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On the CBC:
The jaded public wants to be amused; journalists have to eat well. Reducing issues to personalities is useful to the ruling class. The "news" now functions to legitimize power, not to convey information. The politics of personalities helps the legitimizers to divert attention from issues that might upset the status quo. (7)
The Conservatives also justifiably felt that the CBC, then as today, gave too great prominence to the Liberal view of Canada. (19)
--George Grant, Lament for a Nation (1965)
1. That was then
For many years I listened to CBC radio; I was proud to be Canadian and the CBC was a part of what made me a proud Canadian. In the early-1970s I listened to Anthology on CBC radio on Saturday evenings; I listened to Morley Callaghan, Kildare Dobbs, Hugh Garner, Al Purdy, bill bissett, and other poets, novelists, and playwrights. I listened to Ideas, founded by Phyllis Webb, and heard talks given by Northrop Frye and Louis Dudek, among others; I first heard of John Glassco's Memoirs of Montparnasse on CBC radio. After hearing interviews with Ivan Illich I read his books and was introduced to a fascinating thinker and writer. I listened to Music and Metaphor weeknights at midnight, they combined poems with music and some years later I listened to a French language version of this same show on Radio Canada. For many years when I drove to work and when I returned home from work I listened to CBC radio, they were great companions during this daily drive, the programme hosts felt like friends. This was excellent broadcasting.
2. this is now
I rarely listen to CBC radio and, as for CBC television, I was never a fan and now even less so; this is because their dramas and news shows are often based on an assumption of the correctness of woke values. Whether it is television drama or the news, the CBC filters what they broadcast through climate change, diversity, and gender fluidity. Of course, this does not apply to all of the news items, but their bias is always ready to be included in some news item. As a part of this, they are contemptuous of anyone not woke or who disagrees with them. They don't seem to care that most Canadians don't follow their preconceptions about contemporary society. They do not support Canadian values, they do not represent Canada's history or traditions, it is usually propaganda for Justin Trudeau.
Lately, while eating supper, I've begun to listen to As it Happens, on CBC radio; in the past it was always entertaining, it aimed for some humour with interviews of different people. But AIH today is nothing like the old AIH, it's become annoying and woke and it isn't interesting or entertaining; even the new host sounds bored; maybe it's now intended to be educational . . . Gone are the days of Barbara Frum and the announcers who followed her; Frum was always entertaining, intelligent, and humourous; recently Frum's interview with HowardBallard, who owned the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, was replayed decades after it was first broadcast, this was in response to Jason Priestly's documentary on Ballard; Ballard wouldn't even be interviewed today, he would have been cancelled long before his passing.
4. Morningside
I used to listen to Morningside, broadcast every day from 9 to 12 noon; that programme ended years ago but it was a great format and it was always great radio; gone are the days of Peter Gzowski and other hosts (like Don Harron or Judy LaMarsh); there is no place in the present CBC for intelligent people like Barbara Frum or Peter Gzowski. Or Wendy Mesley who was driven out of the CBC by the zealously politically correct at the CBC. These announcers and programmes were a part of my life and I remember them with fondness and affection. Just think, they got rid of Morningside with its various intelligent hosts who interviewed equally intelligent guests and they gave us "Q" and something called "Commotion". The level of intelligence and ability to entertain has plummeted. No, it's beyond "plummeted", it is no longer the CBC we used to listen to and love, no longer the CBC that built a relationship with listeners; this new manifestation of the CBC is some new manifestation of mostly white, woke, people living in the GTA who know nothing about Canada and don't like Canadians.
5. bloated
My values, not the CBC's, include frugality and being careful with money, including with somebody else's money; the CBC's values include profligacy and actual contempt for the tax payers who pay their way. Just recently the CBC was given $40M dollars in Covid relief; they get $1.2B dollars in subsidy a year and when necessary it is topped up to keep them going. They cannot pay their own way, they were never self-supporting in the past and Canadians never expected them to be self-supporting, they had a mission, to inform, educate, and entertain Canadians; they are now indecently bloated and obese, they have a woke bias, and there is no effort to economize when the national debt is out of control; how can we feel we're all in this together when both the Federal government and their representative, the CBC, continue to spend our tax money when the country is deeper and deeper in debt? While Canadians struggle, the CBC spends.
