WATCH: TVO’s The Agenda on the ‘New F Word’

TVO’s The Agenda, with Steve Paikin, hosted a thoughtful debate last week on two recent events: the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council decision to censure a radio station for playing an unedited version of a Dire Straits song and the release of a redacted edition of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The round-table discussion includes associate professor Rinaldo Walcott, professors Eleanor MacDonald and Charles Keil, and former national policy chair for the Liberal Party, Akaash Maharaj.All the guests are opposed to censorship or efforts to redact an artist’s work, and based on the results of the poll on xtra.ca, it’s a sentiment shared by many of our readers.As Maharaj says near the conclusion of the conversation, we do ourselves and society no favours if we refuse to engage with difficult questions.