The left-wing Canary news website is to close, blaming debanking and a ‘vicious campaign of malicious lies’ conducted by its very own staff. In other words, anyone and everyone is to blame but the Canary itself. Hands up anyone who is surprised that a left-wing news brand should claim to have fallen foul of dark establishment forces and the proverbial stab in the back from one of its own?
Could it be that its highly partisan approach, slavishly pushing a narrow ideological agenda, was too much of a turn-off even for those committed to the cause?
In the statement announcing the website’s closure, there was more than a hint of self-pity: ‘After 11 years, we take this action with deep sadness and regret.’ True to form though, it didn’t take long though for the knives to come out: ‘The extent of the lies, defamation, and harassment by ex-staff – coupled with the constant attacks by the state and those who’d see us destroyed – has become too much.‘ This amounts to the is standard conspiracy theory fare of the ideologically demented.
The outlet, founded in 2015 at the height of the hysterical fandom in left-wing circles for the then Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, said these ‘multiple attacks’ made its situation ‘unsustainable, both financially and operationally’. Earlier this summer, it said that Lloyds had debanked it and was ‘withholding a substantial amount of money’, meaning it could not pay staff on time. It said no reason was given for the decision. There is undoubtedly a consistent theme here, of someone else being to blame for, well, simply everything. It is never the left’s fault even when they are ostensibly running the shop. The Canary later suspended operations after claiming that Metro Bank blocked its use of a second separate bank account. It resumed publishing on its website shortly afterwards.
Dissenting staff within the organisation paint a different picture. An X account purporting to be run by those working on the website has been sharing internal messages and making allegations about the running of the business since August. Some of its journalists have said they believe that the banking issues have been used to distract from a deeper and more disturbing tale of wider financial mismanagement. Canary staff claim extra funds released this summer, believed to be as much as £2 million, have been wasted on management pet projects, including a newspaper (which folded after a matter of weeks) as well as the purchase of other websites. Employees have also alleged that earlier this year they were asked by management to sign ‘non-negotiable’ non-disclosure agreements and told that if they refused they would be subject to changes to their employment contracts. Some 50 or so full and part-time staff are now believed to be at risk of redundancy. The Canary’s chief executive, Steve Topple, insisted to the Guardian that staff have been paid up until today, while their pension payments were up to date until 30 September, as were freelance payments.
This sorry saga is an object lesson in idiocy and profligacy, all conducted under the ideological fervour of making the world a better place. Competence and decency is secondary to ideological purity. The Canary gloried in describing itself as unapologetically left-wing, anti-austerity, anti-Zionist and pro-freedom of expression commentary. It initially enjoyed considerable online success, pulling in a reported 7.5 million page views a month in 2016: web traffic to the site has fallen considerably in recent times. Could it be that its highly partisan approach, slavishly pushing a narrow ideological agenda, was too much of a turn-off even for those committed to the cause? It is hard to imagine that anyone sensible will miss it.
Yet, even at this late stage, few lessons appear to have been learnt. That would require humility and self-awareness – qualities conspicuously lacking in those blessed with the certainty of knowing that only they have the answers. Anyone who disagrees with them is simply to be dismissed as evil. The Canary statement announcing its demise ended with this promise: ‘It is not over. This week, we will publish what really happened at the Canary and push back against the vicious campaign against our team and us. We may be down, but we’re not out yet.’ It demonstrates, however unintentionally, a mindset moored in political fantasy and unreality to the bitter end.
