Ceeber SpaceI go to the CBC web site for news...and arts news...and theatre news...well...the camel, it be deed!
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois
You won't find me in the front lines of the battle to save the CBC.
I don't know exactly when I started to become a deserter in this never-ending war; there are several moments. When the Ceeb closed its radio drama office in Montreal, putting me out of work is one. When Lord Mansbridge demonstrated his hubris and put the news on at nine and, in the process, drove me and many others from the mothership forever—that's another moment. Or the endless series set in Toronto or the shows the networks thought were funny which weren't (the old farts patrol of Air Farce). So many to choose from.
Simply I don't much watch or listen to the Ceeb anymore. But I did go to their web site for news...and arts news...and theatre news...well...the camel, it be deed!
Goddammit, how can the Corp be so disconnected from a) reality and b) the public it is meant to serve.
Start at its arts site and then move to the theatre site. You will lose your motherfucking mind. And if you really want to go right over the edge, follow them on Twitter; it's an endless array of foreign arts news and out-of-date stories. David French's death must have really broken up the Ceebers as his obit was still on the home page when I wrote this (he died early December) and Lynn Redgrave's passing—last May!—still figures as important theatre news.
Goddammit, how can the Corp be so disconnected from a) reality and b) the public it is meant to serve. The BBC's various web sites find a glorious balance between foreign and local arts news. That's why I go to them, the Guardian and so many other sources for news before I'll waste a second on the CBC's arts sites.
And OMG, their Twitter feeds are one idiot Spider Man story after another and one of their columnists, who also has a Twitter feed, tells us where she's eating. She lost me as a follower when she said thank you, for something, to her "tweeps." I may be a lot of fucking things but I'm no one's tweep.
Theatre, to grow, has to involve people who know what's out there.
I complained about their site, and especially their lack of theatre coverage, to them by email. But they never answered as, I suspect, they assume their real audience are not users of email or even computers. Apparently the CBC thinks...no...it doesn't think.
It's another monolithic, monopolistic, disconnected news-generating organization that is not getting it. I commented on Facebook, this week, that news (print, TV and radio) and FB and Twitter go hand-in-hand; used properly they enrich the entire news experience and make for better citizens - of a(n arts) community, country and ultimately the world.
Theatre, to grow, has to involve people who know what's out there.
The CBC, if its web sites are any reflection of the whole, provides only a comfortable, homey darkness.
I don't know how deep the cuts to Ceeb run but it was enough to get a chorus of women on CBC radio yesterday, singing to Harper not to dare touch its funding. CBC radio and CBC sports are probably the only two of their outlets that garner any loyalty.
ReplyDeleteI used to work at the head office in Toronto and even while I was there I found myself often disgusted at how much taxpayers’ money was being wasted. Even in my small department the bloated spending on pet projects and useless employees (who couldn't be fired because of the union) leeched a lot of money with nothing to show for it. The idea is that a cut to funding will result in the loss of programs we enjoy, when in reality if the company just functioned a bit more like private enterprise and trimmed the fat within its walls there wouldn't be an affect on output. Unfortunately that’s not the approach the mothercorp typically takes when budget becomes an issue so we can only expect quality to slump even lower.