The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » National Post's Christie Blatchford Attacks 'Generous' CBC Funding

RadioActive · July 1, 2018 12:21 pm

National Post columnist and CFRB panelist Christie Blatchford goes on a tear about the CBC's funding and how easy it is to succeed when someone else - namely the taxpayer - is shelling out for your every need.

Blatchford: Mainstream media is starving — but certainly not the CBC

"Into the [CBC] building we went and, there before us, like a damp nostalgic dream come to life, was a newsroom the likes of which virtually all Canadian newspapers haven’t seen in more than a decade.

Most of our newsrooms now are funereal, with skeletal staffs and row upon row of empty desks, even in the new, pared down offices to which so many papers have relocated.

I could hardly believe it. This place was buzzing. Every desk was filled. Reporters were busy. Phones were ringing.

It was bedlam, like every newsroom in the world used to be."

cGrant · July 1, 2018 12:46 pm

She has quite the contrary view of her own in the article:
"It’s bad enough that most Canadians don’t want to pay for news; as the Public Policy Forum reported last year in its study of the devastated newspaper landscape, only one in five Canadian households pays for newspapers."

...then...

"I remember how, many years ago, the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun both began producing free giveaway mini-versions of the papers for distribution on subways. It made no sense to me: Why would people then pay for the real newspaper if they could get a simplified version for free?"

That said, she is quite right about the unnecessary Mother Corp. Time to 86 it.

Further, why is Christie such a "commodity" that she appears TWICE daily on RB's roundtables? Then, during the 11:30pm re-roll, it's all-Christie all-the-time. <click>

betaylored · July 1, 2018 9:03 pm

Ms. Blatchford writes "...only one in five Canadian households pays for newspapers and it's bad enough that we in the business have contributed to our own decline and apparent immenent demise."

She points out that the free news sheets offered in the past by some newspapers did not have the desired effect. "It merely whetted the collective appetite for free stuff, and devalued journalism."

Whilst her feelings about the CBC are clear, it reads (to me) more as a lament on how the newspaper and news industry have devolved, because of lack of leadership, and refusal to maintain professional standards.

splunge · July 1, 2018 10:53 pm

does this discourse not suggest the greater importance of the cbc as a respectsd news outlet? if for profit journalism is in decline (or easily purchased) then a well funded and -mostly- impartial broadcaster offering a range of news and investigative journalists becomes even more vital to combat the fake news rebellion.

Kilgore · July 2, 2018 5:32 am

cGrant wrote:
why is Christie such a "commodity" that she appears TWICE daily on RB's roundtables? Then, during the 11:30pm re-roll, it's all-Christie all-the-time

reader alert: the foregoing is from an individual who regularly preaches free enterprise in this forum

Muffaraw Joe · July 2, 2018 6:16 am

I don't understand the need to call out the CBC in relation to the slow demise of newspaper newsrooms becoming a ghost town or "funeral" as she puts it.

To me the reason newspapers are fading has nothing to do with the CBC but the changing tastes and habits of the consumer market.

Here is what I see as key challenges for newspapers...

1. I can get news online

2. I use my cell phone

3. Time, I don't have time to sit and read the paper

4. I don't want to schlepp a newspaper around with me, especially when I have my cell phone with me

5. Millennials aren't buying newspapers

6. Did I mention the time needed to read them? The average attention span we have is 9 seconds, we get news in sound bites now, not editorials...Goldfish have a longer attention span than us human beans! (beings)

7. A lot of us our taking news fasts...we are cutting back on the negative news, just to protect our well being and souls...

8. Those mini newspapers that came out a number of years ago, like 24, Metro, killed the industry, Blatchford alluded to it...she is right...

But why call out the CBC, this is the role they play!

Hansa · July 2, 2018 1:41 pm

Killing off the CBC won't save newspapers or radio. It'll just give Canadians less choice and put a lot of media people out of work (including those at private companies who sell programs to CBC)

cGrant · July 2, 2018 2:16 pm

Hansa wrote:
Killing off the CBC won't save newspapers or radio. It'll just give Canadians less choice and put a lot of media people out of work (including those at private companies who sell programs to CBC)

Blatchford wrote: "Many of these people aren’t going to work for CBC TV or CBC Radio, but for the CBC website, the direct competitor to newspapers, which, as print advertising revenue continues to plummet, are struggling to survive via their online products."
She isn't proposing "killing off the CBC"

And, "less choice"? There's a glut of services available in Canada which could be forums for these producers of programming.

"those at private companies who sell programs to CBC" would be out of work?! So, it's either sell to the CBC or nobody?! Well if the quality of the product is so poor that ONLY an entity that pays its bills via taxpayers dollars would buy it, then maybe those production companies SHOULD go out of business.

