Liberals take first small step toward rebuilding the CBC, but there are many miles to go

The federal government has taken the first step on a long road toward what hopefully will be the restoration of the CBC as Canada’s most important public interest and cultural institution.

For nearly 10 years the Harper government forced the CBC off track from its original goals of promoting culture and the arts, providing quality news, and facilitating a national discussion.

Harper refused to adequately fund the Mother Corp. In one fell swoop in 2012, the Harper government cut the CBC budget by $115-million over three years.

Harper very likely would have wanted to sell off the CBC but that would have caused a national backlash. Instead, he appointed seven Conservative lackeys and donors to the CBC Board with the idea of keeping the broadcaster in check.

But now, with the world pretty much in a state of chaos and false news coming at us from many directions, a strong CBC has never been more important.

On Tuesday Canadian Heritage Minister Melanie Joly announced the government is ending the long-time practice of appointing friends of the government to the CBC Board of Directors and, instead, introducing a new system.

Joly named nine prominent Canadians with various backgrounds from across the country who will recommend people they feel capable of serving on the Board to the government.

Currently three positions are vacant on the Board, and the second term of CBC President and CEO Hubert Lacroix expires at the end of the year.

As Mansbridge Exits: Does the CBC have the courage to build a TRULY GREAT news program?

The latest water cooler chat among many Canadians this week is speculation about who will replace Peter Mansbridge as host of The National, CBC-TV’s flagship news program. He announced earlier this week that, after 30 years as host of  the program.

The long-time anchor seemed to be trying to give his departure considerable significance by announcing 10 months ahead of time that he is leaving. Also boosting his own importance, his departure also coincides with the occasion of Canada’s 150th birthday.

One wonders if Mansbridge expects an honorary star-studded tour hosting The National from CBC stations across the country, much like the retiring New York Yankees’ star shortstop Derek Jeter was honoured in every ball park during his last year.

Now CBC executives say they are going to usher in “the next phase” of The National. 

Jennifer McGuire, the General Manager and editor-in-chief of CBC News, told The Globe and Mail she sees Mansbridge’s departure as “an opportunity to reimage the program.” She said the CBC will look at increasing the digital delivery of The National.

Finding a new host for The National should not be the CBC’s main goal.

CBC should address the fact that neither The National nor any other CBC news program is trusted very much by the public. The content of CBC News programs is just like programming at mainstream media, and the public doesn’t like either.

A Statistics Canada General Social Survey of national opinions for 2013 and 2014 revealed that only 40 per cent of Canadians had confidence in media.

Canadians don’t like mainstream news because they believe it lacks balance and that it reports lies.

The public is much smarter and more skeptical when digesting the news today than it was back in the 1960s when CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite was believed to be only second to God when it came to telling the truth.

One of the reasons people mistrust programs such as The National is because we have access to excellent upstart news sources on the Internet. Many sites are run by talented journalists who have fled the mainstream.

CBC's Q aimed at U.S. youth while most Canadians given back seat

When CBC management announced following the dismissal of Jian Ghomeshi last October that the radio program Q would be re-launched, I hoped that we might see a revival of true Canadian arts and culture programming in radio’s morning time slot.

I and tens-of-thousands of other Canadians yearn for the return of programming similar to some of the greatest radio broadcasting in the world that found its home on CBC Radio going back to the mid-1970s – programs such as This Country in the Morning, Morningside and This Country.

I’m talking about the high calibre of Peter Gzowski’s Morningside. Gzowski was a master of radio, capturing the spirit and substance of Canada perhaps better than any broadcaster before or since.  And there were outstanding hosts such as Don Harron, Michael Enright and Shelagh Rogers.

Those programs could safely allow CBC Radio to live up to its recently abandoned motto: “Canada lives here.” They explored both the lives of Canada’s greatest citizens, our cultural quirks and the lives of small town folks who had interesting things to say.

CEO Herbert Lacroix : The real problem behind the CBC. 

Today's media language a little too much like 1984's Newspeak

Newspeak is the fictional language in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, written by George Orwell. It is a controlled language created by the totalitarian state as a tool to limit freedom of thought and concepts that pose a threat to the regime.

