Pity the poor CBC.
It gives pride of place to Kevin O'Leary, Don Cherry and Rex Murphy, all of whom get to freely express their generally right-of-centre views with alacrity. And yet, a good many Conservatives still think of the Corporation as some kind of left-wing conspiracy.
"One-sided caricature of itself"
CBC has been the subject of much chatter on Parliament Hill of late.
They have been talking about it at the Commons ethics committee (considering the controversy over CBC's resistance to Access to Information requests from Sun Media), at the Canadian Heritage committee, and in the House.
And that chatter has not been very friendly.
New Brunswick Tory, John Williamson, crystallized his party's perspective when he said to the CBC president:
Advertising
"Your approach to news tends to be one-sided and viewers are tuning out because they're looking for a good debate and they're not getting it ... CBC is, in fact, becoming a caricature of itself."
What about the "greed is good" guy?
Too bad the CBC president didn't invite the Tory MP to watch CBC News Network's daily business show, the Lang/O'Leary report, in which Kevin O'Leary gets to express his market fundamentalist view on everything under the sun; or to review some of the Rex Murphy's commentaries on The National, especially those that deal with climate change (which is a passing intellectual fad, Mr. Murphy seems to think).
The CBC president could have directed Mr. Williamson to Kevin O'Leary's now infamous interview with writer Chris Hedges. That's the one where O'Leary called his interlocutor a "left-wing nut-bar."
Or, better yet, the CBC president could have pointed to a lesser known exchange, where O'Leary lectured Steelworkers' leader Leo Gerard to "get with the program" and accept that wages have to be lower if Canada was to be competitive. That interview took place during the Vale-INCO strike, and Gerard admirably did not lose his cool. Instead he asked O'Leary if he thought a Brazilian salary of $150.00/week would be reasonable for Canadian workers.
A broadcaster that sought to present a one-sided, left-of-centre perspective on news and information would not bend over backwards to give such significant air time to "greed is good" or "climate change is bunk" commentators.
Not even any fair weather friends
None of this appeases the current crop of Conservatives. Whenever they hear the word CBC they set to loudly sharpening their knives
Prior to the last election, the CBC could count on a certain measure of rhetorical support from Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore. In those good old days Mr. Moore would boast that his government had actually increased funding for the public broadcaster, while the previous Liberal government had cut it.
One had the impression that James Moore was a not-so-secret supporter of the notion of public broadcasting and the vital role CBC plays in Canada.
Since the election, and since his backbench colleagues have taken to using the CBC as a punching bag, the Heritage Minister has changed his tune.
Was Moore getting attacked for seeming too soft on CBC?
Last week, this is how Moore answered a question about the CBC from the NDP's Heritage Critic Tyrone Benskin (who is, by the way, an accomplished actor, writer, director and musician):
"The NDP started question period by saying we should not spend more money on fighting crime. Then it said we should not spend more money on the Canadian Forces ... Now the NDP stands up and says, 'However give hundreds of millions to the CBC.' That tells us everything we need to know about that party versus where Canadians stand."
Is it possible that Moore was getting beaten up in caucus and cabinet for being soft on the reviled Corporation?
We'll never know for sure.
CBC President was appointed by Harper
Moore is the minister through whom the CBC reports to Parliament. Normally, whatever the political stripe of the government, that minister has seen it as part of her/his role to advocate for the CBC, however timidly in some cases.
Today, the CBC cannot count on the Canadian Heritage minister. And it does not even have a few fair weather friends on the government side of the House.
The irony of it all is that the CBC's president, Hubert Lacroix and most of its Board of Directors are Harper appointees. Did the prime minister not make any undertakings to Lacroix when he asked him to take on the job? Who would accept such an appointment, if it meant presiding over the decimation of the organization he/she headed?
A matter of principle
The CBC lived through something similar, not too long ago, in the Chrétien era. The CBC president in the early years of that government was Tony Manera -- who, as a former vice president had "come through the ranks," rare for a CBC president.
When he was appointed, in 1993, Manera thought he had a commitment from the prime minister as to levels of funding for the Corporation.
Then,when he discovered, in 1995, that the commitment was a chimera, Manera didn't try to adapt to new financial realities. He didn't "look at the bright side" and hide his sense of betrayal.
Manera took another course.
He resigned, on principle, and said bluntly that he was leaving because the government had not lived up to its promise to him.
Although for now there is still much amiable programming available, I've pretty well given up on CBC News and the swing right, that it has unfortunately taken. Michael Hedges was correct when he compared L&O and his treatment during an interview there, to what would be expected from Fox news, and I'm afraid, that most other fare, offered as news on CBC, is not much better. Regardless, I now trust only what I can read/view and then confirm and vertify from various sources on the internet, and turn my back on a once proud, vital institution, that now indulges in the production of good time feelings and overt sentimentality one would associate more with the barking of P.T. Barnum, than the real news and reporting of Edward R. Murrow.
That's "Chris" Hedges, BTW, not Michael.
What I find interesting in comments about the Lang/O'Leary program is that everyone goes after O'Leary and ignores Lang. He's so outrageous that he serves as a lighting rod for leftist criticism while Lang gets a free pass.
But if Amanda Lang were the sole mouthpiece on the show, it would not change the business-as-usual message of the new neoliberal CBC. We have become so overexposed to right-wing junk on CBC public affairs programming that we almost accept Lang as a counterpoint to O'Leary. In truth they are both shills for big business.
