The Tea Makers

7 comments:

1. Anonymous

   Posted January 23, 2009 at 12:12 pm | # | Reply to this masterpiece

   I would think the survey is going to show that ‘middle Canada’ thinks, when they do think of the CBC, as bland, honest and no worse than other media in their bias. And that there is no left or right bias. So there, Harper!

2. Anonymous

   Posted January 23, 2009 at 12:24 pm | # | Reply to this masterpiece

   The Canadian media is intellectually broke. It seems to have morphed into a kind of adjunct of Parliament Hill. Look no further than the order-of-canada pins sported by two the country’s icons on the nightly national tv new programs. What about this pattern of appointing of media divas as GGs. And, and …appointing media people to the senate! Are these people journalists, or are they in the business of pitching slow balls to the government? When was the LAST time you saw a scoop, a real scoop, from our journalists. Journalism is in a downward spiral in this country.
   Now, that is a sure sign that something is going to change. I see us moving to more independent –Huffington Post style of news. The reality is that most of the time I tune in to watch the dudes with the order of canada pins, there is nothing there that I don’t already know. I have already read it, or downloaded, or received a google alert hours and hours before.
   We used to have a stellar core of journalists in this country, the Norman DePoes, the Patrick Watsons … now …we have guys soft-shoeing around the hill snooping out possible senate openings.

3. Allan

   Posted January 23, 2009 at 3:19 pm | # | Reply to this masterpiece

   The CBC news leadership finally acknowledges that they need help, that it takes more than Magi bells & whistles to impress viewers.
   The tricks and expensive advice got them nowhere, and Newsworld remains dull and lifeless, and the supper-hour newscasts still behind in major markets.
   But will feedback from a survey result in any significant change?

   When you spend time with the CBC, reflecting on "what's wrong with this picture", you encounter many bright, talented and interesting people at work. And you soon realize that these people are not the problem. Leadership is the problem.

   A survey will now provide that leadership.

   But can any polling of the public bring about critical change, changes in attitude?
   While across the border we see a news industry that has evolved in dynamic and innovate ways, Canada has stagnated.
   Even with the expanding abilities of the internet, our public broadcasting is still determined to play it safe.

   While everyone in the Great North is drawn to the glamour and fireworks of our American neighbours, the CBC is stubbornly fixated with copying the style of a far more distant example, the BBC.
   We all enjoy that culture and its intimidating accent, but saying that's what's best for Canada, is snobbish, elitist and insulting.
   Apparently, being ourselves is not good enough.

   Today we can be on a ferry to Saltspring Island or sitting at Swiss Chalet and pull out of our pocket a device that will give us live streaming of CNN and every newspaper still printing.
   But even more, we find lively, vibrant discourse everywhere we turn in American media.
   Where's the CBC?
   Afraid of its own shadow.
   The National drags out the same tired, predictable commentators, as if only a half dozen people in a country of 35 million have any views worth hearing.
   And 90% of the time, the riveting topic is federal politics.
   Such bloodless and academic-lite content is not improved by making it into a podcast.

   The rise of news with a point of view, like Fox and MSNBC, has made no impression on the pseudo civil servants who run CBC News .
   The readily available and inexpensive technology that has created an alternative platform for CNN with a daily LIVE stream, often several, goes unused in the hands of people who prefer to be safe, and last, rather than adapt to the times.

   Change will come, eventually, even to the dusty, tired CBC.
   Not the fake and vapid change of grafting a Strombo on to the schedule.
   How has such relentless branding, inflated claims of tough journalism, and all the rock and movie stars added anything to our perspective and understanding of the issues facing a country at war, in political turmoil?
   It takes more than the appearance of change to revitalize an enterprise that becomes more irrelevant with each passing day.
   Should have been a year ago, but with the pace of progress at the CBC, it'll probably be a decade before we get our own Rachel Maddow, even if she lives just down the street right now.

4. Fake Ouimet

   Posted January 24, 2009 at 12:54 pm | # | Reply to this masterpiece

   +1 to Allan for a solid comment.

5. Anonymous

   Posted January 25, 2009 at 7:26 am | # | Reply to this masterpiece

   Hubert, how can a study be “independent” when CBC is paying for it? This is a classic 20th century propaganda technique and our national public broadcaster does not seem to recognize it…

6. Anonymous

   Posted January 26, 2009 at 8:19 am | # | Reply to this masterpiece

   Go to the federal government web site that requests research proposals and one will find an RFP for the CBC survey:
   https://www.merx.com/English/Supplier_Menu.Asp?WCE=Show&TAB=1&PORTAL=MERX&State=7&id=167832&FED_ONLY=0&hcode=ZcqQcmSH2JwYfWOP7sd%2bTQ%3d%3d

   What on earth does the RFP mean by "the vendor should supply any appropriate White Papers addressing innovative ideologies"?

7. Allan

   Posted January 26, 2009 at 1:49 pm | # | Reply to this masterpiece

   It means that the CBC wants you to provide new ideas and a new vision so that they can look like the experts they are paid to be.