Geoff Regan is the federal minister of fisheries and oceans, and says he is also an avid CBC audience member. And, as a member of the federal cabinet, Regan intends to ask some questions of his own, including on how the president of the CBC is appointed. He told the Canadian Media Guild Halifax site that this week. An excerpt of his thoughts on the lockout:
“It makes no sense at all,” he said.
Regan has a particular understanding of that issue, as his wife Kelly is a former temporary CBC employee. He’s also an avid CBC listener and viewer.
“I keep turning on CBC radio and television and thinking ‘this is terrible,’” he said. “I miss Information Morning, As It Happens and The National.”
Regan also said it was worth taking a close look at how the CBC president is appointed and at the whole issue of accountability. His central message, though, was one of support for the CBC as Canada’s public broadcaster.
“We want to get this resolved. We want to get the lockout over,” he said.
Rural service decimated: columnist
Tony Collins, a Gander-based columnist for the Sunday edition of the St. John's Telegram, says loyal CBC Radio listeners have been "discombobulated" by the loss of regional programming. The column is not available online. Excerpts:
CBC Radio occupies a unique place in the Newfoundland consciousness. Perhaps more so than in any other part of the country, it has helped shape the way in whih we view ourselves and contributed immeasurably to our identity as a people ...
The CBC continues to fill this role today, albeit to the apparent chagrin of Upper Canadian, upper echelon managers who can't seem to fathom the fact that, in Newfoundland and Labrador at least, CBC Radio is an essential service, one which we don't take too kindly to losing or being tampered with.
CBC producer responds to Independent columns
The Independent - a weekly newspaper in St. John's that raised eyebrows (a polite way of saying far coarser things) earlier this month with a publisher's column that called for the CBC's death and then an editor's rebuttal that said it should really only be "beaten to within an inch of its pompous life" - publishes a letter today from Kathy Porter, the executive producer of CBC Radio's news and current affairs program in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Here's the text of Porter's letter:
Boy, would I like to work at the CBC described by Brian Dobbin and Ryan Cleary - the one where employees get 14 weeks holiday per year, and are home every night in time for supper with the kids.
At the CBC where I work (or at least did, before the lockout) we get three weeks holiday a year. After eight years of employment, we get four weeks of holidays. And after 20 years on the job, we are rewarded with five weeks of holidays. Of course, if CBC management gets its way and begins to hire mainly contract employees, in the future very few people will last eight years at the corp.
As for getting home each night in time for supper with the kids ... yeah, sure, if supper is at 9 p.m. or later. After round after round of budget cuts and layoffs, regional broadcasting has been cut to the bone, and the quality of our programs has been maintained only through the dedication of employees who believe strongly in public broadcasting. And this means all too many are working long hours without climaing the overtime to which they are entitled.
If they do manage to get home the odd time for supper with the kids, it probably means they will have to go back to the station after supper, or spend several hours on the computer at home.
And another thing: Ryan Cleary is wrong he implies that locked-out workers were told they could not write for The Independent. This is not true. However, there may be individual picketers who have chosen not to write for the paper, in light of the recent editorials ... as they have every right to do.
Kathy Porter
Locked out CBC employee
St. John's
Dobbin revisits CBC flap
Meanwhile, Independent publisher Brian Dobbin says he will be turning over the editorial page in his paper to other points of view. His column includes this part:
I actually regret writing the CBC column. Not that my opinion has changed dramatically given the feedback I have received, but rather that I was insensitive to people worrying about their job future, and if I had a list of 100 things I wanted changed, restructuring the CBC would not be on it. That column and its effects were a good reminder to me about the power of the media, and how valuable this space can be to bring different perspectives to the people of the province.
Dobbin also invites those among the locked-out to consider his appeal for guest op-ed columns:
We welcome submissions, and given they have some time on their hands, I would hope someone at the CBC can give us a well prepared opinion of less than 1,000 words.
Waiting for Martin
Nancy Russell reports on the let-down feelings some P.E.I. CBC employees felt earlier today, when they set out to meet Prime Minister Paul Martin. Even though two MPs encouraged him to meet with the locked-out workers, Martin's staff told them it would be inappopriate at this point. Russell concludes:
Here's hoping something positive comes out of tomorrow's meeting between the Labour minister, CBC president Robert Rabinovitch and the head of the CMG negotiating team, Arnold Amber.
