08.21.2011 12:00 AM

In today’s Sun: the mistaken broadcaster

I am different from my colleagues in other ways, too. For example, I do not call CBC “the state broadcaster,” like everyone else seems to around Sun News. It’s not as if they got a memo from Kory Teneycke and Luc Lavoie to always refer to the CBC as “the state broadcaster,” by the way. It’s just everyone calls it that, except me.

Most of the time, Sunnies are just doing that to poke fun at Mother Corp. because the Mother Corp. takes itself too seriously. It needs to laugh at itself a bit.

Last week, however, quite a few people – me included -were laughing at the CBC, and not in a good way, either. Last week in fact, the CBC became a laughingstock, even among latte-sipping, secular humanist One-World-government types, like me.

18 Comments

  1. Well said, Warren. That was not a very bright move by Radio-Canada. It was a joke, in the very works meaning of the term.

  2. Anne Peterson says:

    I had to go think about this while I did my breakfast dishes, this being why I wasn’t as enraged by Gilles Duceppe’s being hired by Radio Canada as some of the Ottawa types were. I am not the only person I know who admired Mr. Duceppe for his honesty, decency and penchant for straight talk. I have even heard, here in the boonies, where I live, people say they wish he was running candidates here because they would vote for him, because his gang was so decent (there’s that word again). I wonder if the BBC would hire a Scottish nationalist as a commentator. Or Welsh. Bet they would.

    What really enrages ME is the thought that our Treasury Board will be headed by Mr. Clement, a porker extrordinaire, and we CANNOT seem to get rid of him. Or the foolish Mr. MacKay who has not been able to deal with National Defence problems and only seems able to rename things and spend more money on uniforms. Was the money for uniforms spent before or after the brain wave to go retro with the names. Or does he care? Who is doing more harm to our country, these guys or Duceppe? Foolish, foolish Canada. Keep the dross and throw out the decent.

    • frmr disgruntled Con, now Happy Lib says:

      I agree, I always felt M. Duceppe made the most sense of all the leaders on a lot of issues, and would have made a fine Prime Minister had he not been a died in the wool separtiste…..

      • tf says:

        I agree. I’m not outraged – just surprised that CBC would bow down to the “vocal minority.”
        I would be very interested in hearing Duceppe’s perspective on many things Canada.
        Now if the Harper Government were that responsive I’d be happier:)

        • The Doctor says:

          I don’t share your positive view of Duceppe – I’ve always thought him to be an opportunistic weasel who’s never had to take a difficult position on anything, because his job has consisted of basically being nothing but a whining backseat driver. However, having said that, I think the CBC should be perfectly open to hiring Duceppe as a commentator. He represents a perfectly legitimate political constituency in Canada, albeit one I disagree with. But he’s entitled to his views, and I don’t like the precedent that has been set here by this move being reversed.

  3. Finn says:

    For a guy who wants out, old Gilles sure likes being paid by the Federal Government.

  4. Merrill Smith says:

    “Outrage that the CBC would hire someone who had been repudiated by millions of Quebec voters, and only a few weeks ago, too.”

    I wonder how many of these outraged people were as outraged when our dear leader reappointed Senators Smith (no relation) and Hearn just hours after they had been repudiated by thousands of voters.

    • smelter rat says:

      Exactly. I also don’t hear much outrage that Stockwell Day seems to also have landed a CBC gig, despite not waiting out the alleged 2 year cooling off period.

    • Jan says:

      They’re Conservatives, they are exempt from the rules. I thought everybody knew that by now.

    • Super Liberal says:

      Well said. We know for a FACT that Liberal PMs have NEVER NEVER NEVER appointed losing candidates to the Upper Chamber.

      Anybody who says otherwise is an idiot conservative.

      • Merrill Smith says:

        Give us an example of a Liberal who resigned from the Senate to run for Parliament and having lost, was immediately reappointed to the Senate.

  5. W.B. says:

    Quebec and its citizens are still part of Canada, and we still have freedom of speech. I want to hear commentary from all viewpoints. Sort of like Warren in the Sun, or Gilles on the CBC. That’s what our country used to stand for.

