CBC cuts Jian Ghomeshi loose

[ETA: TRIGGER WARNING for SEXUAL VIOLENCE]

[url=http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/10/26/cbc_fires_jian_ghomeshi_ov... fires Jian Ghomeshi over sex allegations[/url]

Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long for that.

and @ eastnoireast

I certainly wouldn't assume any conspiracy here; this is serious. Though again, the weird way it was handled by the CBC doesn't help anyone.

Gomeshi (unlike other media or high profile personalities who have faced similar allegations) has always sounded to me like a feminist and a humanist. His manner with guests and with his audience is respectful, intelligent and exemplary. With the sparse information we have right now I find the allegations hard to believe.

jas wrote:

With the sparse information we have right now I find the allegations hard to believe.

Me too.

I find it extremely hard to believe his allegation that the CBC fired him as the host of the highest rated show in its timeslot in CBC history - one of their only shows that holds any appeal to a somewhat younger demographic - simply because they thought listeners would be put off if details emerged about his private sex life; and that all the women who are coming forth with claims about him are merely working in collusion with a lying jilted ex.

In fact, I don't believe it at all.

Please, please, please can this be moved to the feminist forum? Facebook is full of disgusting victim-blaming and horrible things about these women.

No wonder they do not want to come forward!!! Would you? There are thousands of fans already hating them.

There seems to be a CBC employee involved now, who is (anonymously) making allegations.

If this won't be moved, can we at least stop with the jokes? The allegations are very serious and I imagine all the joking would be quite the trigger for anyone that has been a victim.

KenS wrote:

[quote=[s]Left Turn[/s] Unionist]

You may think he's lying, but perhaps present some evidence. He has come forward with his story, and oh by the way, the burden of proof is on the employer if they want to fire him.

Ken, please be more careful in attributing quotes.

And moving it to the feminist forum will ensure that only the correct version of the story will be allowed.  I suspect that's the reason for asking to have it moved there.  That aside, I don't buy his story either.

Innocent until proven guilty, CBC should have acted differently.

1 week break to let the scandal die down.

If charges are brought, suspension is warranted until this is cleared up.

If convicted in a court of law, then he should be fired.

The CBC acted wrong in this case, and it has looked bad on them.

terrytowel wrote:

Innocent until proven guilty, CBC should have acted differently.

1 week break to let the scandal die down.

If charges are brought, suspension is warranted until this is cleared up.

If convicted in a court of law, then he should be fired.

The CBC acted wrong in this case, and it has looked bad on them.

 

The information is primarily coming from the Star and from Ghomeshi himself.  Regarding the CBC, employers have the right to hire and fire (with just cause).  I don't think a criminal conviction is required to constitute just cause.  Anyway, Ghomeshi has the right to file a grievance that it was dismissal without just cause, at which point an arbitrator can make the final determination. 

Frankly, that piece by Ciccone reads like a hatchet job, which is unfortunate, because it is a serious charge.

But things like her repeated references to cologne, and equating with drugging - something she was not making an accusation of - really undermine the charge.

Beyond the usual tendency to disbelieve accusations of sexual assault, and defend stars, I can see why some people reacted negatively to it. Independent of the accusation - which I do take seriously - it left a real bad taste in my mouth.

And the fact that the accusers in the Star article are refering to that incident as the reason for keeping their anonymity just makes an already confused situation even worse.

Slumberjack wrote:

And moving it to the feminist forum will ensure that only the correct version of the story will be allowed.  I suspect that's the reason for asking to have it moved there.  That aside, I don't buy his story either.

A very unhelpful comment considering the sensitivity of the case.

Moving it to the Feminism Forum (which I thought I did yesterday, but corrected just now) ensures that we remember that false allegations of rape and abuse are rare, that such allegations against rich and powerful people come at a great cost to survivors, and that abuse survivors deserve to have their allegations heard with respect and credulity -- and that courts have virtually no credibility when dealing with sexual assault.

