Paul McGrath sets his own mandate at the Official Blog of the CBC, and feels entitled, qualified and authorized to write about things outside the CBC.
CBC’s new media critic
Published February 5, 2009 1:22 pm
The Tea Makers
They offered me the office, offered me the shop. They said I'd better take anything they'd got. Do you wanna make tea at the CBC? Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?
26 Comments
Still no sign of Paul McGrath’s offer to give us a piece of his mind.
Guess he couldn’t spare it.
Doubt that has a bearing on it. Should be up as soon as it clears the Clark Committee.
@Allan : What’s the update on Paul’s submission?
Maybe he’s waiting for you to finally tell all about when you’re job offer from CBC is going to be announced.
What’s the update on Paul’s submission?
Anxious, Paul?
Perhaps FO is just hunting for a good graphic, or did you submit one?
Not to worry. joe will keep his promises.
I wonder what the title will be.
And yes, we appreciate your submission. It’s readers like you who help make Tea Makers the best in the world!
Speaking of answered emails…
Fake Ouimet, what’s going on with my offer to write a guest post? I emailed your yesterday but I haven’t received a response.
As you said “if you want to make it better, you can. I ’“ yes, I ’“ warmly welcome any submissions and guest posts.”
Still anxiously waiting.
There are several reasons why that is unlikely to happen, chief among them being that the inside blog is a very low priority.
Also, no one else will look after that blog. It pays so little, and requires a lot of work. And demands good judgement. You’d really have to be a bit foolish to waste your time on it.
Like, what would you be willing to do for 10 cents a day? In the service of the CBC. The thing doesn’t write itself. You’ll be judged by your peers and the public each time, and you can’t let it sit idle for very long, it must be watered almost daily.
A lot of grief for a miniscule return.
So what kind of person would volunteer to do it?
I suggest the kind of person who sees advantages to being in the spotlight, controlling dialogue, and an opportunity to brown nose, as they say.
So the last writer used it to put up a picture of himself, remind people when he wasn’t feeling well (the entire corporation needed to know if Tod had a cold, never mind anyone else), and ask manufacturers to send products for review to his home address. And to pander for flattery, while deleting any criticism.
The focus became Tod Maffin as much as it did the CBC.
It was clear his attitude was “what do you think, I’m doing this for nothing? This is about what I can get out of this, how can it serve me. I sure as hell ain’t doing it for the money.”
But Tod, like Paul, showed very bad judgement. Much of what he did was despicable. CBC’ers would roll their eyes.
But nothing was ever done.
And Paul is nowhere near in the league of Tod Maffin, a whole different animal.
His tenure will be far less me, me, me. He’s not a personal corporation always dropping his business card. Paul is not “talent”.
And never forget the CBC way of doing things.
A problem is not a problem until it reaches the Ombudsman.
Until then, it’s just an unanswered email. An email that’s been sitting there for a week, a month, two months, three months …
And for Jeff, the only writer that matters is John Doyle. And that makes Doyle feel very, very good.
Let’™s step back for a moment, leaving Kev behind the bulkhead door as the submarine floods, and ask why the official blogger of the CBC is engaging in a pissing match with its unofficial bloggers.
If ever we needed imperious Jeff Keay to crack a whip, it would be now.
very few CBC staff post here under their real name, Kev, and you’re not one them.
But that’s fine. We’re totally into free speech, and holding open meetings.
Personally, I’m more interested in what you know, than who you know.
Are you one of the coal workers, Kev?
Your moniker is quite familiar around here, you often drop in.
To express contempt. (is that irony?)
And it must be well deserved, or why else would we hear from you so often.
First off, Claude wasn’t a middle manager. Second, plenty of staff post here under their real names and give information that clearly identifies them within the workplace.
Why do you bother with this blog if you have such obvious contempt for the people working the coal face in the CBC?
Sure about your first assertion, Paul? I would double-check with ’œClod’Â Galipeau’™s former secretary if I were you.
A broadcaster with no fear of summary execution would not be staffed by Anonymoose.
No, Paul.
The irony is that someone with your manners and attitude works for a public broadcaster. And they allow you to be in charge of a newsletter to the staff and the public!
Fake Ouimet, it’s the CBC. People don’t get fired for displeasing the wrong middle manager.
As far what Allan thinks, who cares? He doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.
No, Allan actually think you aren’™t trying hard enough to find stories actually situated in or about the CBC, and that you are untenably constrained by blogging about your own employer.
Your ’œwork experience at the CBC’ could be reset to ’œzero’ tomorrow if you displease the wrong middle manager, Paul.
