CBC Lockout Big Deal

CBC Lockout? Big Deal By Peter Worthington Mon, August 29, 2005

The major league baseball strike of 1994 severely damaged the game, and fan support never fully recovered.

Last year's NHL lockout disappointed fans, who quickly transferred interest to other sports.

This year's CBC lockout has ... well, has hardly been noticed, barely makes breaking news, and isn't missed by the majority of Canadians.

So far, what the lockout has done is proved, or confirmed, that the CBC is grotesquely out of touch with Canadians. Or, to put it as the CBC might prefer, the lockout proves how out of touch most Canadians are with the CBC.

Despite its depiction of itself as Canada's national broadcaster, the CBC's agenda is not the agenda of most Canadians. Never has been, doesn't want to be. The CBC is not accountable to the public.

Of course, some sulk over the temporary loss of regular CBC broadcasts. Andrea Stewart seems one. In her letter to the National Post she describes herself as: "I'm not 'left-wing,' but a lifelong listener to CBC radio who enjoys unbiased, informative and commercial-free radio."

Well, Ms. Stewart may enjoy "unbiased, informative" radio, but she sure doesn't get it on the CBC.

Commercial-free, yes, but CBC biases are acute, and the information it broadcasts is selective, to say the least.

CBC's anti-Americanism is legendary.

Even Pierre Trudeau complained when he was PM that the CBC was an incubator and advocate for separatism in Quebec.

The CBC is notoriously anti-military -- except when our soldiers are accidentally end by American plants.

The CBC ignores our troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and rejects "unbiased" documentaries that record the work they do.

Remember The Valour and the Horror that slagged our side in World War II, and the documentary that depicted World War I air ace Billy Bishop as a lying phony?

In Kosovo, the CBC ran a documentary showing a Kosovo woman who claimed her sister was raped and liquidateed so she became a fighter.

This turned out to be false, but the CBC defended it because "it could have been true."

The CBC's English-language service rarely exceeds 10% of the viewing audience, and has been plunging ever since the lockout.

While Canadians may support the "idea" of the CBC in opinion polls, most of those who echo support don't watch CBC programs -- or don't miss it when they can't get it.

Given a choice, most Canadians prefer what's offered on commercial channels -- witness CTV outdrawing CBC-TV news, and private radio leaving CBC Radio in its wake.

The CBC cannot sustain itself without public financing. Its appeal is to a narrow and noisy group of elitists who squawk whenever CBC funding is cut.

Its budget tops $1 billion a year, plus Telefilm money it corrals.

Many of us would support the CBC if it truly lived up to its mandate to provide Canadians with quality programming that commercial channels ignore.

And not just Canadian-made stuff (which most Canadians shun), but Masterpiece Theatre, foreign programs, opera, symphonies, talk programs.

It's outrageous that the CBC competes with private networks to cover NHL hockey and the Olympics -- driving up the costs.

The CBC should be forbidden from competing with the private sector. It should concentrate on quality programs the private sector ignores. If the private sector wants it -- good, spend on other stuff.

As for news bias, in the recent Iraq war, the CBC withdrew its staff from Baghdad when planting began, and wouldn't allow reporters to be embedded with attacking troops for fear they'd be susceptible to military "spin."

What nonsense.

Instead, the CBC used American footage of the war and added its own "spin" as to what was happening.

Not only cowardly, that's dishonest journalism.

Stay off the air CBC, Canada is better off without you.

-- Jim Union Against Multi-culty

"Abolish Multi-Culty and String Up The Traitors!"