One Canuck's Radio Weblog

  Saturday, 27 August 2005

. .< 11:27:09 PM >
TheStar.com - CBC future at risk in labour dispute
Obviously, the implications of the current labour dispute are dangerous for public broadcasting. Alienating the viewers who support it is suicidal. That's why it is disturbing that the CBC management locked out the union at this time. Is this contracting-out issue so important it required the disruption of the entire network? Does management have the right to effectively take the CBC off the air, when the union still want to work?

. .< 11:21:55 PM >
Paragon World: Info Junkie
I'm an information junkie. I really noticed that this past week because of the lockout at the CBC. I use to get a bit of my news fix from CBC Newsworld, a 24-hour TV news network here in Canada, but the CBC is in the midst of a labour dispute and it can't currently maintain its regular programming. I had to look elsewhere for the satisfaction of knowing what's going on in the world (as much as I can ever truly know) and now I'm hooked on rival CTV. Good bye Newsworld - Hello CTV Newsnet.

. .< 11:06:06 PM >
CBC XIX: All's fair in love, war and lockouts

More from the "do you want your old job back" department I mentioned yesterday.

TVO's Studio Two is trying for a hot, hot launch of its new season on Monday August 29. The current affairs show had already announced they'd brought the staff back early because of the CBC lockout. It now seems they're doing more than just stealing a march on the Corp, they are hoping for that hot season launch to grab current affairs deprived viewers. So Studio Two began calling former TVO employees now locked out at CBC and offered short term deals to boost the staff for that launch. At least one producer accepted that offer. There may be more if the lockout drags on.
[Via The Garret Tree]

. .< 11:05:03 PM >
CBC lockout XXIV: Who is hardest hit?

So who is hardest hit by the lockout?

A lot of people. But for this purposes of this blog I am going to single out a handful of managers.

I am told there are a couple of the out-of-town managers locked into the Toronto Broadcast Centre, (and perhaps more) whose partners are locked out members of the Canadian Media Guild back home in "the regions."

So CBC upper management has torn apart families in a double way. Not just the problem where one is a member of management and the other the locked out Guild. The CBC has sent one parent thousands of miles away and left the other partner to deal with all the problems at home.
[Via The Garret Tree]

. .< 10:49:16 PM >
Rave raided in Utah - assault rifles, teargas, dog attacks....
Utah Youth Treated Like Terrorists!

They have video

< 9:35:19 PM >

< 9:35:12 PM >

It's only when you're far away that you realize how important the CBC's web efforts are to keeping you in the loop about what's happening in Charlottetown, the Island and Canada. I'm left to rely on the disaster that is the The Guardian website to keep up to date.

Which got me to thinking: this lockout is going to result in a sort of "dark ages" in terms of the digital fossil record. Our ancestors (our even ourselves, in a year) will go the CBC website to search for stories about things that are happening now and will find nothing. Worse, when our friends at the CBC are allowed to work again, they will have no audio or video record of news that's happening now. Which means that, in essence, nothing that is happening now is actually happening at all.

Think what you will of the CBC, they are, among many other things, the Canadian news source of record. When they're not recording, what happens?