I love the irony of this situation. I’m under attack from Allan because he feels I’m off topic or unqualified.
Allan, remove your head from your own orifice. If there’s anyone unqualified around here it’s you. You write for a blog about the CBC with absolutely zero work experience at the CBC.
you post … yourself
that makes you a … blogger
What do you do?
I’m a blogger.
You mean you’re a discussion generator?
I guess.
Then shouldn’t you be talking about Sarah Palin and sex? The hot stuff. The Conservative Party.
Well, I sort of do. I talk about a big national broadcaster.
CTV?
No, the other one. The CBC.
It never occurred to me that the exercise was one of promoting discussion.
Which means you post material to please yourself, first and foremost.
What do you think?
I think that makes you a lame-ass blogger.
I’m not sorry if George bores you.
I write simply to express my views, not for star ratings or to generate discussion.
Ever.
I don’t worry about what is someone I’ve never met going to think about this sentence or that topic.
It never occurred to me that the exercise was one of promoting discussion.
If I had a goal, then I suppose it’s simply to promote thought, and free expression.
What do you think?
Paul follows up with more Inside the CBC:
CanWest Forced to Sell E! Channel
which isn’t actually true, but whatever!
… but God forbid anyone should dare to put up their hand and make the slightest critical comment about anything he does.
Not when you do it 100 times and still get no discussion happening on it.
All comments are read and taken seriously.
And there’s no attempt made to restrict the discussion, or limit it to the topic of the post.
Do we need to stop and re-think our approach here? What limits should be set on joe, and on Allan? Would they be better off leaving the page blank, or filling it with something contrived to engender sympathy. or be guided by “if you can’t say anything good about something, then …”?
I reject putting any limits on Tea Makers.
But still, there are limits in place.
I could not, for example, participate in a blog that spread lies, or rumours about identifiable people.
I tolerate all criticism directed at me, and most of the time that’s all I ever get.
But please think it through if you hope to make me repent and see the error of my ways.
I read every piece of nonsense that’s thrown at me. Rarely do the comments address anything I say. Most often, what’s being objected to is my right to say it.
The specific comment above brings up the phrase “your level of responsibility seems pretty lacking”. Really? How so?
What is your idea of something that is irresponsible at Tea Makers?
Locker room humour and comments about George?
You find this damaging to our social order? A bad example for others?
Have I misconstrued or twisted your words, or mocked you simply for not adoring everything I say?
You have no objection to a hundred commercials for George every day on the CBC, but God forbid anyone should dare to put up their hand and make the slightest critical comment about anything he does.
I take the view that the existence of Tea Makers is a far more socially useful, necessary and responsible act than anything you will ever find at most other blogs.
Paul needs to decide if he’s going to put a veneer on what the public sees reflected on that “blog”
More likely, he needs to have the power to be able to decide. Likely, he’s got a few people in communicatios to report to, who have people above them that they have to report and so on and so on.
Which is why people are so critical of the new Teamakers. Nobobdy’s gonna track your internet use, Allan, or ask you to clear out your desk based on controversial stuff you wrote, or comments you approved, or generally be on your ass, trying to get you dooced.
Ironically, with all the freedom in your hands, and no giant chain of reporting to bog you guys down, your level of responsibility seems pretty lacking a lot of the time. Whether it’s the locker room humour about tits and beavers, or all the endless Strombo-centricity. Not to mention Joe’s highly specific but more well informed baileywick.
You insist.
I originally submitted
“What does this have to do with the CBC?
At this rate, I could write this blog, Paul.
And I’m no genius.”
The next day I submitted the comment again, a little re-worked. It got posted.
I deduce that the difficulty of the earlier one was that I chose to address the wizard directly, though it is obviously the work of one specific individual. Not a corporation.
My remark wasn’t out of line, except to a prude or someone unable to handle criticism.
Paul needs to decide if he’s going to put a veneer on what the public sees reflected on that “blog”.
That’s funny – isn’t there a critical comment of yours on the very post you linked to above? I’ve actually been surprised at some of the stuff he’s okayed so far.
I don’t know, it’s possible he’s not approving your more disordered or scatological rants, but that may just be to maintain something approaching a non-wingnut venue. Why don’t you give an example of something of yours that’s been blocked?
The site is also still censored, just as it was by his predecessor.
Everyone likes every post, because he doesn’t allow anyone to say otherwise.
You wonder what defines a real blog.
This is a worthwhile work on the subject, Ringmar, Erik A Blogger’s Manifesto: Free Speech and Censorship in the Age of the Internet (London: Anthem Press, 2007)
And so it begins. Have you set up your anti-Paul site yet or is the obsession still only in its earliest stage?