When a ‘media critic’ becomes a shill for Israel
Sid Shniad
When a ‘media critic’ becomes a shill for Israel
Canadian media is so anti-Palestinian that a leading critic of the industry calls pointing out crass media bias “antisemitism”.
In November longtime TV Ontario host Steven Paikin participated in a five-day Israeli government organized trip to that country. According to the Israeli consulate message to participants, they were among “a carefully chosen group of public leaders across Canada” invited to “witness a dynamic democracy in action.” As per the itinerary, the delegation visited Madjal Shams in the illegally occupied Golan Heights and the Kerem Shalom border crossing to Gaza. The delegation visited Israel’s parliament and met deputy foreign minister Shareen Haskel-Harpaz who posted, “my message was simple: now is the time for clarity and courage. Stand with Israel and stand with our shared values. 
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The delegation included B’nai Brith ambassador Ben Mulroney, disgraced former Green party leader Annamie Paul and 20 others. Reportedly, the Israeli government spent $10,000 for Toronto city councillors Mike Colle and James Pasternak to participate in the trip. The invite letter sent to participants noted, “Ground travel in Israel, airfare, accommodations, meals, and program costs are provided by the Consulate of Israel.”
The trip received a new round of attention on Twitter recently after Paikin interviewed Canadaland’s Jesse Brown about ‘antisemitism’. Considered a liberal media critic before the genocide in Gaza, Brown has ignored Israel’s horrors while obsessing about that country’s protective ideological umbrella. The interview was titled “Jesse Brown: Is Anti-Zionism Hate Speech?”
Instead of running cover for genocide by hyping ‘antisemitism’, a serious media critic would report on leading journalists taking government organized trips to Israel. Radio and Global News host Ben Mulroney participating in an Israeli government organized trip highlights anti-Palestinian media bias. But Paikin’s participation in what organizers labeled a “political leadership mission to Israel” is even more scandalous. Five months before participating in the trip to Israel, he hosted the sole English language federal election leadership debate during a live streamed holocaust in Gaza.
After being pilloried about the trip, Paikin posted Sunday “not that anyone will care, but I did pay for my recent trip to the Middle East.” I doubt he’s being fully truthful about who funded his trip to the “Middle East”. Even if true, however, it doesn’t change the fact Paikin went on an Israeli government organized tour and the apartheid state considered him sufficiently supportive to invite.
Paikin has long advocated for a state born in ethnic cleansing. Two decades ago he did an “Israel-Palestine at 60” series promoting Zionist distortions. According to an online account, “a team of producers, led by Wodek Szemberg,” produced Israel-Palestine at 60. Szemberg is an open bigot. A decades long senior producer for Paikin at TVO, Szemberg posted on X a year ago that when Palestinians “start acting like human beings, they will be treated accordingly”. He also wrote an openly genocidal commentary on October 7, 2025, concluding “Gaza is not innocent. It is one more link in a chain of hostility—ancient as Amalek.”
Even if he didn’t subsequently participate in an Israeli government organized trip to Israel, it’s outrageous Paikin was viewed as sufficiently impartial to moderate the most significant political event in the country amidst Israel’s horrors in Gaza. (Outside the federal election debate I called on Paikin to ask the candidates about “Canada’s support for Israel’s genocide” and to “oppose genocidal Jewish supremacism”. He didn’t.)
Instead of discussing the scope of anti-Palestinian media bias highlighted by selecting Paikin to moderate the debate, Brown claimed the online kerfuffle was anti-Jewish. He aggressively criticized several journalists who raised Paikin’s Israel trip.
That elicited a backlash. Some suggested Brown’s position reflected him knowing where his “bread is buttered”. I’m skeptical. Brown has likely lost many Canadaland donors due to his genocide enabling positions. My sense is that it’s more fundamental. Brown is the product of a Toronto Jewish community that broadly worships Israel at schools and day camps, synagogues and community centres. Reportedly, Adam Minsky, President of the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, is Brown’s brother-in-law. (He responded to a request to confirm this information by writing “Sorry Yves, I don’t answer questions about my family.”)
Based on positions taken, his writing, his unflinching support for Israel amidst a genocide and publicly available information about his background, Brown seems to believe a different standard applies to pro-Israel journalists than all others. Given that Israel is a “regime of Jewish supremacy” according to B’tselem, is it any surprise that a supporter of that country would be a Jewish supremacist? Brown seems willing to lose money and part of his social standing to advance his supremacist ethnic/religious views.
How else to explain his claim that critics of someone who hosted Canada’s federal election debate during a live streamed genocide participating an Israeli government organized trip are engaged in ‘antisemitism’?