Actually, you should be. You pay taxes, whether you want to or not, to support them. If they don't cover this, a story that has exploded like a bomb on Canadian politics, then what else are they leaving out?

If the CBC had continued to air the statement, its audience would have heard one familiar name mentioned a fair number of times - Ben Chin, the Chief of Staff of the Office of the Finance Minister.

And yes, that IS the same Ben Chin who once worked for both City TV and CBC. 

RadioActive wrote:

And yes, that IS the same Ben Chin who once worked for both City TV and CBC. 

And Toronto 1, for what five months or so?, and then a stop over with the Ontario Power Authority as a Communications Veep....  most prominent during the early stages of the "Gas Plant" fiasco... 
 

darcyh wrote:

Why does this surprise anyone? Their coverage of everything is slanted to the political left.

Many years ago when George Bush 2 was the US President, I was on a road trip with a colleague who was a fan of the CBC. He felt CBC's coverage of events was non-partisan. I made a bet with the colleague. I'd turn on CBC radio and within five minutes they would criticize Bush for something. We did not get out of the parking lot before the CBC came through.

I wouldn't believe a spots score reported by this outfit.

Given that the Liberals are a relatively centrist party, a truly leftist CBC would have stayed with the story through decomposition because the story, while complex and about many things wrong, is in part about the reliance of government on large private corporations, and the consequences of privatizing government functions. No party that's held power is actually clean; and they're all vulnerable.

Furthermore, you heard what you interpreted as criticism of Bush once, at the right gotcha moment, on the CBC. Yes, that does prove bias.
 

Last edited by Saul (March 1, 2019 10:50 pm)

=12px>> So what news sources do SOWNY readers trust as impartial and empirically unassailable? 

Good question. I view all news reporting nowadays with a skeptic's eye. Generally - as you suggest - I usually check several sources on every story in an effort to weed out the truth.
 

splunge wrote:

So what news sources do SOWNY readers trust  

A poster (individual from Cobourg area, since banned) never missed an opportunity to slam Jeff McArthur who then appeared on both AM640 and Global news.     I was curious and made a point of catching Jeff McArthur on AM 640 and Global news.   

Still do.      
 

RadioActive wrote:

I will be very curious to see what they do when Gerald Butts testifies this week.

If Radio One airs his entire statement without the same kind of interruption as JWR's speech, that will speak volumes. 

no matter what cbc does with butts, someone will find a reason to question it.  if they don't play the entirety, then they're wrong.  if they do, then they're also wrong.  maybe cbc learned from their jwr mistake and will, or maybe they use the same jwr justifications and cut it off.

can't win, don't try.
 

Prod Guy wrote:

The answer is the CBC is a giant bureaucracy.  Preempting local programming in some places, regional programming in other places and national programming in other places is virtually impossible to do all at the same time with the way Radio One is laid out from an automation standpoint across the country.  CBC News Network is one feed, and is much more capable of handling live breaking news.

On 9/11 it took almost 8 full minutes to get the entire Radio One Network to sync up for national coverage of the attacks to begin.  When Swiss Air Flight 111 went down off Peggy's Cove in the late 90's CBC Radio reporters did live hits during the overnight on WCBS from New York, but couldn't get on their own network.

 

CBC News Network is a cable tv news service, not a radio service.

Radio One was initially able to take the audio feed of the Parliamentary Justice Committee hearing, but not able to stay with it.

How many press conferences start on time? all the time? How many juries return a verdict between 9 to 5 or conventional business hours?

The appearance and testimony of the former Justice Minister before the committee was anticipated as early as Tuesday, and then confirmed for Wednesday at 3:15pm. The fact that JWR did not begin to speak until 3:48pm is just part of the nature of "live".  Production teams are supposed to be able to chase, vamp and fill until such time as the Live event commences.

It was also known beforehand, that Ms. Wilson-Raybould would be granted the thirty minutes to read her statement before questions and testimony from the committee would begin.

I think that should have been sufficient time to clear other programming and sync the Radio One network to carry the live statement and deposition.

 



 

Just when I thought they couldn't sink any lower in my opinion, CBC Radio One strikes again. The last time they cut out of Jody Wilson-Raybould's address, which riveted the country, after less than ten minutes.  

