CKNW Editorial
for May 18, 2000

The Toronto Globe and Mail’s front page headline screams "Anger greets CBC plan to chop local news" then breathlessly informs us that anger spread across the country at the news. I looked out my window expecting to see the thundering herd rolling down Georgia Street to picket the CBC and burn effigies of their president Robert Rabinovitch but, alas, there is no herd much less a thundering one. As for me – let me come out of the closet and admit that I couldn’t care less that the CBC 6:00PM regional news is to be tubed. They could tube the entire CBC as far as I’m concerned and though I would miss all the fine producers and camera people I’ve worked with over the years I am otherwise absolutely a-quiver with indifference.

Now we will have ranting and raving of course from the trendy left that actually reads Vancouver Magazine or looks in the pictures to see all the little trendy-left beautiful people. But the guy and gal in the suburbs are not about to take to the barricades. That’s because they already have two good channels to get their news on – BCTV and Global. And they have chosen those channels for their news because in their view, they do a far better job than does the CBC. The CBC claims, through it’s higher purpose persons who live and breath by it, that Global and BCTV don’t do as good a job because the CBC gets all the awards. Well, folks, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Those awards plus a dollar gets you a cheap cup of coffee. Those awards, dear friends, are not made by ordinary folks but from juries selected from those very same higher purpose persons I mentioned. The establishment of the country meets over cocktails and canapes then makes a heartwarming award to their own kind.

Yes I do feel sorry for those who live in outlying areas where the CBC is all they can get but I don’t feel the slightest bit sorry for any in the larger centers because if they liked the CBC so much they would watch it.

There is, you see, this calm self assurance amongst the smart set that they really know best. We unwashed who watch private TV and indeed listen to private radio simply don’t know what’s good for us and we must be carefully, and very expensively taught. Moreover, you see, the unity of the nation depends on the CBC. Well I’ve said it before – and it’s a good line – if the CBC is responsible for the state of national unity in this country we’d better sack the lot of them while there’s still time. What the CBC does unify is the CBC claque across the country that love to tell everyone else what they should do, think, and consume. There is no doubt but that a CBC type is the same across the nation – one word from their lips will give them away. And, the saints be praised, they’re entitled to their beliefs. What I question is their right to cram their medicine down the throats of the rest of the country.

I must say too that from time to time I resent competing with my own tax dollars. Why should my taxes go towards supporting my competition? I suppose you could say that I support my private competitors every time I buy one their sponsor’s products but first off I can refrain from doing so if I wish and there’s a hell of a lot of difference between buying products and paying taxes.

I watch very little TV to be sure. But I do watch CBC Newsworld – admittedly an offshoot of the CBC and not the same thing – and the news coverage is adequate although if the coverage is of anything outside Canada they simply pirate CNN. But then I look at the political shows – there’s Don Newman, as nice a guy as exists, throwing powder puffs, and verbose powder puffs at that if a powder puff can be verbose that, to completely mix my metaphors, are easily batted out of the park by politicians who deserve to have their tootsies held firmly to the flame. Then there is a political panel of two Torontonians, one of whom, Bill Fox, is so wed to the establishment and apologizing for it, that he wrote a book about his days as press flack for Brian Mulroney and didn’t make a single reference to the Charlottetown Accord!

Has the CBC done some good things? Of course – given the billions thrown into it by taxpayers it would be surprising if the odd gem didn’t appear. By and large, though, it’s been a hugely expensive boondoggle to sell Canada, Toronto version to English Canada while providing a free ride in colour for separatists in Quebec.

If there is one place in this country that need not shed a tear for any cutbacks to CBC productions it’s British Columbia. If you don’t like the BCTV or Global News, tune into CNN – that’s what the ratings tell us you’re doing anyway.