  6. Attack! says:

    Uh-huh. Well, first, let’s not overstate the “self-censorship” by the CBC:

    maybe they didn’t say anything about it on air (or maybe they did: how can you be so sure they didn’t?), but they certainly have a “Gilles Duceppe drops Radio-Canada gig” story in print:

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/08/18/gilles-duceppe-columnist-radio-canada.html

    Second, let’s not overlook the separatist elements within QMI, and their convenient silence about that:

    featuring regular columns by Jacques Lanctot, one of the prime elements of the FLQ; employing former PQ Ministers Joseph Facal and Richard Martineau; even running columns by the former premier Bernard Landry.

    http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/08/12/sun-news-in-bed-with-separatists-and-radical-lefties/

    Third, let’s shine a little more light on how a certain Quebec-based private media organization has been exerting its influence to wrest large concessions and timing decisions from their Premier involving large sums of public money:

    http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Buying+peace+with+mighty+Quebecor+with+money/5269513/story.html

    … which are just a couple of areas there’s been a good deal of “self-censorship” on.

    But fortunately, as you can see from those other links, the change is on the other foot, now:

    one of the things that is changing is that the other media organizations are getting mighty fed up with the sanctimony and one-sided attacks like this by the Sun and its devotees like Gord, and, since QMI has repeatedly broken their tacit gentleman’s agreement not to attack each other too much, they’re finally fighting back a bit, in solidarity.

    • Phil in London says:

      Solidarity, what a wonderfully NDP sort of word on a day like today.

      I have not a single problem with Sun News telling whatever story it wants to tell. I don’t pay for it. I can choose not to buy it’s sponsor’s products and it isn’t sucking money out of the federal coffers. For the record, I don’t get Sun New because another competitor (CTV) is being a pain about it and I am too lazy to change providers.

      CBC is not the state broadcaster. That’s what WK is saying Sun Media types are saying but the story is something different.

      What Sun is saying is that a state FUNDED broadcaster should behave differently.

      CBC should get zero in subsidy and only be paid direct costs for providing LOCAL service to areas otherwise not able to get news etc.

      Every ratings book I hear quote from is that Sun is getting tuned in so it isn’t so true that no-one is listening and maybe just maybe people are voting by saying we’re good with someone on other side being as santimonious as the CBC is on the left.

  7. Phil in London says:

    Won’t shock anyone hear when I type I am not personally a fan of the CBC but I think this incident shows why it’s important to get your story from MORE THAN ONE SOURCE. WK notes CBC didn’t say much about it on their own and CTV was muted in response. Seems the network nobody wants to like did us all a service this time?

    CBC is not the State broadcaster but it is the only state funded broadcaster and that is what makes it different when they make this joke happen. They are paid to offer a national perspective (dare I say unity) and to get to remote areas yet they are on their second extenstion to get digital broadcasting to London a pretty major market to be overlooking (yup the private broadcaster is ready to go here).

    Fact is CBC offers minimal local content to the communities you speak of serving. I grew up in rural Ontario and the only time we ever had a truly local CBC radio feed was in the days that private broadcasters (in my case it was CKNX) could be a CBC affiliate. The CBC was long replaced by the national feed when that relationship ended and when I’m up home still it’s the private broadcaster who has all the midget hockey scores and tells me who died in the area as well as what a cow is worth at the local livestock market.

    Things called antanaes have long been replaced by internet even in rural remote areas and one can look for the news, we don’t need ANY single entity that is not privately funded speaking for any region and the beauty of private is if you don’t like it you can turn the channel.

  8. Chamberlain says:

    (Only… Duceppe seems to have a quick and critical mind. And can be entertaining. Someone should pick him up.)

  9. Leo says:

    Does anyone mention that Don Cherry is still the highest paid employee of that State broadcaster? And the poison he spill on the francophones in the country is far worst than what Gilles Duceppe might have said at $300 a week. Just saying.

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