[Via Mark Hebscher and @12:36]

CHCH-TV is still alive, but it's real soul passed away last Friday afternoon.  The heartbeat of Hamilton and it's surrounding communities was badly wounded.  It was a sneak attack.  It gutted the entire building.  I lost my job, along with dozens of others.  Some of my friends got to keep theirs.   And just two weeks before Christmas.
I've worked in front of a camera or microphone for most of my adult life.  I started at CHCH in Hamilton in February of 2003.  Prior to that I had worked for 3 other television stations and 6 different radio stations.  I worked for really good managers at excellent stations and I worked for bumbling incompetents at stations that lost money.  When Channel Zero bought CHCH from debt-riddled CanWest in 2009, it "saved" local TV news and allowed all of us to keep our jobs.  For that, Channel Zero got a pass.  A honeymoon.  A get-out-of-jail-free card. Literally.  After all, had they not bought us, we would've lost our jobs, so we should be grateful.   It was this attitude that continued, unchecked, for years at CHCH.  Even though I loved my job, co-hosting with Liz West on "Square Off" and with Bubba O'Neil on "Sportsline", the mood in the building was always pretty bleak.  Not a lot of the enthusiasm you'd expect from people who gather and write and produce and deliver the news.  Management didn't offer a lot of encouragement or support.  Decision were made that baffled even the most seasoned broadcasters. Too many people put in too many hours for too little pay.  People were put in positions they had no business being in.  Creativity was stifled, and the newsroom and studio were a sausage-making operation, grinding out an incredible 16 hours of local programming a day from Monday to Friday.

And it was against this backdrop, on the morning of December 11th, 2015, that a loyal employee of over 20 years arrived at CHCH TV for what would be her last day.  In two weeks, she would be retiring from the company she so faithfully and dutifully served for all those years.  No doubt there would be a "hall party" for her in the corridor outside the studio the following week.  Just like Dan McLean and Connie Smith and Al Sweeney and all the great employees who graced the halls of CHCH over the years and retired with a small measure of recognition and dignity, along with a couple of store-bought cakes and a few urns of coffee.  Unfortunately, there would be no retirement party.  When she tried to log on to her computer, and couldn't, it was all over.  In a matter of minutes, she was being escorted down the stairs and out the front door.  In tears.  Shattered.  Two weeks before Christmas.  Two weeks before retirement.



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