I have known Jian for many years (about 25) and heard many stories for many years.  There is a labour relations component to this story and a feminist aspect to this story.  I never notice much which forum a thread is in since I access threads through TAT. I just hope that all elemnts of this story are discussed in a respectyful manner and in keeping with Babble's principles.

Quote:

As a supporter of public broadcasting, I couldn't be more disappointed with this response. Good programming, from a public broadcaster, should be about the content and not the host. The knee-jerk reaction to Ghomeshi's statement smacks of a cult of personality and not rational thought.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/justin-beach/jian-ghomeshi-fired-cbc_b_6051...

I agree that a show -- and any media organization -- is the product of everyone who works on it, not just the public face, no matter how charismatic he may or may not be.

And lookit! The CBC now agrees with me! Ventriloquized by Brent Bambury, today's guest host on Q.

It is important to understand that abuse can happen "even" in BSDM relationships that are consensual. But there's far more to the BSDM-defence. From Winston's excellent link above:

In this case, Ghomeshi made a pre-emptive strike, setting the terms of the debate: don’t demonize me for being kinky, even if you don’t like my proclivities. But so far, this doesn’t seem to be a scandal about kink at all. From Ciccone to the anonymous accusers, the women who are (or seem to be) complaining about him aren’t complaining about his kinks or calling him out for being a disgusting pervert. They’re complaining about far more mundane and familiar things: the ex-co-worker is noting unwanted ass-groping in the workplace. Ciccone mentions creepy non-consensual touching at a concert date that wasn’t supposed to even be a date, followed by stalker-y behaviour. And the anonymous women who wanted to get involved with him at first aren’t complaining about how gross his supposed perversions are. They’re making allegations of regular old non-consensual violence. And part of the reason they are saying they won’t come forward in person is because they’re afraid their pre-date conversations about kink will be used as evidence that they consented to what he did. In other words, these women may have said “sure, some kink sounds like fun” and are concerned that their own stated interest will be held up as evidence of consent to violence. If I am reading this right, these women were either themselves interested in kink to some extent, or at least weren’t put off by Ghomeshi’s interest, since they each still went on a date with him. This is a very different story than “Ew gross he wanted to use handcuffs what a total sicko!”

As for choking, it’s a topic of massive debate among pervs, with some veteran kinksters even insisting that there is simply no safe way to do it and therefore shouldn’t be done at all. I’m not saying everyone agrees on the absolute-no approach. But I am saying that Ghomeshi’s argument that what he does is a “mild version of Fifty Shades of Grey” does not match up with his apparent practice of engaging in very high-risk activities with women he’s just beginning to date. If what they’re saying is true, that discrepancy alone is enough to make me highly suspicious of his “I’m a poor innocent kinkster” argument. A mild version of Fifty Shades would be some dirty talk (probably with poor grammar) and necktie bondage.

It doesn’t make sense that the CBC would fire Ghomeshi for being kinky. Remember the openly bisexual Sook-Yin Lee, who masturbated and had non-simulated sex on camera in the 2006 film Shortbus? She’s been working with the CBC for well over a decade, and while they initially considered letting her go when the controversial film was making headlines, support for her was so strong that they kept her on. Fast-forward eight years: the CBC knows that their audiences support even the very public sexual explorations of CBC stars. The CBC is of course also aware of Canada’s relatively permissive climate when it comes to sexual freedom. So why would the CBC not only fire the immensely popular Jian Ghomeshi for his supposedly mildly kinky “private sex life,” but to go so far as to bar him access to the building after doing so – and all of this already knowing he would sue?

Compare this to former US Bill Clinton who sexually harrassed one woman (Monica) groped another woman in the Oval Office (Kathleen Wiley) and allegedly raped a third woman (Juanita Broderick)

And Clinton's approval with women are still very high!

Jian Ghomeshi’s potential CBC lawsuit is hopeless — even if he’s telling the truth

October 27, 2014

Jian Ghomeshi’s threatened $50-million lawsuit against the CBC has everything to do with strategy and PR — but nothing to do with legal entitlement.

