washington D.C. correspondent Neil MacDonald?

In a diatribe posted Sunday night to his Facebook account, MacDonald describes MacIntyre as (among other things) “snarky,” “insufferable” and a “self-righteous horse’s ass” who once “threaten(ed)” him with a “punch in the nose”.

That’s one toxic, dysfunctional, knife-throwing family you’ve got on your hands there, Ms. McGuire. By the way, your anchor-in-waiting, Amanda Lang, threw her whole-hearted support behind MacDonald’s broadside, tweeting that she regretted not having written it herself. Ugh.

Look, despite all their self-serving rhetoric about being able to take a punch from their critics, the MacIntyre/CBC News spat proves once again that mainstream media types in this country tend to have glass chins. Petty, paranoid politicians like Stephen Harper and Richard Nixon have famously compiled ‘enemies lists.’ Fact is, supposedly enlightened media honchos can be just as petty and paranoid — and they keep lists too.

Even so-called “public servants” are inclined to use institutions like the CBC as private tools to take revenge against their enemies, real or perceived. This personal and institutional enmity often extends to the enemy’s allies or associates.

How else, for example, do we account for the fact that one of the most celebrated investigative reporters in the country — iPolitics columnist Michael Harris — has not appeared on CBC TV once to discuss his best-selling, critically acclaimed book on the Harper majority government, Party of One?

Weeks ago, Harris made a solitary appearance on CBC radio. His interviewer was woefully ill-prepared and ill-formed — suggesting, hilariously, that his exhaustive, meticulously reported work constituted a thin caricature of the prime minister. Since then, Harris hasn’t been anywhere near a CBC studio to talk about his book.

Move over Linden — you’ve got company.

Andrew Mitrovica is a writer and journalism instructor. For much of his career, Andrew was an investigative reporter for a variety of news organizations and publications including the CBC’s fifth estate, CTV’s W5, CTV National News — where he was the network’s chief investigative producer — the Walrus magazine and the Globe and Mail, where he was a member of the newspaper’s investigative unit. During the course of his 23-year career, Andrew has won numerous national and international awards for his investigative work.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.