I Got Fired for Speaking Up
Anita Krishna was terminated 'right around Christmas time.'
Part 1: Anita Krishna, Independent Thinker
When she provided testimony to the National Citizens Inquiry, former Global News employee Anita Krishna made the same point that former CBC journalist Marianne Kowak did. During the pandemic, new outlets ignored the government’s critics. Journalists closed their eyes, hearts, and minds to events and concerns that were supremely newsworthy. This means that everyone - especially politicians - ended up with a skewed view of what was actually going on in this country.
Anita testified that Global failed to assign a reporter to a December 2021 anti-COVID-measures rally in north Vancouver. She says she attended as a private citizen, eager to hear some of the advertised speakers. After she told a third party at this event who she worked for, Anita was subsequently introduced to the crowd, the name of her employer was mentioned in those introductory remarks, and she was handed a microphone. Her impromptu speech was video recorded, sent to her employer, and resulted in a three-day suspension “for violating journalistic principles.” To this day, she says, it has never been explained to her which principle, precisely, she contravened.
On January 6th, 2022 “right around Christmas time,” Anita was fired. In her opinion, this didn’t happen because of her refusal to take the COVID vaccine. “I got fired,” she says, “for speaking up.”
She says her termination letter alleges she violated Global’s social media policy when she posted a Tweet that said:
Can someone please ask the provincial health officer why the casinos, liquor stores and strip clubs are open and the gyms and churches are closed.
In the weeks that followed, many journalists said truly intemperate things about the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa. They said things on social media that were categorically false. They published wild, uproven allegations. Sometimes they employed profanity while doing so.
The people being maligned by these journalists were not government officials or public figures, like the provincial health officer about whom Anita had tweeted. Rather, they were private citizens who had every right to petition the government and to have their grievances heard and addressed. Yet Anita is the person who lost her job.
In her opinion, her former employer should feel ashamed of how it has conducted itself. Global News, she says, never challenged the often arbitrary, nonsensical COVID rules that were driving small businesses into bankruptcy. In her words:
“We never stood up for the people. We just, as far as I’m concerned, shoved propaganda in your face.”
The poor lady. Disgraceful IMO.
Thank you Anita!