And..... think you are ignoring my most important point of all.
The CBC is not standing in the way of alternative media any more than the National Post is. Unless of course you are just waiting for that cheque you imagine will make it magically appear when we killl it.
If you want a stronger alternative media, BUILD IT.
@ SlumberjackSo why can you not start to build that?
Indeed, many have done so already, without insisting that the public broadcaster have its throat slit on a pyre beforehand in order to make it happen. In fact, I would think that most people who know anything about the media would welcome broader, and greater coverage, even if it isn't all saying the same thing.
Do you think the CBC (or the National Post or Western Report, for that matter) is somehow standing in the way of your grand plan? Or are you under the assumption that with them gone the government is automatically going to send the gravy train in your direction?
If you are waiting for a cheque in the mail, I think you will be waiting a long time. And more importantly, would you know what to do with that cheque if it ever did arrive?
Quite aside from your drivel about waiting for a government cheque to arrive in the mail, what we're actually talking about here if you have any interest in it, involves sustainable leveraging of the range of alternate voices and narratives across this country toward national level exposure.
No, I think I do understand what you think is missing from the CBC.I don't entirely agree, though I see bias and omission in some of their coverage and programming just as you do
I am wondering how you think cutting up the CBC budget and doling it out to local media will replace the things that will be lost by dismantling a national news service.I also wonder why you imagine that all those local stations will all share your political perspective?
Which local station would be in control of international broadcasting, and who would set the programming or would you just get rid of that? Who would control and maintain the transmitter network?
And speaking of the incredible improvements to news coverage that would result, which stations would get the international news bureaux, or for that matter, do you think local Ottawa media should have the responsibility of covering the Hill? There might be people in other parts of Canada who disagree.with their political slant.
What about financing for court challenges and long-term investigative stories? Would that all be left in the hands of Ottawa community radio?
How would you ensure French, English, and Native language programming throughout Canada as the CBC currently provides it? Is that something to be left up to someone local deciding to start a station or not? Would these stations be commercial-free? Would they have to comply with some central guidelines to get some of this federal money? How would that be enforced?
For that matter, who gets to decide how the budget of the dear departed Ceeb is distributed across the country? The government of the day? Or might it be necessary at some point to realize that a whole new central organization will have to be created all over again?
I don't even work for the CBC, and these are just some of the more basic questions I think you might be overlooking if you think we are better off without a central public broadcaster.
It always amuses me to see the effort that some put in here defending the CBC. The same CBC that won't acknowledge the existence of these people or their politics.
The CBC is a lost cause.
I wish it wasn't, but they sold out. They could have put up a fight for their independence, but they didn't. Unfortunately, I can't see the CBC being fixed without a revolution; and if that revolution ever comes, it sure as hell ain't going to revolve around the CBC.
@ LTJ
Well I agree with you that the life or death of the CBC isn't really crucial to building a forum for those alternative voices, so in that sense it's not relevant at all to what some people claim they want to do. In fact I think the CBC does provide an alternative forum a fair bit of the time, but by contrast, I can't see why its continued existence is stopping some people from building their alternative if they don't agree.
As you say, it's not going to revolve around the CBC.
So I wonder why it's death is so important. I would think there is more productive work to be done than sitting around waiting for the venerable old institution to kick off and finding out if you are lucky enough to get written into the will.
Unless of course it's not about the work, but the money (which as I said, I seriously doubt is coming).
Can we at least agree that they should fire the asshole at CBC TV News who decided to perpetrate the "Super Moon" hoax on The National tonight?
They showed a series of high-power telescopic images of Saturday's full moon low on the horizon beside trees and buildings, naturally making it look like a huge dinner-plate in the sky. Then Evan Solomon told us "the skies lit up last night in a rare display" and the moon was "14% bigger and 30% brighter" (they didn't say than what). He lied.
In actual fact, the difference in size and brightness was negligible. The moon has a perigee 13 times every year (at the closest point to the earth in its elliptical orbit) and the average distance at perigee is 363,000 km. On Saturday it was a mere 1.6% closer than average - not enough to detect with the naked eye!
They even set up a web page to encourage people to send in pictures of the "Super Moon". And of course they ended up with dozens of pictures of the moon in various degrees of magnification, all of which could have been taken at any full moon in the last ten years, and no one would know the difference.
Where's Bob McDonald when you need him?
Can we at least agree that they should fire the asshole at CBC TV News who decided to perpetrate the "Super Moon" hoax on The National tonight?
The fun part is that it would be awfully difficult to avoid getting on a roll once we begin with one. I'm not one for truther conspiracies and hoaxes or anything, but doesn't Solomon bear a striking resemblance to the face in the moon, with that deer caught in the headlights look about him during the many occasions when his ridiculous questions are thrown back at him? Has anyone actually seen his birth certificate?
