Memo to Fort Dork: Viewers aren't stupid by John Doyle
Source : Globe & Mail
December 13, 2005
My mailbox is over its size limit. The mailbox of CBC president Robert Rabinovich has probably collapsed. The mailbox of the CBC ombudsman must be teetering on the edge.
People are ticked off, you see. They've been letting the CBC know about it and I've been cc'd on hundreds of e-mails. All are very, very angry.
The bosses at Fort Dork have done it again. They've made an outrageous decision that alienates many Canadians. In the annals of Canadian infamy, this CBC administration will surely go down as incorrigibly incompetent and instinctively contemptuous of its own core supporters.
Why are people so angry? Well, two weeks ago it was revealed here that CBC had decided to postpone the scheduled January airing of Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story until March, after the election. The official reason from CBC was, "We're concerned about the appearance of partisanship."
It was also pointed out here that while CBC was ostentatiously postponing The Tommy Douglas Story, it was planning to air a point-of-view documentary called Medicare Schmedicare, a program that pours scorn on our belief in a one-tier medicare system. Well, Medicare Schmedicare aired last Thursday in prime time on the main TV network.
Now, Canadians are a fair-minded people. They don't overreact to rumour and innuendo. In this instance, they waited to see Medicare Schmedicare.
As soon as they saw it, a storm of fury was ignited from one end of this country to the other. Many noted that just in case CBC viewers didn't get the message of Medicare Schmedicare, the program was repeated last night on CBC Newsworld.
Those who saw it and were aware that The Tommy Douglas Story had been postponed were understandably outraged. Medicare Schmedicare specifically attacks the legacy of Tommy Douglas. Over footage of Douglas, the voiceover says, "We've been swallowing the medicare myth, saluting an emperor who has no clothes." The documentary uses Tommy Douglas as a constant touchstone. It refers specifically to Douglas several times to sneer at his legacy and uses images of Douglas numerous times.
It if aired at any other time, nobody would be truly bothered. It's a TV "essay" that is plainspoken in its skepticism about Tommy Douglas, his principles and his legacy as the father of medicare. Viewers might argue with its theme, but they would not write in the thousands to the president of the CBC. Now they are.
Among the e-mails I've seen, there is one constant theme -- that the CBC's decision to bury a movie about Tommy Douglas during an election campaign and blithely air an attack on medicare is an instance of bias, or at best a lack of fairness. Referring to the decision to air Medicare Schmedicare, one person wrote, "At a minimum, the latter decision should be somewhat ameliorated by affording supporters of our system substantial time on the network to reply to the content of the Medicare broadcast. Both of these decisions strongly suggest that the CBC is making questionable political decisions. I do not accept that either of these decisions is neutral with respect to Canadian politics generally and this federal campaign in particular."
CBC viewers are not stupid. They know bias and blithering idiocy when they see it.
It is beyond me, as it is beyond those who are complaining to the CBC ombudsman, why CBC management would make a point of pushing the true story of Tommy Douglas out of the way during an election campaign while allowing an unbridled attack on Douglas to air.
Just how out of touch can they be? Messing with medicare is messing with the soul of this country. They must know that. As our public broadcaster, funded by taxpayers, CBC has a role as a custodian of tradition -- a tradition of excellence, objectivity and depth in reporting. Objectivity is not something that can be formatted to fit your TV screen during an election campaign. Objectivity is not elastic because current CBC management plays with it. Objectivity is not elastic at all. It is, or it isn't.
Not only is the CBC ombudsman getting an earful about Medicare Schmedicare airing while the Tommy Douglas story is postponed. Many members of CBC's board of directors are being cc'd on the issues. I trust the board gets the message -- Fort Dork is in the hands of intellectual pipsqueaks with less moral spine than your average mall rat.
There is only one way to resolve this issue -- CBC must air Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story as scheduled. Will the CBC bosses have the courage to do this? I doubt it. The CBC is ours. You want action? Write away. Lots of people are doing it now.
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