But oh, my GOD ... what did you have to endure to get to one Beck tune? Someone said to me "I find it harder to get up in the morning without my CBC Radio."

My response: "Are you frigging KIDDING me? When that clock radio kicks on at 6:15 and I find myself listening to some alleged "music" that sounds like someone set Yoko Ono on fire and locked her in a closed dumpster with tin cans tied to all four limbs, I'm out of bed faster than a CBC Manager can say "Bend over and brace yourself - this time we've cut back on the Astro-Glide budget."

You're just missing all the "ummmmsss" you usually hear. Plus you haven't heard "Islander" 12 times a minute for three hours. It must be hard on you.

You're all going to Hell.

Uh, sorry. That came out wrong. I mean: who the hell cares what music they play? Um no. That's not it either. Beck? Frelling Beck? Oh give me a break... I mean that seriously. I have the flu. I feel like crap. I wish the CBC were more like the BBC, but I don't know how to get it there. Okay, no. That's not what I mean. Fire the managers! Increase the budget by (how many times bigger is the BBC budget? Seven?) I don't know, a great deal. Then you'll have something. That seems to be my message most times when it comes to the CBC.

I notice that Noah Richler has weighed in with his not very serious opinion (http://thestar.blogs.com/azerb/). He says that with the new technology a twelve year old can do a radio show. It's that easy. It's his view that this is why the CBC needs more flexibility to fire people. Um, but Noah, does anyone *want* to hear a twelve year old do a radio show? No. We hire people to do radio who are interesting, talented or knowledgeable, we don't hire them because they know how to use their ipod. I love these "it's the new" thingies that everybody keeps coming up with. It's the new economy! So now you have to work twice as hard for much less money! It's the new technology! So now we get to do away with journalism and hire twelve year olds! I wish Tod Maffin (http://ruk.ca/discuss/3157) would stop getting his ass waxed on radio, it makes it much much harder for me to make this point.

Just stop playing "CBC certified" musicians, comedians and essayists and let anyone get access. I once heard a staffer from CBC in PEI talk jokingly about the "CBC 100" as in there were about 100 people who got interviewed on subjects. Except it was true. The news served to report on the interests and views of those people and little else. I would think that that regional office is no different from the others (so Islanders as well as other residents of PEI can calm down). <p>Morningside was the most painful example of the "certified source" stuff - to the point Saint Peter was calling them all his friends. He chose the Bare Naked Ladies for example over the far superior Skydiggers as his cool Toronto band of the early 1990s and gave them insane levels of access. But they were his new cool kid pals so they got the access and therefore the fame. The annointment of the private enterprise known as Tod Maffin is no different. Why must we only and always get his view? [And does anyone think there is any validity in anyone calling themselves a "futurist"?] The CBC vision fails me as I don't want a news show about CBC certified friends and I especially don't want coverage of Quebec politics that is based on the federalist views of the reporters or Maritime politics based on not rocking the boat. I don't want that filter. Better that the world were run by Steve Pagan of TVO's <i>Studio 2</i> who is one of the few actually independent, actually intelligent political broadcast journalists in the land. The current CBC situation may all be management or all labour or a mixture but it has cause a long-standing failure of the CBC to reflect that part of society outside of the CBC and certified pals.<p>And you are right. Noah Richler is full of it. Podcasts are embarassments as are most opt-ins to new technologies by the geeks. The best candidate for the "pet rock" of this decade.

Actually, you know, on second thought I would, in fact, like the CBC to become more like the BBC. The BBC has quite a few good people. And sufficient dedicated staff seems to be key in any good news organisation. The BBC is also diverse and intelligent. It's full of humour and it doesn't pull its punches. The BBC, it should be noted, also has proper funding. Some of your problems with CBC, Alan, could probably be solved with more staff because right now there's really a very small pool of regular workers there and so a small range of issues or artists will get aired.

But I still think the focus should be on foreground programming which no one seems to want to do and which costs money. Christ, if this isn't the CBC's mandate, I don't know what is. This doesn't have to mean that the CBC is a bore. Anyway, the CBC has always had jokers. Alan McPhee and Max Ferguson come to mind as well as The Frantics, Radio Free Vestibule and The Great Eastern. It's just that in the past the joking was in the context of a much more serious mission. In fact, that's often what made it so funny. Unfortunately, serious is not what comes to mind anymore when I think of our beloved (?) public broadcaster. Sometimes puerile is what comes to mind. So I really think it's time to hire some more actual journalists. More people like Karen Wells or the radio equivalent of Geoffrey York (at the Globe).

One other thing, when I get a chance, here in Hungary, I listen to RFI - aka Radio France (there's a station that carries RFI and BBC in English French Hungarian and German, actually, I barely get to hear anything these days because my kids sense when I am trying to listen and prevent me), RFI has some African commentators on regularly: e.g. "Now we'll go to so and so in the Congo. What do you think is the biggest problem with such and such where you live?" It would be nice if CBC could do that.

It's Steve Paikin, isn't it? I read his book (parts of it anyway) over Christmas. He's okay. His writing's a little sloppy.

Right - misspelled...somewhat unfortunately, too.

murray maclaughlin must die.

No! He can't! He has four more mini-series on himself to produce for Sunday night specials between now and 2012. Besides, Jane Arden is the new Murray MacLauglin.

The push to have the CBC re-instated and beefed up may be more urgent than ever. We need our news and the private sector (i.e. newspapers -- forget TV,um okay okay, there's BBC and IWT but--) isn't going to deliver, forgive the pun. Apparently the International Herald Tribune and the NY Times are soon to be downsized. Also, according to some in the news business, times are really tough. Here's a quote from Dan Rather who says that it's both a climate of sucking up to conglomerate owners and a climate of kissing up to government as well, with everyone running around scared of losing their jobs (source: http://thestar.blogs.com/azerb/2005/09/this_is_not_goo.html#comments):

"
Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Monday that there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career.

<SNIP>

Addressing the Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan, occasionally forcing back tears, he said that in the intervening years, politicians "of every persuasion" had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a "new journalism order."

He said this pressure -- along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage, the advent of 24-hour cable competition and the chase for ratings and demographics -- has taken its toll on the news business. "All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms," Rather said." (end of quote)

Dumbed down and tarted up? I think I mentioned something along these lines about a year ago. But did anyone listen? Nooo. "Put a sock in it," they said, and I did. Well, not really.

I need to contact CBC's
extraordinary reporter/commentator,
KAREN WELLS in Halifax.
Please help me!
Orland Larson