It's time for sanity to prevail so we can return to what one of my co-workers describes as "our regularly scheduled lives."
Farce member takes stuffing out of Watson
Air Farce member Don Ferguson takes his pen to former CBC chair Patrick Watson's comments in the Globe and Mail this week, in which Watson argued that the CBC should be closed and born anew under a tender to a private company. The full Ferguson column, published Saturday in the Globe and Mail, is still behind the subscriber wall at the Globe site, but it is posted here. An excerpt:
Mr. Watson's comments about CBC Radio betray the same inexplicable disregard for reality. He complains that there is "virtually never a classical voice or instrument on the Radio One basic AM service . . ." Allow me to enlighten you, sir: You're listening to the wrong station. For several years, CBC has had two basic radio services. Radio One is talk, information, and popular music and culture. Radio Two is where you can hear the classical voice and instrument you desire. And in most of Canada, Radio One and Radio Two are broadcast on FM where the signal quality is better, not on AM, which is yesterday's technology. Your complaint about CBC's "rapid slide into the pop mode" can be easily solved: Buy an FM radio.
What's the deal?
Edmonton Journal columnist Todd Babiak says the CBC lockout is an opportunity for Canadians to think about what kind of service they expect from the public broadcaster. In addition to speaking with some Alberta broadcasters, he poses his own thoughts:
Every morning since the lockout began, I wake up to the BBC News on my radio. When I listen to the BBC, or watch its television programming, I'm often driven into an inferiority complex about the quality of my own country. The relative success of the BBC is worth investigating, but it often comes down to one major difference: commitment. There is real money for the BBC, a tradition of solid journalism and risky entertainment ventures, and a nostalgic link to past greatness. Is this model of commitment right for the CBC? Maybe.
The lockout is an opportunity to think and talk about our corporation, a sinister proposition as the silent experts stand in the rapidly cooling fall air on 100th Street and 102nd Avenue. But if this lasts too long, for no clearly articulated reason, the national broadcaster -- employees and managers -- will fade, like last year's runaway brides and rescued pets, into the land of the forgotten.
It was just one of those things ...
In an op-ed piece in the Toronto Star, Nancy Westaway confesses to having been in a dysfunctional relationship for the last eight years. That is, she's a casual who can't seem to get the CBC's full-time attention, as it were:
The lockout has served one interesting purpose — CBC's dirty little secret is now in the open. I have been astounded by the similarity in the stories of workers like me who have been strung along. It's like the woman who arrives at the hospital to visit her ailing spouse and finds a bunch of other women there, too. We were all given the same song and dance by the same Don Juan. I've been dumbfounded to learn the exact empty promises were spoken by different managers in different parts of the country, as if they all read the same book on courting casuals.
I believe casual, temporary, contract, and non-contract workers at CBC deserve jobs, benefits and better treatment. For years we've wanted management — and the union — to commit. Hopefully we won't end up once again getting screwed.
Bargaining news (such as it is)
From the CBC's bargaining team, this brief note about Saturday's talks:
CBC and CMG continued negotiations today, with more discussion on Workforce Adjustment. There will be no bargaining on Sunday, as the parties will be travelling to Ottawa to attend the meeting on Monday with the Minister of Labour.
Toronto Unlocked, in hindsight
Dan Misener, who had initial misgivings about the Toronto Unlocked show that Andy Barrie hosted from CIUT campus radio this month, says volunteering was all worth it in the end:
It felt good. It felt good to make phone calls. It felt good to get stressed out about guests falling through. It felt good to book people. It felt good to pre-interview. It felt good to be back in a campus/community radio environment. It felt good to work on a story, then wake up the next morning and hear it on the radio.
Ultimately, my reasons for participating were selfish. I miss working, and Toronto Unlocked let me work. I wanted to reconnect with my CBC colleagues. I wanted to meet new people. I wanted people to know I'm back in Toronto and keen to work.
And if I had to do it over again, I would.
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