Canada is not Orwell’s imaginary society where peoples’ every thoughts and ideas are controlled by The Party, but our own powerful elite has pushed our media closer to censorship and a propaganda-feeding machine than I ever imagined possible.

Our elite include the wealthy, corporate executives, private media, and the Harper government. As Orwell wrote in his novel, the elite understand that if they have strong influence over media they can limit serious criticism of the tremendous changes they impose on ordinary people.

CBC's At Issue: Anderson, Hébert, Mansbridge, Coyne

All but one of Canada’s 118 daily newspapers and all four of its private television networks support the business-dominated ideology of the elite and the Harper government. The CBC has some excellent, independent minded programming, but CBC management is so terrified of Stephen Harper that it doesn’t allow the boat to be rocked.

Of course journalists are allowed to write stories that are politely critical of the Harper government, one of the links in the chain of power, but far too often stories focus on the government’s strategy to overcome an image problem.

What needs to happen to save and rebuild the CBC

The CBC, and particularly CBC Radio, is easily Canada’s most important cultural and public interest institution.

I say this not so much as someone who worked at the Corporation during the glory days of the 1970s and '80s but, like so many other people, a kid who was brought up in a home that was always watching and listening to the CBC.

Residing in a small village in Nova Scotia, we greatly appreciated the voices and images, ranging from Clyde Gilmour’s 40-year run of Gilmour’s Albums  on radio to the hard-nosed journalism of Norman DePoe on TV.

But after decades of serving and educating Canadians, Stephen Harper’s vicious cuts have brought the organization to its knees.

Can the CBC be saved and restored? Probably. But it will take some time and some good luck, as well as some heavy duty political lobbying.

Petitions next to useless in campaign to defend CBC

At least half-a-dozen petitions aimed at stopping Stephen Harper from taking control of the CBC are buzzing around the Internet. Pressure groups are putting a lot of effort into this campaign, but the question is - does sending petitions to Ottawa have any effect on the Conservatives. Are they just wasting everyone's time?

The many petitions contain all the right language:

"Prime Minister Harper is using his latest budget bill to seize unprecedented power over the CBC," say Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and LeadNow in a joint appeal. "Independent public media is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy, and we cannot stand by and let the CBC be silenced and controlled for partisan political gain."

"The government would be able to have dictatorial control over the terms and conditions of employment of non-union staff -- and any collective bargaining among unionized staff -- at the CBC and Radio Canada," says a petition started by SumOfUs.

‘Mother Corp’ funding:Harper starts to take aim at the CBC!

The CBC-hating Harper Conservatives are quick off the mark to get the debate going about whether the public broadcaster is of “good value” to Canadians.

Today’s Globe and Mail reveals that Senator Irving Gerstein has asked Conservative supporters about the 10 most important National Issues, and one of the questions is whether the more than $1-billion Ottawa spends on the CBC is “good value” or “bad value.”

Hey, I can’t image the true money-sucking Conservative stalwarts across the country would answer this one!

One problem the CBC has, is that a lot of people who have been very strong supporters in the past are perhaps a little cooler toward Mother Corp. now due to the terrible programming decisions – that have been an attempt to popularize programs that have very questionable value to Canadians.

Then there’s the way some important programs slots on CBC Radio have been either removed or turned into pop-radio style programming. And finally, the deterioration of news on both TV and Radio, largely because the top dog people running the service don’t have enough experience in the news business.

Concerning the Conservatives’ so-called “budget process” and deciding that government programs need to be cut – it’s all phoney! In the last budget, they gave billions of dollars to rich people by cutting their tax levels, and gave corporations billions they didn’t even ask for. This set up the situation that Flaherty and Harper wanted – a deficit. Now, for ideological reasons not budget reasons, they can go about and downsize government – one of their main objectives as a government.

As for my part, I worked in many divisions of the CBC for more than 20 years, and I still greatly value many of its programs, particularly As It Happens, The Current and anything done by Eleanor Wachtel. At a time when national broadcasters in many countries in Europe are making a great contribution to national identity, it will be a terrible shame if the CBC is financially starved to death.

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