End of an Era: Barbara Budd Leaves CBC Radio's "As It Happens"

The announcement was characteristically brief. CBC Radio announced that after seventeen years, Barbara Budd's last day as co-host of the long running "As It Happens" would be April 30.

AIH is a Canadian institution. (Full disclosure: I was responsible for AIH when I was M.E. at CBC Radio in the 90s). The program in all its depth and quirkiness is also heard in the US on American Public Media and is hugely popular. When I lived in Washington, DC, heading home late from NPR, I often heard it on a taxi radio. The drivers always explained that it was one of the best ways to hear news from their various and respective homelands.

Barbara, whose voice is distinct, to say the least, and whose humor can be sharp, was often recognized by Somali cabbies in DC as soon as she opened her mouth to say where she wanted to be taken.

The announcement of her departure comes as a shock to many of her friends and fans. Barbara, true to form, was not quite so sanguine. Quoted in the Toronto Globe and Mail, she was gracious but did not disguise her disappointment:

“I would never, never, ever walk away from a show that I still truly love. This is difficult for me,” Ms. Budd said. She paused, then said, “If there is something they see that they want in the program that requires other skills, then I understand that. But it doesn’t mean that I’m not sad to leave.”

This comes as a number of longtime CBC Radio voices are being shifted. Bernie MacNamee was the longtime co-host of the flagship newscast, "The World At Six." He was recently told that he would henceforth play second banana to Alison Smith who came to radio after being CBC TV's Washington correspondent. Peter Armstrong, another CBC television reporter has taken over the main morning newscast on CBC Radio - World Report, replacing Judy Maddren, another longtime radio person. If past is prologue, then Barbara Budd will likely be replaced by another TV "name."

The ostensible reason for Barbara's dismissal is because the CBC says it wants to replace announcers with journalists. But good announcers and good journalists are not mutually exclusive. They may have been at one time, but not of late.

Barbara started out as an actor -  and a good one too. She did commercials, voice-overs and other gigs that kept food on the table while she also worked as a reader on the CBC hourly news. When I was her boss, I asked her to choose: commercials or CBC Radio. She made her choice and dropped the lucrative gigs and became an indispensable part of the Radio family.

After seventeen years on the job, Barbara is a journalist, as far as I am concerned. Her co-host on the show is Carol Off has burnished her reputation as a fine journalist and foreign correspondent.  But Barbara's past seems to have finally caught up with her and she couldn't shake her non-journalistic rep - at least not enough to satisfy CBC management.

It's easy enough to second guess management (it was done to me enough times) so here's my working theory on what management is thinking:

"Barbara has been around a while (aka, she's older) and more expensive. Radio is a good place to road test some of the younger, up and coming television people. Once they prove themselves, we'll move them back into television news where they can also claim the mantle of radio-ness, thus proving how well "bi-medialism" works."

Two problems with that: 1) It undervalues the willingness and ability of CBC employees to gain new skills and re-invent themselves and indeed, it just reinforces the outdated management view that older employees can't change. 2) It feeds into the notion, already rampant, that CBC Television staff are fungible and that CBC Radio staff are expendable - aka, the junior service, only there to be a training ground to sustain the failing TV side.

Which television "personality" will replace Barbara Budd? Watch this space...

Newsroom Managers: Beware of Disgruntled, but Talented Ex-Employees

When you walk through the garden
You gotta watch your back
Well I beg your pardon
Walk the straight and narrow track... 
(Tom Waits, Down In The Hole)

I'm into a relentless and long overdue viewing of the brilliant, compelling HBO series, The Wire.

Written, directed and produced by an unimaginably broad and deep range of talent, the series was conceived and overseen by David Simon, a former cop reporter for the Baltimore Sun for 12 years. His knowledge of that city, its complexities and its still living history made for a five year run on HBO which tells the stories of police, politicians, teachers, journalists and the drug culture in a city that feels in terminal decline, but always manages to persist as a damaged, deranged, urban energizer bunny.

The fifth and final season is about the interplay among the cops, the drug dealers and the Baltimore Sun as all three go through a largely self-inflicted and utterly American decline and fall.

David Simon has used his deep knowledge of newsroom dynamics and police procedurals to dramatize the Baltimore Sun as it stares into the oncoming economic train wreck. By episode two, The Sun has been bought by the unnamed group referred to as "Chicago" (as in, "Chicago has ordered more cuts." The Sun was bought by the Tribune Group which in turn was bought by Sam Zell). As happened at all Tribune newspapers, longtime reporters are let go or bought out and younger (aka, cheaper, still eager but much less experienced) reporters try to step up to replace them. David Simon chronicles these and other losses with great power and subtlety.

