Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper caused a frisson of outrage among the country’s chattering classes by stating that he didn’t watch Canadian television news. Many of these were the same people who had cheered vociferously when American President Barrack Obama declared that he didn’t watch the most popular newscast in his own country.
Interesting comparison that, how one head of state is placing himself out of touch by not getting his news from the same sources as the majority of his constituents while the other is not --- for doing the same thing.
But Mr. Harper’s problem might soon start afflicting more and more of us since, as of last night, CBC Television made it clear that it wasn’t covering the news anymore either.
After months of tinkering and weeks of excited promotional announcements, CBC debuted its revamped and modernized “CBC News Network” on Monday, climaxing in the debut of the new nightly news hour “The National”, hosted by Peter Mansbridge.
The old nightly news hour was also called “The National” and was also hosted by Peter Mansbridge, so it would seem they didn’t revamp and modernize everything.
But it was clear from the opening seconds that they’d gotten rid of the lengthy intros and the big honking news desk. In the hour that followed, it also became clear that they’d also gotten rid of anything that could be construed as news.
Now, I’m all for change. And I totally get that everything needs a fresh coat of paint or a new approach from time to time. But what appeared on Canadian TV screens last night was little more than a white flag, a surrender of anything that could be labelled journalism in favor of offering style over substance.
The opening story, the one old Pete needed to make sure we got before anybody even had a chance to reach for the remote, was the arrival of Swine Flu vaccinations. After a summer of flogging the Federal government for dragging its feet on getting the population immunized, for supplying aboriginal outposts with body bags instead of hand sanitizer and not properly promoting the coming danger, the CBC suddenly didn’t seem to know what spin to put on the story.
We were shown endless lines waiting for hours to be immunized in Calgary. Didn’t these people know that kids and pregnant women were supposed to go first? Then to a Vancouver clinic where there were no lines because they only got 80 doses for their population of hugely at-risk aboriginal women and addicts with HIV. Okay, it turns out they could get a shot if they just walked a couple of blocks to a Public clinic or waited until next week when another shipment arrived, but according to the reporter aboriginal women and folks with HIV won’t do that.
Okay, so I’m getting confused. Is the problem too much demand and not enough shots or…
Never mind.
We move fast on the New National so it’s on to Toronto, where, despite a poll that says half of us don’t think we need a shot, everybody was being urged to line up as soon as possible by the local director of public health, who, although not being a kid or a woman who appeared pregnant or even aboriginal was interviewed while getting a shot that I had just been led to believe could have been better used on some junkie with AIDS in Vancouver.
I think…
Isn’t the News supposed to make you less confused about what’s going on?
Was the CBC’s take that the drug distribution system was messed up? Were a panicked population not co-operating out of fear of the impending pandemic? Was it that the elites were elbowing aboriginal women out of line to make sure they were safe? Do we really need to get a shot or don’t we?
Couldn’t tell you. Because under the new “Let’s get on with it” format we were already moving on to story number two.
No context. Little content. Why? I guess it interrupts throwing all these important stories at you as fast as possible.
All the news that can possibly fit or something like that.
Okay, so…
Story #2 was a poll showing that 80% of Canadians had no interest in next week’s visit of the Prince of Wales.
Really?
That’s important News?
And if 80% of us already don’t give a fuck why is it the CBC’s second lead?
No idea.
But we still got 2 or 3 minutes of some British newspaper editor opining that it was “the worst possible news” for the Royal family.
Seriously?
Do you think it’ll stop them acting like pompous assholes?
Nobody asked.
Toward the end of those three minutes, however, the CBC reporter glossed over one astonishing tidbit, that Canadians pay more per capita to support these inbred aristocrats than the British.
What!?!
But did anybody at the CBC add any more information on that? Nope. Instead, Mansbridge lowered his tone to one of hushed concern and asked “Does the Palace know?”
Does the Palace know?!!!
Dude! your reporter already said 80% of your audience doesn’t fucking care!!! Why would we give a flying fadoo what the Queen thinks?
Could you ask about the money?
No.
Moving on.
Story #3: Frank Stronach wants a weaker dollar.
Why?
Could it be because it might cost him less to borrow money from American Investment Banks to buy Opal from Germany?
Again, and despite having the new host of the flagship business show on the revamped network present in person, Pete didn’t ask. And she didn’t act like she’d have known anyway. Instead they both gushed at how cool it was to stand around doing the news instead of doing it sitting down and moved on.
Oh, and a note here to CBC Production --- if you’re going to shoot Peter Mansbridge standing up instead of sitting behind a desk, could somebody either tailor his cuffs or get him to hitch up his pants during the commercial breaks? I mean, if all’s you got’s style, get it right. Just sayin’.