6. and obese
Think about the following for bloated: there are two radio networks, Radio One and CBC Music, in every region and city in Canada, which means several dozen radio stations across the country and each broadcasting some original content; CBC television produces most of its own content and has television stations, fully staffed, across the country; CBC News Network, on 24 hours a day, on cable television, with its cohort of announcers and reporters; CBC Gem which streams CBC content and some new programmes that are too woke to be on mainstream CBC and would not be acceptable to most Canadians; CBC News Explore, a new manifestation of waste, is a part of Gem, it's the latest extravagance and its difficult to see why it exists but we are encouraged to watch it because it's "free" (this is especially galling to taxpayers who know it's not "free", we're paying for this); there are CBC podcasts, made at our expense and advertised on CBC television; and there is CBC on the internet which includes CBC News, CBC Listen, and CBC on YouTube. There is also Radio Canada, the French language radio, television, and internet broadcasting network paid for by taxpayers. Radio Canada International was popular on short wave radio and later on the internet but it was jettisoned; and, increasingly, there are broadcasts in indigenous languages. Each of these manifestations of CBC has numerous employees; in fact, you can see these employees in the background when we see a broadcast from one of their numerous regional news offices. Radio Canada has a limited presence across the country.
7. Biased
CBC's biased reporting can slip over into being reporting of even greater dubious value; that is, news has become interpretation, bias, and even falsehood. An example: the second day of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, in January 2022, CBC announcers would mention that two monuments in Ottawa had been "desecrated" by the demonstrators and they've kept repeating this story; among other things, it effectively cowed people they were interviewing into opposing the Freedom Convoy. It was ammo they could use against the Freedom Convoy. But the CBC has a double standard, it has never referred to beheading, toppling, or throwing paint on statues of our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, or Queen Victoria, or Egerton Ryerson as "desecrating" these statues because the CBC sympathizes and agrees with the demonstrators who defaced, destroyed, and desecrated statues of these historical figures. The use of the word "desecrate" is also interesting, it is loaded with innuendo and exaggerates the demonstrators' action which was to drape a Canadian flag on the shoulders of the statue of Terry Fox. The CBC assumes an agreement in values between itself and its audience but I suggest that most Canadians are good and fair-minded people who don't identify as much with the values CBC promotes as the CBC thinks. The CBC wasn't always this way; the CBC used to help unify the country and be known for excellence in broadcasting. Now it's come to the point that the sooner they are defunded the better for the country.
In yesterday's Montreal Gazette (30 March 2023) it was reported that a synagogue in the Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal had been "defaced", note the word "defaced" which is used to describe that swastikas were painted on the front of the synagogue, Congregation Temple Solomon. This is more than defacement, this is desecration. The CBC used the word "desecrate" to describe draping a Canadian flag on the statue of a secular figure and have misused the word "desecration" in order to convince the public that the alleged crime was more serious than it actually was and to demonize the Freedom Convoy demonstrators. But by appropriating and misusing the word "desecrate" they have lowered its value, all in the name of their own bias. The synagogue was both desecrated and it was defaced, it is a hate crime. What was done to the statue was minor; but I heard, on day two of the demonstration, on CBC television, one elderly man who was being interviewed by the CBC regarding this incident, he wavered in condemning the Freedom Convoy and then, after hearing that the statue was "desecrated", he opposed the Freedom Convoy. Who could possibly be in favour of "desecrating" a statue of Terry Fox?
Yet another reason this alleged "desecration" is bogus is that there was no public outcry against the Freedom Convoy for having draped a Canadian flag on the Terry Fox statue. No one cared. Draping a flag on a statue is not to desecrate that statue; there was no outpouring of anger against the Freedom Convoy after this act was reported by the CBC, it was minor. Swastikas painted on a synagogue is to desecrate that religious building.
8.
These people at CBC are so biased and entitled they can't comprehend any criticism, they can't understand that the public no longer supports their biased reporting. They have taken a public broadcaster and turned it into their little fiefdom, given themselves raises, enjoyed their special status and assumed it is the norm and what they deserve; they assume they can do no wrong, but they have lost all connection to the basic tenets of news broadcasting. Had anything been wrong they would have reported it and since criticism of the CBC doesn't appear on their website or in what they broadcast, then it doesn't exist. There are exceptions, excellent exceptions, and their presence makes the CBC News Network worth watching.
"A 2017 survey of Canadians suggested that CBC TV was the most biased national news media outlet (perceived biased by 50% of Canadians overall, tied with The Globe and Mail) followed closely by CBC Radio (perceived biased by 49% of Canadians overall)." From "CBC News" on Wikipedia.
9.
Google these newspaper articles: "CBC Paid its Employees $16M in Bonuses in 2022: Documents". (10 March 2023)
"Plenty of sunshine for CBC employees". (23 February 2023)
There is something repulsive about people getting bonuses when the rest of the population gets impoverished. As I said, "bloated and obese".
10. Twitter
Thomas Mulcair, former leader of the Federal NDP, states that the CBC is biased in its reporting, biased in favour of the Liberal Party of Canada. It is not a secret, it is common knowledge.