Quite apart from the fact that his actual damages likely do not exceed 2% of that figure, unionized bargaining-unit employees (as CBC broadcasters are) can’t sue in court for wrongful dismissal.  This suit will almost certainly be quickly struck down by the courts without Ghomeshi recovering a penny.

Whether or not the violence he is accused of was consensual, as he maintains, or criminal, as some unnamed accusers are reportedly claiming — none of the allegations being proven — this is the era of Ray Rice, Donald Sterling and Brendan Eich: No major corporation relying on public goodwill will permit itself to be saddled with household name “talent” that could destroy or even substantially impair its brand. And there aren’t many judges or arbitrators who would argue that they should be forced to.

The most interesting aspect of this case is that Ghomeshi, while protesting loudly about the purported violation of his “private life,” proceeded to write a close to 1,000-word missive delving into some pretty explicit aspects of, well, his private life.

The fact that Ghomeshi has hired the Navigator PR firm creates the impression, to this observer — possibly unfairly — of some disingenuity. One wonders why Ghomeshi, a master of media himself, felt he needed assistance.

----

More here:

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/10/27/jian-ghomeshis-cbc-lawsuit-...

Jodie Layne: [url=http://www.ivillage.ca/entertainment/sexual-assault-the-case-of-jian-gho... Happens When People In Power Are Accused Of Sexual Assault[/url]

voice of the damned wrote:

terrytowel wrote:

Compare this to former US Bill Clinton who sexually harrassed one woman (Monica) groped another woman in the Oval Office (Kathleen Wiley) and allegedly raped a third woman (Juanita Broderick)

And Clinton's approval with women are still very high!

 

As I recall, the generally accepted narrative about Clinton, among both men and women, was that he had engaged only in consensual sex. The idea that there might have been anything coercive about his actions did not gain wide currency with the public. Broderick, for example. was treated basically as an irrelevant footnote, as the whole story was fading from the public consciousness.

So, most of the women who defended him likely thought that he was guilty of nothing more than infidelity.

Kathleen Wiley was GROPED and assaulted in the Oval Office.

Hardly consensual.

And she did go public, but women didn't buy her story. They sided with Clinton

And I didn't even get into Paula Jones!

terrytowel wrote:

voice of the damned wrote:

terrytowel wrote:

Compare this to former US Bill Clinton who sexually harrassed one woman (Monica) groped another woman in the Oval Office (Kathleen Wiley) and allegedly raped a third woman (Juanita Broderick)

And Clinton's approval with women are still very high!

 

As I recall, the generally accepted narrative about Clinton, among both men and women, was that he had engaged only in consensual sex. The idea that there might have been anything coercive about his actions did not gain wide currency with the public. Broderick, for example. was treated basically as an irrelevant footnote, as the whole story was fading from the public consciousness.

So, most of the women who defended him likely thought that he was guilty of nothing more than infidelity.

Kathleen Wiley was GROPED and assaulted in the Oval Office.

Hardly consensual.

And she did go public, but women didn't buy her story. They sided with Clinton

And I didn't even get into Paula Jones!

Well, yeah, whether women(and men) thought that his accusers were lying, or whether they just never heard about the allegations(which I think might have been more the case with Broderick), the end result was that many people thought Clinton's actions were consensual.

Given Jian's $50 million lawsuit I hope babble would be sensitive to postings on this topic.

alan smithee wrote:

But his lawsuit won't go anywhere. I don't see it happening.

From Ghomeshi's point of view (that he has provided full disclosure and is innocent), I can see why he feels the need for something more than a grievance. The lack of public disclosure from the employer lends itself to far too much speculation, creating serious potential for damage to any future employment prospects he may have.

Here's an article with some thoughts on it:  http://sexgeek.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/poor-persecuted-pervert/

Timebandit wrote:

Just want to note that while there are elements to this story that intersect with feminist issues, I don't think it belongs in the feminist forum [...]

What Timebandit said. It would not be the worst thing in the world if those who wished to discuss elements that do not clearly intersect with (core) feminist issues were to create parallel threads.

Yeah, there should be another thread in "The Media".