What’s Wrong with Canadian Mainstream Media
When I was growing up on the prairie, there was one way I could cure my fix for political knowledge and that was to watch the CBC nightly news and specifically Barbara Frum as she hosted The Journal.
Ms. Frum, the mother of David who south of the border crafted those three infamous words for George W Bush, “Axis of Evil”, provided thirty minutes of grilling questions to the issues of the day by hosting famous political figures and leaving none unscathed from her skill and curiosity. She was known as an exceptional journalist and her profound passion and commitment to that profession dictated her style. She was smart, tough and smart.
Now a days, and with the launch of yet again another attempt by CBC at redesign, we see Evan Solomon and Kady O’Malley trying to truncate the network’s need to pull in new, younger, savvy political fiends. I applaud their attempt, I just don’t think it will work.
How many of you actually watch TV news or seek out political information in the traditional format CBC offers? Come on, be honest. I am curious to see if taxpayer’s dollars are being best served by CBC and Peter Mansbridge instead, for example, of giving CBC 3 money to allow for interviews, news, ireporting or anything else interesting that actually may pique the interests of the next generation.
I am 44 and I know most mainstream news outlets do not offer anything but the status quo. They have no choice. Until the Status Quo goes, everything stays the same. Case in point, Evan Solomon on the first episode of today’s Power& Politics, interviewed John Manley, former Deputy Prime Minister to Jean Chretien and future President of Canada Council of Chief Executives. This “not for profit” organization was formed by Thomas Aquino and is nothing more than mostly an all boys club who get together, talk shop and try to influence government interference in business.
I like John Manley and got to know him over the years in my previous life as a happy Liberal Party member and knew him even before his grasp of power when he was a geeky nobody seeking the Liberal nomination for Ottawa South. Power changes everything. He too has given up on his earlier convictions and has joined the money club brought about by his political connections. Why CBC asked him for advice boggles my mind.
So what CBC reinstated today in all its attempts to be different, with Solomon, O’Malley and Manley, is that membership does have its privileges. So until younger Canadians join this elite, you must speak out, speak loud and speak often about all that irks you. Even if your complaints are about boring old publicly funded broadcast television.
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Tags: canadian media, cbc, peter mansbridge
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October 27th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Good item. I watch cbc’s the National. It should be noted that CBC’s program funding would not have to be so either or if the government would grant them reasonable budget increases.
Additionally to remain relevant it has been suggested (long ago) by Geist that CBC put the majority of its material in the public domain and run as a free achival site (providing downloadable material) on the internet. In its current form “the contents are locked behind stifling copyright terms. It would therefore be a significant step forward for the broadcaster to return its programming to the Canadian public, who provide the majority of its funding through tax dollars” (Geist). I think that this would go a long way to reinvigorating the institution.
Geist, M. (2005, June). The upcoming copyright clash: A legal scholar argues for public use over private interest in Canadian policy. Literary Review of Canada, 13(5), 23–25.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I am forever baffled by the fact that Canadians like and watch CBC. In addition to very low quality programing, and awards that amount to nothing but politically planned inside jobs. There is nothing about CBC that makes it an impartial investigator (the stories that is scraps are always more revealing than the ones that it covers) and further the politically correct song and dance routines that they play always cater to intellectual populism. Just once I would like to see them run a piece on how the Aga Khan is slobbering fraud and compulsive horse-race gambler, how the Dali Lama was on CIA payroll, or anything to show a little balance to the drivel we have to swallow on how nice the people society thinks are nice really are, and how backward and racist everyone else is. All that lame network does is take its cues from the Canadian Centre for Policy Ingenuity think tank and the editorial staff at the Globe and Mail, Canada’s least helpful newspaper. From there it censors just a little more so as to avoid offending anyone by actually reporting facts. Have you ever noticed that by inserting facts into the blog portions of its web page that 9 times out of 10, and especially if you provide more facts than their lame government sponsored journalists can, your posts will all be removed. This is bad enough at the Globe but at CBC its an epidemic.