Refer to George Grant's statement above, that Conservatives felt the CBC "gave too great prominence to the Liberal view of Canada." Even in 1965 this was obvious. It is preposterous to think that the CBC ever gave too much prominence to the Conservative view of Canada. They never did and they never will. Entitled people tend to be smug and not consider that anyone might not agree with how great they are . . .
Considering that the present NDP has a third party status and buoys up the Liberals, it is curious how many interviews and press conferences feature Jagmeet Singh (talk about over exposure!), the leader of the NDP, and how seldom we see or even hear from Pierre Poilievre; maybe Poilievre doesn't give press conferences (his mistake), but that Singh is interviewed as often as he is, when he has so little to say, and he supports the Liberals, it seems obvious that the CBC's Liberal bias extends to those who support the Liberal Party. This should be embarrassing for Singh because it denies his independence as a politician. (18.04.2023)
11.
Compare CTV's news website to that of the CBC; one (CTV) is straight reporting of the news; the other, that of the CBC, is a combination of opinion and news, some of it biased news, news promoting the causes of the CBC -- climate change, diversity, inclusion -- as well as other news. Seeing the CBC's reporting of Twitter's labeling of the CBC as "government funded news" is to see a bloated and obese corporation defending itself for being bloated and obese, and denying the obvious, that it is government funded.
12.
My God, even the CBC news panels are usually comprised of people associated with the Liberals, hold liberal biases, are related to people who are prominent Liberals, or have worked for the Trudeau Foundation. The assumption of the panels is that their liberal position is commonly held and self-evident. These are panels of informed journalists and experts commenting on the Liberal Party; they are well-informed, intelligent, and inclined to agreeing with a liberal bias.
13.
When defunding the CBC is mentioned by the CBC it is with a gasp, as in how could anyone think of such a thing? The CBC is perfect as it is and Poilievre began this crazed mania to defund the state sponsored corporation, but he didn't. The CBC's bias, if not in everything they say, is present in the way they say it.
13.
Watch the CBC News Network from, let's say, 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., and it's an almost all woman network; the host is a woman and she refers to women reporters; an example: a murder occurs in Montreal and this is mentioned by the host who then goes to another reporter, a woman somewhere in darkest Toronto, and this second woman reporter reads what happened in Montreal, but she obviously knows nothing about Montreal and all she knows about the murder is what she is reading. Why not have the announcer read this news and save the cost of a second reporter? It is also cringe worthy to have what is basically an all woman news network like this. Their bias isn't necessarily only in what they say but is present in the way they say it and in who says it. Is the mostly woman network payback on the men from when there were mainly men running the news rooms? It is no longer this way but these CBC announcers act as though this is still the case.
14.
Does anyone watch the new CBC News Explore channel? There must be stats on how many people watch this new station since it's only online. Basically, the main problem with CBC News Explore is that it is boring and irrelevant. CBC News Explore was never needed or wanted except by the CBC. I want to know the ratings for CBC News Explore and I suggest that it is very low, daily in the hundreds. CBC News Explore is like CBC's podcasts, the talent pool is running dry but they continue to expand, and it shows in the quality of production.
15.
The CBC is doing so much that is wrong, beginning by going woke. They have ditched popular shows, like Randy Bachman's, and replaced it with popular music that anyone can hear on privately-run FM stations. BTW, the BBC has the same type of show as Randy Bachman had, it is hosted by Iggy Pop on Radio Three and, like Bachman's, it is very popular. But the CBC is smug, too smug for their own good and Randy Bachman is an old white man, which means he had to go. The CBC should also listen to Walter Parker's daily five hours of classical music on Vermont Public radio, an excellent programme; they should learn something about their audience and radio.
16.
But they're too entitled and full of themselves. They seem to think the world revolves around a few blocks in downtown Toronto. The problem is that the psyche of an organization or an individual comes across very clearly to other people and the psyche of the CBC is no longer attractive, no longer interesting, no longer of creative people with a desire to communicate something important to their audience. It is of people who think they know better than everyone else. Yes, there is some excellent journalism at the CBC but the psyche is present in other ways, it is a bloated and obese psyche. It is the psyche of people who think they know better than everyone else and no one is permitted to question what they say or their self-belief. Did you see the At Issue panel last night (20 April 2023) when the question of Twitter and the CBC came up? When one panelist suggested that all was not well with the CBC the face of the host was displeased, stony, and because the psyche is always exposed, she was not happy, she appeared angry. Sometimes organizations need to be shaken up and renewed. It's that time for the CBC. Get rid of Catherine Tait who complained about Pierre Poilievre, she has no business commenting on political parties. (21 April 2023)
17.
I could go on and on. The CBC is just not worth $1.2B.
Note: this has been edited and added, and updated, since it was first posted. (26.04.2023)
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