Peter McNelly, who once toiled in the Corpse's trenches (and had been a CTV News consultant), finds some good things to say about the CBC News redesign.
If the critics were to be believed, the barbarians in CBC's upper management had sacked the cathedral and defrocked John Doyle's "Pastor Mansbridge." The charges implied the CBC had committed the journalistic equivalent of a crime against humanity.
The indictments:
- Peter Mansbridge was – wait for it! – standing instead of sitting
- The news stories were – blame the news doctors! – too short and, ipso facto, superficial
- The National's new set was – oh, dear! – too colourful
- And those big video screens – how crass! – just like CNN
Unnoticed in all the hubbub was a significant editorial change for the better. The CBC's recent unification of its assignment desk has had the salutary effect of bringing to television dozens of sharp CBC Radio reporters whose talents are blossoming on camera. It's like having hired a whole news team while keeping your other one intact. Some day, this editorial arsenal is going to blow CTV and Global news away on a big story.
It's easy to attack this new emphasis on live coverage as superficial, or news on the cheap. But all last week, CBC News Network tapped its editorial bench strength with dozens of live hits on the H1N1 story at clinics all across Canada. The CBC was doing its job as a national broadcaster: Connecting viewers from coast to coast to coast on a major breaking story. We were seeing the unified assignment system in action, and it looked great.
The change comes at a price. The CBC’s tradition of finely crafted visual storytelling is taking a big hit. But You Tube and cell phone video have all but replaced this venerable craft. Who needs a fleet of camera crews when citizens record the house fire next door, the beating in the laneway and the hit and run accident at the intersection?
As for The National, it looked like it had just awakened from a ten-year coma. Gone were the endless headlines. Gone, the faux Wagnerian splendor of the old set with the anchor enthroned in some Valhalla of the gods. Gone the bloated, dull news reports delivered in what seemed an interminable 2:45 seconds or more.
And, most refreshingly, gone was the CBC's patronizing "eat this, it’s good for you" attitude toward its own journalism. In its place – a driving effort to get the news, to get it fast and to bring the audience into the story. ...Those in the choir of denunciation lament that CBC Television News has turned its back on them. Broken a tacit understanding between the broadcaster and its viewers to keep doing things more or less the way it has always done them.
But an organization that sees itself in a fight for survival will do whatever it thinks necessary in order to survive. That's what the changes at CBC Television News are really all about. If the people who turned up their noses and turned off their remotes never watch CBC again, it's a risk the CBC is clearly prepared to take.
Journalism does not belong to the people who make it. It especially does not belong to those who imagine their mission is to save journalism from its perceived vulgarities. Journalism belongs to all of us.
This is particularly true in the CBC's case because we pay for it. Instead of complaining, we should wish the CBC well; because this time, they just may have gotten it right.