In one instance, Simon extracts his double revenge on the Sun's managing editor when he was there, Bill Marimow. Bill and I worked together for a time at NPR. I heard that Simon and he butted heads at the Sun, but I was shocked at how Simon has extracted his revenge on Bill in The Wire.

He does this in two ways: first, he creates a character called Charles Marimow, a lieutenant in the Baltimore police department. He is installed as the commander of the major crimes unit  His caustic command style drives away the unit's best two detectives. He is one of the most unanimously disliked commanders of the Baltimore PD as he has a reputation for being a "Trojan Horse", "Virus", and a "Unit Killer." One character says that "Marimow does not cast off talent lightly. He heaves it away with great force."

Second, inside Simon's depiction of the Sun, the managing editor (who goes by another name) has some of the same verbal quirks as Bill. He is not a sympathetic character.

This is unfortunate, but not surprising. I've never met an effective manager in a news organization who pleases everyone. In fact, to be an effective manager, you can't.

Simon seems to have used his great talent and his creative license to go after someone who is one of the finest journalists I have ever met. I don't know what went on between Simon and Marimow at the Sun. But it can't have been pleasant for either of them, nor for the journalists who were forced to watch it.

If it is true that we are also judged by the quality of our enemies, then both David Simon and Bill Marimow must be among the most excellent practitioners in their respective fields.

"The Wire" has restored my faith in American television, but it also reminds me of how harsh the newsroom culture can be.

Canadian Regulator Leaves Out Pubcaster in Cable-B'caster Spat

In a remarkable decision handed down yesterday, the Canadian Radio Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled that cable companies must pay broadcasters for distributing their programs. They also said that the cable companies may not pass along any increased costs to consumers.

As well, in what might considered a typical Canadian compromise, the CRTC said they would check in with the courts first to see if its decision was "ultra vires" or went beyond their jurisdiction. So what might prove to be a potentially major decision is now further delayed while all of this winds its way through the courts.

The cable companies (who make millions) are predictably outraged and promised to take this all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The broadcasters (who are losing millions) say they are vindicated and now promise to use the money they will eventually receive to put back into local programming and information. No doubt they will also use this windfall to purchase more American shows of which the Canadian viewing public can't seem to get enough.

Deliberately left out of the decision is the public broadcaster - the CBC. In an angry press release, the CBC denounced the decision saying that the denial of access to commercial revenues will have a serious impact on the ability of the CBC to produce shows. According to CBC president Hubert Lacroix, this will mean program reductions and job losses.

But the public broadcaster already gets more than $1 billion in revenues from a combination of parliamentary appropriations plus advertising. What the CBC doesn't understand is that they aren't playing on a level field - they are trying to be simultaneously a commercial broadcaster and a public broadcaster; both come with different obligations and expectations. What the CRTC has said is they have to choose, something the CBC board has tried to avoid doing for the past twenty years.

Readers of this blog will  know that I have believed that the CBC is hastening its own demise by refusing to make that choice. If it is a publicly funded commercial broadcaster (as its spokesman Jeff Keay admitted more than a year ago),  then it needs to drop the veil of public service. It needs to properly fund a radio and television news service which should be run as a separate entity from the CBC. The CBC could then devote itself to sports and entertainment programs and play in the marketplace with its competitors without a federal subsidy.

I've wondered what it would take to force the CBC to make these undoubtedly hard choices. The CRTC decision may have finally helped.

Healthcare in America: How Journalism Made it Happen

It appeared to be close.

But in the way that Washington often does these things, the dramatic tension was built into the process from the beginning. Howard Kurtz and others in the DC punditocracy remarked that journalism did the "right thing" by closely and exhaustively following the minutiae of the debate. The rise and fall and slight rise again of the Obama administration's political fortunes were observed from close quarters.

It reminded me (in tone, if not in content) of the Clinton impeachment proceedings: how much detail was too much or too little. Who was saying wise things and who played the idiot? How much attention does one pay to the raw voice of American democracy even when it is stupid and hateful?

I could feel the fatigue in the newsrooms of DC as the vote got closer, as members of Congress played to the November galleries as Fox News and other like-minded types on talk radio allowed for the most asinine opinions to be voiced. I could hear the editors and producers beg reporters for anything else to give some editorial relief from the constant political coverage of this one relentless issue. As much as I found the details to be occasionally mind-numbing, I appreciated the coverage and the big picture view from the New York Times, the Washington Post and NPR. In Toronto, the Globe and Mail followed it closely since the failure of the Obama administration in this area would have repercussions on Canada's troubled health care system.

In the end, in the history of the United States, this was one occasion when process was less important than outcome. Health care was - and will continue to be opposed because it marks the beginning of the end of the Reagan Revolution: the notion that government is the problem, not the solution. As Americans discover that their daily anxiety levels can be reduced at least in this one area by eliminating the looming threat of economic disaster that can often accompany a chronic health condition, the support for this government program will grow.