As Ruben Luengas wrote recently in a Truthdig.com article titled "Away With Objectivity" It is assumed, as a divine command, that the journalist should be "impartial, objective, balanced and fair" as a prerequisite for being a true "professional." For years now CBC's news anchors both nationally and regionally have abandoned that prerequisite perhaps to appease the rulers of the day. I have written them on several occasions to point out their suicidal course as it is clear once they have lost sight of the hand that feeds them eventually they will starve. The Harper Neocons have no interest in supporting anything in the public domain and the only thing preventing them from scrapping the CBC was the once substantial public support for it. Simply turn CBC into Fox news, and voila public support disappears and CBC goes the way of the gun registry. Amazing no one at the CBC has stood up to prevent this from happening. It shouldn't take much longer and we will no longer have to pay Mansbrige, O'Leary or any of the rest of the CBC staffers who have apparently chosen to ignore the "the divine command".
It looks like Moore has finally realized how much money is wasted at CBC. He will probably cut the budget to match what private stations operate on. In the end this will probably make the CBC efficient and stronger.
This is a very ignorant comment.
The Conservatives and the Liberals have been bleating for decades about how public money has been "wasted" on the CBC. As a result the CBC's budgets have been slashed to the bone and programming is now severely hampered. To suggest that the Conservative minister has "finally realized" something that his party has been trumpeting all along is completely disingenuous.
And the idea that cutting the CBC budget even more will make it "efficient and stronger" is the dead giveaway that brianro is a neo-con hack.
On average, government funding of public broadcasters in western democracies is $80 per citizen per year. Every year, CBC receives just $33 per citizen from Ottawa. That's the real reason why the CBC is so crappy. It's exactly what brianro and his political cronies want.
It's good to see that CBC employees are reading this column.
Yes the CBC has been receiving cuts for many years now. The point that most Canadians see but some some supporters of the CBC don't see is that CBC could operate under a much smaller budget. If you look at all the other stations in Canada you will see that they are putting out the same amount of programming that CBC is putting out BUT they are doing it for less money and they are funding themselves.
The key here is not that they are raising the money themselves but they are operating the stations for less money. It doesn't matter what the per capita funding is, the key is efficiency.
There is no reason why CBC can't operate on the same size budget as a private station.
If M. Spector thinks that CBC "is so crappy" I wonder what he thinks of stations that recieve no funding from the government?
Comparing the CBC to "a private station" is bullshit. CBC radio has no advertising revenue. Private stations do.
CBC has a network of foreign and domestic news correspondents; private stations don't; they buy canned reports from American networks instead.
CBC is a network, not a station. In fact, it's several networks, and it broadcasts in both official languages, as well as several aboriginal languages - and several foreign languages, in the case of Radio Canada International. It maintains networks of transmission and repeater stations in remote and rural areas where no private broadcasters are willing to invest in order to meet the needs of the population.
Public broadcasting costs money. Most western democracies understand that and fund their public broadcasters accordingly. Even countries with dense, compact populations spend far more per capita than Canada does, and our population is spread out over huge areas.
Private stations aren't "funding themselves", as you so glibly claim. They are funded by corporations and other businesses that advertise on them. They don't spend 100% of that money on broadcasting, either, like the CBC does; they are in business to make a profit, so a generous portion of that corporate income goes into the pockets of their shareholders. To keep costs down and profits up, most of them don't do original programming; the radio stations do talk shows and play records, which is the cheapest form of programming, and the TV stations show movies and imported U.S. network programs.
Yes, CBC could "operate" under a much smaller budget - just as you could survive on only half your current income. But then nobody would want to listen or watch. Which is precisely the strategy behind starving the CBC financially - make it so crappy that nobody will care when it's abolished by knuckle-dragging neo-con politicians with no sense of the public interest. Then you and your corporate pals will have the airwaves all to yourselves.
You never see this mentioned anywhere, and it's even hard to find using Google, but Canadians need to remember, the CBC was begun by the CONSERVATIVE government of R. B. Bennett. Its treatment now by the current crop of Reformers masquerading as "Conservatives" is the clearest possible evidence of just how far removed the Harper government is from true Canadian conservatism. Not to put too fine a point on it, these people are nothing but cuckoos in the nest. The sooner Harper's term is up and responsible govenment resumes, the better.
M. Spector has some good points:
You can't compare CBC to a private station because private stations are self sustaining, and CBC needs a continuous supply of taxpayer dollars.
Private stations don't have foreign correspondents, only private networks like CTV and Global have foreign corespondents ...just like the CBC network.
Private braodcasters meet the needs of the Canadian population and that is why they have lots of viewers. The viewers wouldn't watch if they weren't happy with what was being broadcast.
Public broadcasting needs money and that is why the public broadcaster in the USA raises money instead of asking for money from the government.
Yes, not only do private stations fund themselves, the make a profit as well. If CBC was run like a private broacaster it could also make money and wouldn't cost the govenment anything. Ironically CBC radio doesn't make any money but is very popular with Canadians. If radio was the only susbsidzed portion of CBC the budget would be at most 1/3 of a billion dollars.
If private stations can survive on a smaller budget than CBC and have people want to watch them as well then I'll bet CBC could also do the same.
OK, you've earned your pay - now go and troll somewhere else.