Now Magazine contributor Robert Priest takes a run at CBC's The Hour, saying it is all bits without much bite.
Some excerpts:
When the BBS launched its first daily TV news program in 1954, reporter Richard Baker did not appear onscreen as he read the news.
The thinking was that seeing an anchor would be distracting. Fifty years later, that policy is nowhere in evidence. We have the Naked News and fake news and, even on the allegedly serious shows, anchors like CNN's Anderson Cooper loom larger and larger while the news shrinks.
Ex-veejay George Stroumboulopoulos, in the promos for his latest vehicle, CBC Newsworld's The Hour, seemed ready to challenge all that. He promised a news hour that would be all about the story. His show would be about the message, not the messenger.
This might be a difficult promise for him to fulfill. His tenure at Much and Citytv's The New Music earned him a strong fan base, and it's to this group that the CBC show is mainly geared. Certainly not to my feminist friend who objected to him being called a "chick magnet" on one of the early shows. So is chick magnetism the new gravitas? Should CBC brass be distributing black T-shirts and nose rings all round?
Fortunately, Stroumboulopoulos is an affable fellow who doesn't take himself or all the hype too seriously. He says his intro to political issues came from one of his favourite bands – Public Enemy. He asks his questions and gets out of the way, letting his subjects speak; and some of them are well worth listening to, like the Independent's fearless Robert Fisk.
The original messenger, Mercury, and his avatar the Flash would've been happy with the show's "mile-a-minute" section – fast news bites to get you through the slow apocalypse. Perfect for the new millennium, Attention Deficit Date 2005 A.D.D. ...
... As his many fans will attest, Stroumboulopoulos is very watchable. He has a kind of self-mocking Sorcerer's Apprentice vibe that gives him a humble authenticity. You get the feeling that he asks questions not to set up someone's spin, but because he wants to know the answers. That's not to say there's no spin in The Hour – there's lots of it, but it's George's homespun variety.
When he complained in an interview with David Suzuki that he was dying to get an alternative-fuel car but was holding out for one that looked good, Suzuki lit into him with a stern lecture on priorities. This was a point where you could say Stroumboulopoulos's gravitas didn't get in the way. To his credit, he took it well. His charm carried the moment. Suzuki got to thunder, and Stroumboulopoulos experienced a public teaching moment on behalf of all of us. Very infotaining