Former colleagues, allies defend Jewish CBC journalist facing reprimand over video, comments about anti-Israel protest - National Post

An image from Neil Herland's video shows protesters outside the Meridian Arts Centre in Toronto. Photo by @NEILNews/XArticle contentSeveral friends and former colleagues of a Jewish CBC staffer reportedly facing “disciplinary action” after sharing a video on social media showing anti-Israel protesters outside a Yom Kippur event he was attending in Toronto last week are questioning and condemning the broadcaster’s decision.

“CBC’s own former Ombudsman said in a ruling a journalist’s lived experience can ‘rest comfortably within journalistic standards,” former CBC host Travis Dhanraj wrote on X.

“So explain this: Neil Herland attended a Yom Kippur service, he documented what he encountered. He talked about his lived experience. Now he’s under investigation, ripped off the air. The double standard is appalling.”

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Herland, a veteran journalist and national newsreader, was “quietly pulled” from the airwaves after his video shot outside the Meridian Arts Centre at Yonge and Sheppard last Sunday evening piled up views on X, as reported by Toronto Sun’s Warren Kinsella.

Dhanraj, whose July 2025 departure sparked a controversy over allegations of perceived bias in news coverage, was referring to Kinsella’s reporting that a CBC Ombudsman decreed that a Muslim journalist didn’t break any rules when she put forth a personal opinion on the 2021 murder of a Muslim family in London, Ont.

Dhanraj added that “CBC has spent years plastering ‘diversity’ and ‘lived experience’ on billboards, in commercials and throughout its corporate messaging” and said it’s not a principle that can be simply turned off “when it becomes uncomfortable.”

“That standard apparently does not extend to Jewish journalists,” he wrote on X.

I'm a journalist. And I happen to be Jewish. On Yom Kippur I went to a synagogue service in Toronto and was met by protesters trying to taunt and intimidate me from entering the building. 1/5 pic.twitter.com/2eH3MaC9QB