Esther Enkin, CBC’s Ombudsman, has just reminded CBC News that the job of CBC’s journalists is …. journalism, not opinion-making.

Enkin was responding to a formal complaint from a CBC.ca reader about what he felt were “inflammatory & divisive & discriminatory” comments that CBC journalist Neil Macdonald recently made about Donald Trump’s supporters.

In her formal opinion, the Ombudsman makes it clear that “expressing opinion is prohibited by CBC policy” and that Macdonald’s remarks read “like opinion” and were “unnecessary in the context of this piece.”

A key line here comes at the  end of her opinion: “If Mr. Macdonald were a columnist or an outside commentator …..”

In recent years, I and others have expressed concerns that CBC News  has been having a hard time realizing that some of its most high-profile employees are most assuredly NOT columnists or outside commentators, but journalists who fall under the Corporation’s very specific and clearly-written policies on opinion making and, not a tangential issue, on conflict of interest.

To wit,  the controversy more than a year ago over CBC journalists taking large amounts of money from the private sector for public speaking  events.

Last winter, I wrote about the increased blurring of the important line between journalism and opinion making on my blog (Dec. 9, Dec. 14th) and on Huffington Post (Dec. 10, Dec. 15th.)

CBC responded with a somewhat convoluted defense which you can read here (Dec. 15, 2015.)

Now, it’s good to see CBC’s own Ombudsman reminding the Corporation of its vital journalistic responsibilities.

(As a former journalist, I can’t help but note that the title of Esther Enkin’s opinion is “Trump & The Republican Party” when in fact it is really about a CBC journalist’s policy-breaking  opinions about Trump and his followers. Headline writers! Always messing things up!)