I'm not underestimating the power of the Republicans to undermine this, or for their ideological allies in the media to sew panic. But in the end in this one case, good journalism prevailed and the polling of an informed electorate pushed the nervous representatives to make the best choice under the circumstances.

But the process as well needs to be noticed: While Americans have gained a national health care plan, something darker has been unleashed. Racism in American political life has been emboldened by the attacks on the administration allowed on certain media. Meanwhile the FCC takes refuge behind 1st Amendment rhetoric and concerns itself with "wardrobe malfunctions" rather than assaults on democracy perpetrated by so-called journalists.

Why Canada Doesn't "Do" Investigative Reporting

The recent visit to Toronto by ProPublica's Paul Stieger got me wondering why the culture of investigative reporting is so much more a part of American journalism than it is in Canada.

So some observations:

There are huge cultural differences between US and Canadian journalism in regard to investigative reporting. There are some good examples of IR in Canada, they are few and far between compared to the US.

The main reason for that is in the US, there is a long-standing tradition of populism going back to the American Revolution. That revolution internalized the sense that the concept of "the people" as an ideal that must be preserved. Canada, also a democracy is a much more "top down" society.

At different times American populism conflicts with the elites, whether those elites are in government, on Wall Street or wherever there appears to be an "establishment". That populism also expresses itself in fundamentalism, whether constitutional, religious, or cultural.

In that unique sense of self, known as "American Exceptionalism" - is the idea that America was founded as a different place, with different values and different expectations - the so-called "City on a Hill." It's a defiance frequently combined with a powerful religious impulse that was and still is based in the Puritan influence, which itself came from the class, cultural and religious divisions in England during the English Civil War 1641-1651.

That war resulted in the victory of the royalists, and the expulsion of the religious radicals (Puritans) to Holland (and eventually to South Africa), Northern Ireland and the east coast of America. In all three places, religion still exerts a powerful role in daily life (perhaps not so much in Holland any more...).

In America, that rebelliousness remains part of the culture. It is still around today as a strong inclination to self-reliance, neighborliness and a distrust of all government authority. That is in part, why the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) is still a value in the US.

In America, investigative reporting taps into that deep and powerful sentiment of populism. The founding of the American Republic was done in defiance of a central authority and military presence - aka, the British Crown and the British Army.

In Canada, the opposite occurred: Canada was initially a creation of two colonizing forces - the British Army and the French Army. In French Canada, authority was reinforced by the Roman Catholic Church and in English Canada by the Anglican Church. In the US, the First Amendment to the Constitution forbids government sponsorship of any religious sect.

Even the two mottos of each country suggest differences: in the US, it's "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Note it doesn't promise the attainment of happiness, just the pursuit.

In Canada, it's "peace, order and good government."

Those two mottos indicate a lot about why investigative reporting works more effectively in the US than in Canada. In Canada, with no similar tradition of populism,  the media has been (with some notable exceptions) a lot tamer. And Canadians actually admire their elite. Americans are much more conflicted, and often hostile about their elites even as they may strive to join them.

Moreover, the fiscal support for independent investigative reporting isn't as well developed in Canada as in the US. Canadian tax laws are changing, but they still only grudgingly allow for donations. So Canadians expect their governmental institutions to perform well. In the US, the opposite expectation is true.

Ironically, in this way, Americans are not as optimistic as Canadians about government institutions, so they tend to seek out the causes of their displeasure. This leads to a ripe environment for investigative reporting, while at the same time, encouraging oversimplification and a tendency to believe in widespread conspiracies.

The Downside of Investigative Reporting

Paul Steiger of ProPublica came to speak in Toronto this week. The astonishing success of his well-endowed investigative reporting unit is something that we were all eager to hear about. What is the secret to ProPublica's success? Can it be replicated and sustained? And what are the implications for journalism?

Steiger is a journalistic phenomenon: he was, for many years, the Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal, and forced to take retirement when he turned 65. But his journalistic instincts were not ready to be retired. As he looked around for his next venture, he was approached by the Sandler family in California. They asked him to set up a stand-alone investigative reporting unit, which they believed was being neglected as media organizations continued to downsize.

The Sandlers are now bankrolling ProPublica at the rate of $10 million a year for three years. In that time, ProPublica will also have to find other sources of support, which Steiger says he is slowly building. The Sandler Foundation has a distinctly liberal bent in terms of which organizations it chooses to support. Steiger says that the family has behaved entirely correctly and has not attempted to influence ProPublica either politically in in its choice of investigations.

The results of ProPublica investigations are impressive. They range from how the TARP money is being spent, to healthcare reform, to malfeasance at the state government level. The results are put up on the ProPublica website, and also shared (given away, really) with other news organizations, often at no cost to the newspaper or broadcaster. Public donations are, of course, encouraged. This shows a wonderful sense of civic engagement and Steiger is to be congratulated for this remarkable achievement at a time when investigative reporting is on the decline in legacy media.

