The following is a letter I sent to the National Post’s CBC Watch, found periodically in the Editorial Section of their Newspaper. Canada’s Best Newspaper.
The National Post’s CBC Watch is a valuable public service, since the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exists solely on the largesse of Canada’s tax payers. And since the words truth and the CBC are an oxymoron, someone has to call them to task.
The bad news is that the CBC is unethical, immoral and dishonest. The good news is that very few people watch or listen to their broadcasts.
If the CBC; radio or television were private broadcasters, they would simply be out of business for lack of clientele (listeners and viewers).
I know of what I speak from two very different and distinctly professional perspectives.
I am the co-owner of the Promar Media Group since 1979, which conducts a daily advertising business with about 600 radio stations, newspapers and some televison stations across Canada and the United States. Therefore; when I tell you that very few people are listening or watching CBC, take it as a fact.
BBM: the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement is Canada’s radio and television Bible. BBM is accepted by the entire industry as the official measurement of audience. And CBC radio and television hardly make a dent in the ratings.
Because of my past equal rights activism within Quebec, as the founder and president of the Quebec Political Action Committee, between 1996-1999, CBC had me on-air an inordinate number of times. And once, they insisted I do a radio talk show from their East End Montreal studios, opposed to doing it over the telephone. So, off to the CBC Ivory Tower I went.
I won’t even go into the fact that CBC had an army of people doing that one show, where they could have done with just two; the operator and the host, especially since they don’t have to worry about commercials.
During the show, the CBC radio host was asking a question: “What do you think of QPAC’s brand of activism”? And for every caller in support of QPAC, their was a caller against, or so it appeared, except, the poll was rigged!
There was an enormous number of pro callers compared to a minuscule number of callers who were against. Yet, to listen to the broadcast, one had to believe there was a mixed review right down the middle.
When I confronted the CBC jerk who was paid to “screen” the calls, and asked him what he was doing? His reply to me was CBC succinct and genuine. “We have to show balance” he said.
This was not balance. It was propaganda. It was creating an illusion that the population was evenly divided over an issue, when nothing could be further from the truth. This is the mind-set of the CBC.
So, when listening to the CBC, or when watching the CBC, take whatever they say with a healthy dose of scepticism, because, what they want you to perceive as the truth, is the truth as only the CBC sees it. Take it from someone who knows. I’ve been there.
One Comment
I hope that you decide to in order to become a beacon for others to do the same and run as independents….:-)
I have lived in Alberta, the so called red neck conservative province for many years and think that they are NOT true conservatives. They all toe the party line and if not, they will not get the leaders signature the next time around, so sad.
We should NOT have a party system and we should ALL be able to vote for each leader instead of just the party members.
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