“When Richard was appointed executive vice-president of CBC Television six years ago he brought with him a revolution that shook the foundation of the organization and eventually of the whole of our English services. He challenged every premise, attacked conventional wisdom, and uprooted whole parts of the internal culture. Six years later, the institution is better off than it was. I want to acknowledge his success in turning CBC Television around and thank him for his contribution.”

- President Hubert Lacroix
- @cbc_archives via Twitter
- @helenspitzer via Twitter
- John Doyle via Twitter

- Inside the CBC

Quite simply, Twitter & YouTube & TwitPic & Qik kicked the shit out of them. A handful of free tools that didn’t exist 5 years ago just pwned your half-a-century-old billion-dollar National Television Broadcaster.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This might have been the weekend we all realized that TV news is too slow, too old, and too clueless to report on important, breaking local news. The web is much faster. Hell, even radio is faster, including CBC Radio. CBC Radio blew CBC-TV out of the water.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But CBC-TV was never with it. They missed the story, when it was right front of them as they did a voiceover. It was like they couldn’t process what was in front of their own eyes. Despite years in the business, with more training and experience than anyone in TV in this country, they were useless at reporting what was happening in their own streets.

Looks to me like CBC News is on the run.

“What cruel, ironic bastard assigned ‘Fall On Your Knees’ to Perdita Felicien?”

- Richard Switzer via Twitter on Canada Reads

“i regret to inform you that the term ‘flaming sphincter valve’ is used on Dragons’ Den tonight.”

- Dianne Buckner via Twitter

The tweet gives us a rare look into the workday of the corporate Social Media Guru at a national news organization. An entire workday taken up by a single meeting. This blows my mind. And by all appearances the producer is pleased with a productive day. Love a meeting!

Now, considering that a well-crafted, well-researched tweet could take 30 minutes to compose and distribute, and considering bathroom breaks and meals take 2 hours, that 8 hour meeting about social media could have resulted in 12 solid emissions from the Tweet Department. Not counting retweets.

Now, I don’t want to pick on Kim Fox, who is probably a hard-working woman, and who has graced our pages before.

But for the love of God, is anyone at the CBC reading this? Or are you all at meetings?

Not me, but the @mondoville acct. What could possibly be the reason? The effrontery of good, fun, forward-thinking journalism, done daily on a shoestring with plenty of digital doodads and gewgaws. The bloody nerve! NOW what’d ya do that for?

Mondoville has been around less than 3 months, and if this town needs an enema, these boys are warming up the saline solution and pissing off all the right people.

Social Media douchebags who forgot how to use the Queen’s motherfucking English? Check.

Bloggy bottomfeeders who use words like “tweeple”? Check.

Insufferable, self-important teenage interns with the social sensibilities of geriatrics? Check.

Respected, erudite, educated, international journalists with avatars featuring foreheads?

… ahh … um … give it time. It’s still early.

Because everyone loves the joke, until it’s played on them.

Here at The Tea Makers we’ve been playing with Twitter for a while, especially how it connects to our mission of Mirth, Mayhem, Links, & Quotes.

Inspired by our cousins at Mondoville, we’re now adding to our general curative offerings by making use of Twitter’s lists. The subcommittee otherwise known as The Tweet Makers has begun three new lists, that we hope provide a unique and contextual means of helping to further classify our fellow tweeters.

The first list we call: first up against the wall. This describes the people who we will be letting go once we return to power. Is there someone you want to see gone? Nominate them in the comments below.

The second list is a motley crew we call: douches, hipsters, and clowns. This describes people who may be one of these things, but in general fit a type of dominant tweeter archetype. This doesn’t mean we dislike these folk. For example we like @iancapstick quite a lot, he’s a wonderful tweeter, and also a definite hipster. Similarly we all love @petermansbridg in large part because he’s a wonderful clown. Let us also not forget the joy we all get laughing at internet douches. Know of any who should be on this list? Post them below with an argument as to why.

Finally our third list describes the type of people we seek out: sharp, sly, & sexy. Categories that bring @kady, @scroll, and @pmarizzle into the same feed! Once again, know of someone you think should be part of this list? Post a comment about them below telling us why. Note, this thread will be useless without pics!

“But whether the Citizen pulled its punches on the Lansdowne Live proposal or not, this is a story CBC Ottawa should have owned. It didn’t. Oh there are examples of good work done by individual reporters. But the issue never became a station priority. It rarely, if ever, broke new ground on the story.  It’s an example that offers another possible tagline for the new CBC News:  No longer in the business of owning stories, we’re now satisfied with simply marking them.”

-Andrew Clarke, And now a partial score: Lansdowne Live Won, Public Interest, Nil