To CBC or Not to CBC

Whether at Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, or the cbc, the job of a president or ceo is to be the corporation’s primary advocate, to create fealty among staff to a vision, and to turn that vision into reality. After identifying the central issue—lack of funding—Rabinovitch’s piece trails off, the apparent burdens of the day superseding the imperative of reinforcing the clarion call: like Canadians who support a mixed economy, who believe, for instance, in government intervention in the health-care marketplace, the cbc cleaves to two fundamental objectives: to knit the country together by appealing to citizens’ highest inclinations and to be an authoritative check and balance on a heavily concentrated private media.

Instead, making his first category mistake, Rabinovitch argues that the cbc must compete with private media, and, essentially, to do so on terms dictated by the marketplace. Wrong. The cbc’s mandate is to transport viewers and listeners out of prosaic reportage on people and things, and into the world of ideas, into issues contextualized through documentary programming. Those of us with memories are not always amused by, or sanguine about, the “just in time” world, and as private media in Canada becomes increasingly dominated by the celebrity-du-jour profile, what shoes to buy, and tawdry gossip about those in power, some of us will pay dearly for depth and safe but challenging mental havens.

The tools of private media include short-term contract employment and the hiring of specialists, and, like a lapdog in need of stroking, Rabinovitch demands the same. Efficiency means the hiring of specialists for a special series on health care, proceeded by the hiring of replacement parts for a special series on Internet blogs. And so it must be. Herein lies Rabinovitch’s second mistake. In fact, what the cbc needs are enlightened generalists and the in-house mentoring capacity to create more of them. A nimble and curious mind will jump from health care to blogs, an eclectic thinker can enter most all conversations. The universities are waking up to this fact, and are pushing a multidisciplinary approach to learning. They are realizing that a person can be straitjacketed by specialization, that the health-care expert who never reads a novel is rendered dull at dinner parties.

The president claims that the cbc must be alert to media trends, must not operate in a vacuum. True enough. It is always necessary to be conscious of other practices, but for models the cbc should also look inside. The charge that this amounts to an interior monologue, to navel-gazing producing more of the same, would be fair if the high points of the cbc’s history were not, in a phrase, simply better than all the rest.

Some years ago, every night on cbc radio, like many Canadians I tuned in to the news, followed by As It Happens with hosts Alan Maitland and Michael Enright, followed by Prime Time with Geoff Pevere, followed by Ideas with Lister Sinclair. Switching over to the other medium, television, this generalist package was buttressed by The Journal with Barbara Frum and the sophisticated Fifth Estate with Hana Gartner et al. Covering current events, culture, and big ideas, as a total package, it was as good as it gets, anywhere.

The people involved did not drop out of thin air. Nor were they noteworthy for their specialized knowledge . They succeeded because of their general curiosity, dedication, smarts, and because the cbc nurtured them and imposed a special challenge: our listeners and viewers are equally smart and curious; they come to the table with educated imaginations; your job is to engage them.

Rabinovitch’s mistake is cleaving to the notion that the cbc must be something for all people. It must not, and its craven attempts to capture “youth markets” have done little, I suspect, beyond alienating smart young people and discomfiting older viewers and listeners. Rather, equally in television as in radio, the cbc must return to being something that people graduate to, something that provides security from decontextualized news and reportage, something that elevates and extends knowledge.

Following the dictates of the market will prevent it from doing so. As Mr. Smith went to Washington, Mr. Rabinovitch should go to Ottawa.