Story #4: was protestors in Ottawa disrupting the House of Commons. No footage of the incident because the cameras in the House didn’t catch it. No details on the Bill they were yelling about either. Apparently six of them were fined 60 bucks.
Six people fined sixty bucks and it’s story #4.
Other news out of Ottawa yesterday was of a Conservative Senator under investigation for fixing government contracts. Elsewhere in the country, the Mob apparently has a stranglehold on Montreal City Hall and the Quebec construction industry. In world news, massive car bomb attacks killed 155 people and injured more than 500 in Iraq and Fidel Castro’s sister admitted she was a CIA mole.
None of that made the CBC National news on Monday night, let alone was deemed more newsworthy than 6 idiots in Ottawa being fined 60 bucks.
Story #5: Jerry Moyes agrees to sell the Phoenix Coyotes to the NHL. Mansbridge comments that this likely means the team will not end up in the hands of Canadian Hockey wannabe Jim Balsillie.
Duh.
I guess Pete’s been so busy learning how to stand around with one hand in his pocket that neither he nor any of the show’s many producers was aware that an Arizona court had ruled Balsillie was ineligible to get the team and Jim himself had announced he was giving up more than two weeks ago.
But tonight that’s suddenly “new” News.
Mansbridge then got into what appears to be a new rapid fire format that repeated a couple of times, allotting about 10 seconds each to three or four stories in a row, offering absolutely nothing beyond a couple of brief sentences of copy.
Again, no context. No detail. No insight. All those things CBC News with its several hundred million dollar a year budget is supposed to offer that other competitors and the Internet cannot.
We then moved on to a series of what I think are supposed to be feature reports even though they’re really short. In these segments, female correspondents turn up like wet-behind-the-ears cub reporters called into Editor Pete’s office to talk about their awesome day of newsgathering.
First up was “What’s in our drinking water?” Turns out it’s a antibiotic resistant bacteria. Now that’s news!
Except it’s not.
Seems it might be a problem in 20 years, if the scientists we were shown working on a solution don’t find one.
So….this might be news in 20 years.
Not now.
And after Peter goes all Fox News on how “brutal” the bacteria looks in the slide show we got, the reporter buttons her own apparently now complete non-story with --- and I quote --- “Just drinking the water won’t make you sick. But Superbugs, IF they do develop, they CAN BE serious --- especially to the SICK.”
Before the next feature with Wendy Mesley, which has been hyped three or four times now, because she’s like a CBC Star, we get another quick hit story.
Ontario has imposed a cell phone law prohibiting all but hands free systems while driving. I live in Ontario so I’ve already been bombarded with this for weeks. And I doubt many people in the rest of the country care.
But CBC augments this snippet by letting me know the province has also revamped the Amber Alert laws so cops can issue one if they simply “believe” a child has been abducted. And they also don’t have to have a description of the abductor or the kidnap vehicle anymore…
Um, excuse me, Peter, but could somebody let me know how that works? I got Bluetooth, so if I’m driving and see an Amber Alert, I can call. But if I don’t have a description of the Perp or know what kind of car he’s driving, do I just dial 911 if I see any kid in a car?
But Mansbridge has no time for such nonsense. He’s already got a reporter in Winnipeg going “in-depth” on all the stupid things people do in their cars.
Said reporter starts out sitting in a cruiser with a 20 year Winnipeg cop who’s “seen it all” to watch for people doing stupid stuff. And the cop promises that we won’t have to wait long.
But apparently we do, because what follows is a montage of people doing stupid stuff, most of it from Youtube clips that went viral two or three years ago.
This is the new CBC News Network!?! Youtube clips and a reporter describing what he once saw this one time – at band camp…
Anyway, the cop buttons that piece, warning people not to do anything stupid – which apparently they already weren’t because he and the reporter didn’t actually shoot any original footage.
Okay, Peter announces we’re getting to Wendy Mesley’s feature soon – right after a gadget CBC has been “scrutinizing” that doesn’t cure cancer. Only it turns out that this story will be appearing --- uh --- later in the week…
Then ten seconds on the Karadich genocide trial, another ten on people in Pakistan starving, five for the new elections in Afghanistan and about the same for 14 American soldiers and DEA agents killed there.
Um – isn’t all of this more newsworthy than people driving while having sex and drinking water that isn’t really dangerous?
Isn’t this still the respected world news service that all our tax dollars have supposedly paid for?
Apparently not.
Instead, Peter does a stand-up interview with former Canadian General Rick Hillier who’s got a new book out, about things that went on in Afghanistan five years ago and then buttons the interview by letting us know that Gen. Hillier will be interviewed for a much longer time and in far greater depth on “The Hour” which is coming up in, uh, less than fifteen minutes…
So --- why did The National bother? Slow news day? The guy was already in the building, so what the hell?