This time, they didn't even bother to cover Gerald Butts' rebuttal (re-Butt-all?) at all. Instead they stuck with the execrable "q" show. What was on there that was more important than the biggest scandal to hit Canada in years? From their website: 

• Author and essayist Zadie Smith talks about her non-fiction writing and what it's taught her about the act of trying to make sense of a chaotic world. 
• Our online columnist Elamin Abdelmahmoud helps us understand a hoax urban legend for the digital age: the Momo Challenge.
• Artist and writer Nate Harrison breaks down the history of the Amen drum break.
• Our fashion columnist Mosha Lundström Halbert discusses a new retrospective of French designer Thierry Mugler's work at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Yep, wouldn't want to interrupt that history of the Amen drum break for important Canadian news. Nothing much at stake, just the potential fate of the government, trust in the Prime Minister and the future of the next election.

I thought that was part of the CBC's mandate. I guess I was incorrect.

Whatever part of my tax money goes to support this bloated entity, I would request that they please send it back as soon as possible. 

Ms. C. wrote:

Except for Gerry Butts managing to insert "nine thousand jobs" at least once into each & every sentence, you didn't miss a damn thing

No I didn't miss nine thousand jobs anything, because I was tuned into nine thousand jobs the commercial stations that were foregoing paid spots nine thousand jobs to actually broadcast the nine thousand jobs thing. Shame on the CBC, which has more than nine thousand jobs but apparently chose not to employ any of them to cover the response. 

I don't dispute what you say, but I have to believe that if Justin Trudeau were to make an announcement that he was resigning and calling an immediate election, somehow they'd manage to take that live for however long it lasted, and then join regular programming "already in progress."

It is inconceivable to me that their schedule is so rigid that there's no room for something of vital national interest that can't supplant it - especially given their stated mandate of being Canada's official voice.  

RadioActive wrote:

Just when I thought they couldn't sink any lower in my opinion, CBC Radio One strikes again. The last time they cut out of Jody Wilson-Raybould's address, which riveted the country, after less than ten minutes.  

This time, they didn't even bother to cover Gerald Butts' rebuttal (re-Butt-all?) at all. Instead they stuck with the execrable "q" show. What was on there that was more important than the biggest scandal to hit Canada in years? 

 -- RA above comment edited --
RA, with all respect, you have legitimized my previous post. how much "lower" did they sink??  no matter what cbc radio did, someone will find fault.  ceeb basically treated butts as they did jwr, with no coverage.  Had they played butts in full, anti-cbc audiences would have derided them as pro-liberal and biased.

Sure I don't buy Prod Guy's assertion of network syncing difficulties, because where there's a will there's a way.  but i also doubt the position that it was a political decision.  poor programming choices maybe, or knowing audience preferences.  i dunno why cbc chose to do what they did, but hey, at least they were consistent!

Last edited by splunge (March 6, 2019 10:42 pm)

RadioActive wrote:

And one more thing. I decided to try to get a comment from the CBC after the testimony ended so I could, in the interest of fairness, post it here. I was going to ask them why they made the decision they did to not cover Butts' statement. But after over half an hour of trying to find a number and actually get a live human being on the phone, I gave up.

Outside of email that never gets answered (I tried that, too) there is simply no way to reach anybody in the radio division unless you have access to their internal phone system, which I don't. Not exactly a great way to be responsive to the very listeners who pay for their existence!

 -- RA above comment edited--
Hmm, ya, mostly email addresses via contact info on the website. 
also, i would think the best place to get answers to your objectively legitimate questions would be the cbc ombudsperson/man/woman.  http://www.ombudsman.cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/ trying to get a live person anywhere these days is useless, but i've had responses from the ombud from my own grumpy old man complaints.  couldn't hurt and i'd be interested in the result.
If you do contact the ombud, it might be interesting as an aside to ask how radio 1 handled the duffy/senate scandal hearings as well.  or even the sponsorship scandal.  precedent or trend?

Radio One has confirmed that it will carry the Trudeau speech, interrupting their top of the hour World Report newscast to do it. So they can duck out of their schedule when it suits them.