Chrisphen · July 2, 2018 2:28 pm

Blatch once again pens a column from her ass demonstrating why they call it Toastmedia.

cGrant · July 5, 2018 4:48 pm

Will the government bail out other industries that time is passing them by as well? Let capitalism rule: if you cannot succeed via the consumer's purse, then pack it in.

RadioActive · July 5, 2018 5:08 pm

I am very leery of any government funding to a paper whose job it is to monitor the workings of that government. Even if they do act properly as a watchdog, there will ALWAYS be questions about "what did they leave out" in order not to threaten that funding.

Slippery slope and while I sympathize to some extent with the ink stained wretches of the city, they simply can't compromise their objectivity for a fistful of dollars. Or they might as well not exist at all.

Glen Warren · July 5, 2018 5:32 pm

cGrant wrote:
Will the government bail out other industries that time is passing them by as well? Let capitalism rule: if you cannot succeed via the consumer's purse, then pack it in.

Can you say Bombardier?

Hundreds of millions in federal funding just left the country yesterday along with the "intellectual and technical" properties that the federal funding helped develop in the aerospace sector for the C Series jets.

cGrant · July 5, 2018 5:40 pm

RadioActive wrote:
I am very leery of any government funding to a paper whose job it is to monitor the workings of that government. Even if they do act properly as a watchdog, there will ALWAYS be questions about "what did they leave out" in order not to threaten that funding.

So, RA, by extension, are you similarly opposed to the CBC receiving governmental funding?

Glen Warren wrote:
Can you say Bombardier?
Hundreds of millions in federal funding just left the country yesterday along with the "intellectual and technical" properties that the federal funding helped develop in the aerospace sector for the C Series jets.

I'm sorry, "Mr. Warren", I'm not sure of your point. Currently, Bombardier is shockingly lapse in their fulfillment of TTC streetcars. Further, the ones they did deliver to Toronto, most have to be (in groups of 4) taken out of service and returned to Bombardier for a "welding issue".

Lentil · July 5, 2018 6:58 pm

cGrant,I believe that RA and GW were agreeing with you, not dissenting.

Perhaps some time away from the keyboard is in order.

RadioActive · July 5, 2018 10:21 pm

cGrant wrote:
So, RA, by extension, are you similarly opposed to the CBC receiving governmental funding?

While I can see the idea behind a national broadcaster, I've always been opposed to the government funding broadcasting. I hate to mimic Christie Blatchford, but when I worked in private radio, it used to drive us crazy that we were forced to compete for ears with the CBC - and pay for the privilege. (No one really watched a lot of CBC TV in those days, so it didn't bother us as much.)

They had 10 producers for every one of the rest of us, and it never quite seemed fair that we were forced to pay to fund our own competition. So yes, I'm opposed to the CBC being taxpayer funded and believe it should pay its own way.

Still, it's better than the BBC, where Britons have to fork out dough for an annual licence - regardless of whether they ever watch or listen to it. (Although I will admit the BBC has produced some mightily impressive material over the years and at least they're getting their money's worth.)

Some here will remember the Reg Smythe comic Andy Capp, and I still recall a cartoon he did in which a government inspector pounds on Andy's door and berates him because his licence is out of date.

Capp's response was classic: "So are the bleeding programs!" he screamed before slamming the door in the guy's face.

For the most part, I wish government would stay out of broadcasting or at least restrict itself to underserved areas. Government doesn't have to be in everything. But it's easy when the funds are seemingly plentiful and they never run out.

I'm sure that won't be a popular opinion with everyone here, but I've felt that way as long as I can remember.

And one last thing. Back in the days when he was doing a show on TVO, the great Michael Magee (aka Fred C. Dobbs) was playing a character of "famed" TV director Mario Sartorio. Someone asked him what would be the first thing he'd do if he owned the CBC.

His answer?

"I'd fade to black."

Chrisphen · July 6, 2018 8:15 pm

RadioActive wrote:
... it used to drive us crazy that we were forced to compete for ears with the CBC - and pay for the privilege...never quite seemed fair that we were forced to pay to fund our own competition.

This old canard never fails to make me bellow with laughter. Thank you. It's been one of those weeks.

cGrant · July 8, 2018 4:22 pm

RadioActive wrote:
... it used to drive us crazy that we were forced to compete for ears ...never quite seemed fair that we were forced to pay to fund our own competition.

Technically, although they are in the same cluster, owned by the same company, despite differing target demos, could it not be argued that stations like Q and 102 subsidize the sinking Titanic that is 640?