Veteran broadcast newsman Tim Knight contributes a regular column to HuffPost, analyzing and rating broadcast and online journalistic programs.Date: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 Subject: CBC News and the budget cuts
Unkindest cut of all -- The dreaded 2012 Conservative budget comes out on Thursday and terror stalks the gloomy halls of CBC.
HuffPost's Althia Raj has learned that Heritage Minister James Moore, up to now a rare defender of the CBC in Conservative ranks, is going for the whole enchilada. Not just a five per cent cut, which was the CBC's realistic dream, but ten per cent, which is the CBC's worst nightmare.
If it so comes to pass, I predict a frightening future faces Canada's only national public service broadcaster, the people's network. Quality will drop everywhere. There will be firings, mostly of newer, younger people. Regional stations will close. And staff morale, already miserable, will plunge to even deeper depths.
I worked for CBC for some 15 years as writer, reporter, and producer. Always on the news and current affairs side, so I don't know much about the other departments in the corporation. But I do know a fair amount about the news department, by far the most significant and important part of Mother Corp.
For all its manifold and manifest flaws, CBC news has always set the Canadian standard. It still has some of the finest journalists in the country. Journalists dedicated to public service. Journalists who believe their jobs are to serve the public's right to know, without fear or favour, and are fiercely proud of their independence from political, corporate, or commercial influence.
I also know that if CBC news is devastated, the private broadcasters will pop open the champagne and gleefully cut their own news budgets. The following day. Likely to the bone. And we -- and democracy -- will be the lesser.
The choices -- I believe that when the budget smoke clears, when the tumult and the shouting die, only two choices will remain for CBC News.
The first is to accept the inevitable, dutifully do the culling and sullenly carry on much as before.
The second is to re-think the CBC's entire approach to news. And abandon the blatantly populist Eyewitness News concentration on disasters, crime, weather, and smartass over-enthusiastic reporting. (Full disclosure: back in the early 70s in New York, I was a reporter/producer for the very first Eyewitness News. It soon became the world's most popular and, I believe, deceitful news format.)
It should be replaced with what former CBC executive Jeffrey Dvorkin calls: "context-rich programs, seamlessly linked to the news online."
As Dvorkin points out, Canadians already know what's happening through online information outlets like all-news channels, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and smartphones. "Now they need to know why."
That's the key. The why. The single most important question in responsible public service journalism.
Forget all that routine disaster, crime, and weather (which make great and easy video) unless they're really significant and/or have some meaning. Instead, concentrate on the bringing of understanding.
What does the story really mean?
How will it effect the people involved?
How will it effect Canadians?
Will it bring understanding?
Verdict -- It's not too late for CBC News to regain the public trust which is so essential for a news organization and was once was its proud hallmark.
As the great poet Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote in his epic poem Ulysses: "'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."
In fact, whatever happens on Thursday's budget announcement, this is exactly the right time for CBC News to adopt a new motto, taken from the last line of Tennyson's poem: "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."
And get its pride back.
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And perhaps the 'new execs' will interview the CRTC Board Members who have not only 'allowed' but encouraged and endorsed these, in my opinion criminal acts - to take place for over 35 years?
I ask you, would you rather get your political news from Ezra Levant (famous author) or Evan Solomon?
I think I'm going to barf.
Hardly anyone watches the CBC, yet the network and its fawning supporters would have you believe that it's the only media that matters.
In the age of the internet yet!
Tim says the CBC has always set the Canadian Standard.
Is that why a majority of Canadians watch CTV News?
And go to any city in the country and you'll see that the CBC Evening News at 6 P.M. performs dismally compared to its CTV counterpart.
Sure CBC set the standard, when they were the only television station in the country!
Note too that Tim says staff morale at the CBC is "already miserable".
But Tim, we haven't even cut the budget by 5% yet!
Some people are just never satisfied.
Tim says CBC journalists are "dedicated to public service", "the public's right to know, without fear or favour".
Could not the same be said of the new upstarts at Sun News Network?
And what of CTV, Global and CityTV? Are they chopped liver, just out to make a buck and get high ratings?
Is the CBC not concerned with ratings too?
Tim venerates the CBC as if it were something mythological, beyond human.
Even if we had only half the current CBC, say the radio part, it would not lessen the quality of life or make Canadians any less informed or any less concerned about their country.
If you were to say to Tim and I that our income is being cut by 10%, we might not like it but we would survive. Who knows, maybe even find a new revenue stream.
No, no problem for us, the lucky ones.
But it would be a different story to lose 10% if you already living in poverty, a single mother on welfare, a senior citizen on a fixed, slim income.
For them, 10% could hurt.
But is 10% less going to hurt CBC's Kirstine Stewart, whose annual expense account, NOT SALARY but expense account, is $80,000.
The Federal subsidy given the CBC is half of its budget. It actually earns, believe it or not, the other half.
That means that losing 10% of the subsidy would result in a cut to the CBC's overall budget of only 5%.
Good Lord!
So is the CBC already living on food stamps? Will ANY cut mean drastic changes?
Let's reflect back to last September and the lavish ball held to raise the profile of George Strombo, called "The Hazelton TakeOver".
Renting a ballroom in the most expensive part of Toronto so as to invite what George described as "cool people', while those paying for it were allowed to stand along the red carpet of arrivals, safely separated by classy ropes.
Yes, that expensive publicity stunt may have to be re-worked or tweaked a bit this year if that 5% cut becomes a reality.
I agree with what you are saying wholeheartedly. Will CBC be able to evolve let's hope so. I do not want to see it lose it's value to Canadians and I pray it keeps it's independence from biased corporate sponsorship and special interest groups. CBC is one of the very few broadcasters that can and should report in an objective and unbiased manner. Albeit the bias does tend to leak through in some instances, as a whole it manages to be a level and trusted source for news as well as decent entertainment. I will gladly allow my taxes be used to ensure we have this outlet now and for the years to come.
To fill the time and space you end up with fact-free he-said-she-said stories, false equivalence where truth is balanced with verifiable lies/misinformation, and celebutainment like stories about the Kardashians. Why? Because this kind of content-free fluff is cheap and easy to produce and yet, because it appeals to the broadest possible audience, brings in ratings.
That has been the trend with ALL news and media for the past decades. I have yet to see one news agency get cuts and say, "Let's take this as an opportunity to improve service and yield BETTER news."
The CBC has run countless stories through the years on the theme of "Look how the farmers are suffering."
Which is fine when backed up with facts and statistics. But CBCs idea of "facts" is to have a farmer complain about how he's going bankrupt.
That isn't news, it's advocacy. There is no information in such a story. There's always farmers somewhere having a tough time of of it, and there should be. Not all farmers are good at their trade, nor do all farmers make the best decisions. And even the ones doing well tend to complain.
And that was really the CBC's style for many years. Instead of presenting information, they presented gripers. Sort of like a state-subsidized Huffington Post.