Geez, aren’t ratings for “The Hour” low enough without cutting them off at the knees like this?
Never mind.
Moving on.
To the weather.
Okay, I’m Canadian. I love weather. What’s coming tomorrow?
Don’t know.
The entire weather report is about a tropical storm bearing down on the Philippines.
I kid you not.
And our trusty meteorologist then throws things back to Mansbridge with “That’s your forecast. Back to you, Peter.”
Lady, it’s not my forecast! I don’t live in Manila. And neither does anybody else who’s watching!
By now, I just want to see this Wendy Mesley story they keep hyping and try to find an actual newscast.
But first, Mansbridge has to pepper me with another flurry of ten second stories. The internet will soon allow non-Latin domain names. Great. Including me, how many people watching this show don’t write in Hindi? NASA animation shows astronauts arriving on the moon in 2015. Good. Still lots of time to plan the party. And somebody pretended a meteor landed in Latvia. Wow, bizarre Baltic hoaxes are now important news stories at the CBC.
But finally, it’s time for Wendy Mesley. And her big feature is about people who are profiting from the Swine flu. Okay. Goddamn opportunist sonsabitches! Let’s have at ‘em!
But it turns out the profiteers are Glaxo, who made the vaccine that was so damn important in the lead story. And Purell, who’ve sold $22 Million in hand sanitizer since the CBC started hyping the importance of hand washing last Spring.
Guys, this isn’t news. And they aren’t profiteers. Where are the scam artists and the cheerleaders of doom?
They don’t name any. Instead, Wendy puts on a Hazmat suit she bought online (probably with your tax dollars) and goes to a bookstore to buy a book on keeping your kids from getting sick.
The National even adds a bouncy whistling theme to all this so you know it’s supposed to be really funny even if it’s not.
Done with her little bookstore prank, Wendy then goes online to show you all the other silly stuff you can buy to keep the flu at bay.
Not only was Wendy’s exposé complete bullshit, I’m sure it cheered up the family of a 13 year old Boy in a Toronto suburb who died of Swine Flu earlier in the day.
I’m certain it must have also offered some insight to the kids on his hockey team and school he went to who are now under quarantine.
Perhaps it will lighten the load of the relatives of a ten year old girl from London, Ontario, also a Swine Flu victim, who will be buried tomorrow.
But then, those kids died far from the centre of CBC news coverage in downtown Toronto, so nobody at The National probably even noticed.
Mansbridge’s response to this utterly insensitive tastelessness --- and I quote --- “Good story. We can expect more of these?”
Wendy: “You bet” chirped out with the glee of somebody who’s just realized that trivializing the news is way more fun than actually reporting it.
Jesus Fucking Christ, Wendy! You’re better than this!
You already divorced this Mansbridge ass clown once! What’re you doing co-signing his bullshit?
You used to be one of the CBC’s best reporters. Why are you suddenly trying to become the next Samantha Bee?
I reached for the remote. But there was only one more story to go, so why not see if the new format could somehow redeem itself.
And this is where we went from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Mansbridge introduced the tale of a Venezuelan Symphony conductor who has apparently set the music world on fire. And he’s about to be interviewed by Jian Gomeshi of CBC radio’s “Q”.
Wait, isn’t that the same radio station that stopped playing Classical music because they said nobody listened to it anymore? And isn’t the CBC the same company that fired all of its classical orchestras for the same reason?
Is somebody having a change of heart? Is Classical music making some kind of profound return to popularity?
Don’t know.
Y’see, first Pete and Jian talk about how astonishing this guy is and Gomeshi goes on at length about what an amazing interview he just did. Then we get the interview.
Or rather, one sentence of the interview.
One single sentence.
Then it’s back to Gomeshi and the news that you can hear the whole thing on CBC radio on “Q” and it’ll be repeated on the National “later in the week”.
WTF?
Guys this is not news. It’s self-promotion and the kind of news omission and trivialization even Fox News doesn’t stoop to presenting.
This is abject, ”We don’t have a fucking clue about what’s important anymore!” and “We also have no idea what we’re doing!”
I finally turn the shit off, having officially watched my last CBC TV newscast.
What’s the point? I can learn more in five minutes surfing the Internet. And it won’t cost me and the rest of the country hundreds of millions in taxes that might be better used --- I don’t know --- maybe getting Swine Flu vaccine distributed in a more timely and organized fashion so 10 and 13 year old kids don’t have to die.
It’s clear that CBC News has completely lost its way. No wonder the journalistic rank and file have already publicly rebelled.
And no wonder the Prime Minister doesn’t bother watching.
Maybe he’s not as out of touch as some at the CBC would have you believe.