My concern (which I expressed at the meeting) was this: isn't ProPublica worried that news organizations will simply contract-out their investigative reporting to them? Doesn't this create an incentive for media organizations to let go of even more reporters? Steiger said he thought not, but I'm not so sure.

ProPublica is a great idea, but it comes with a price which I fear will be a further winnowing out of once solid newsrooms and their own culture of investigative reporting.

Even so, the culture of investigative journalism is still a vigorous one in the US. It's a unique and lively culture, but one that in that Toronto audience thought it may be hard to transplant to the stonier journalistic soil in Canada.

The reasons for that are a subject for another posting.

Hip And Inclusive: Where Public Radio Thrives in Canada

I received this note from Ken Regan, general manager at a terrific non-CBC, public radio station in Edmonton - CKUA. Full disclosure: growing up in Edmonton, I thought CKUA was a model for how radio ought to be.

 Hello Jeffrey .... enjoyed your take on CBC 1,2,3. As General Manager of the CKUA Radio Network (Province-wide in Alberta), and appreciating your comments about NPR in the US (I don't disagree), I feel obligated to point you in the direction of our own humble, listener-funded service http://www.ckua.com, from which much of Radio Two's format was culled.

I agree with you about the contextual stuff and it's why, although CBC has essentially copied CKUA's very successful format (almost to a T), they have not been able to master the 'craft' part of producing great music programs (except in the case of Espace Musique, as you point out).

I should also mention that while we do play contemporary music, our overall palette is much larger than CBC's and we never play anything simply because it is contemporary. In fact, because our format defines eclectic, new artists must be able to hold their own with 'the greats' because at any time you may hear Ella Fitzgerald, followed by Neil Young, followed by Paul Robeson, followed by a new artist; and believe it or not, our programmers can (usually) make it work. Why? Because we provide substantive context.

In fact, providing substantive context around the music is what our programmers do best - many of them being professional and/or amateur musicians of long standing themselves, or musicologists, at least by instinct - but in all cases, they are passionate aficionados of great music of all genres and locales. Unlike CBC on-air staff, 'some of whom' have musical backgrounds, CKUA personnel do not rely largely on the compilation of their program materials (music) by Producers, Associate Producers, script writers, background briefers and researchers.

CKUA announcers research and prepare their entire programs from scratch every day, utilizing CKUA's library of more than 1.5-million pieces of music collected over eight decades. We call it "hand rolled radio". In this way they not only become intimate with the subject matter, they "grow" their repertoire of knowledge and appreciation daily. They can then pass their own knowledge and appreciation on to the listeners - as opposed to being told what to play when, and having some research wag finding the latest cute, gossipy, or otherwise superficial items from the Internet, to construct the talk-points about the artists and music being played.

If you want evidence for your argument and evidence of what I'm saying - give CKUA a listen.You'll see why even in the conservative heartland, a genuinely progressive cultural entity like CKUA can not only survive for 83 years, but can earn annual revenues of $3-million dollars from voluntary giving by Alberta's population of about 4.4-million people - something made more remarkable by the fact that the same people who financially support CKUA to this level can receive the product entirely for free.

There are lesson here for CBC, but I take comfort from the fact they won't bother or care to learn them and as such CKUA's future, even being subject as it is to the occasional capriciousness of charitable giving, is secure.  ... Love your blog, by the way.

Ken Regan
General Manager
CKUA Radio Network
kregan@ckua.com
(780) 428 - 2020

Hipper Than Thou: Music on CBC Radio

I've tried. Really I have. But I can't get into the non-classical music that is played on either channel of CBC Radio. Some of it is my age - I admit that. But as a longtime radio guy, I know what works, even if I may not like it personally. But the cultural rebuffs of the programs are now wearing thin on both Radio One and Radio Two.

Radio Two is supposed to be "young." Even "edgy." But not so discordant that it messes you up the way some zoned-out kid on the subway does, whose earbuds shatter everyone within ten feet.

Radio Two is (among other things) supposed to attract a younger demographic. But to me it sounds like whoever has come up with the program concept hasn't understood how people - of ANY age - use the radio.

First, there is something in the radio industry called "daypart." This means that the programming should be respectful of the time of day that people listen and put stuff on the radio that is useful at that time. Head banging music doesn't work for most people. Perhaps after 8 pm.

Second if a younger demographic is what is being sought, then putting the content and the playlist on line, where it can be accessed and downloaded for podcasts would be more useful.

Third, whatever is being played is often impenetrable. It makes no sense and the on air staff - with some notable exceptions like Tom Allen and Katie Malloch - go out of their way NOT to explain why I should listen. Arch hipness, or just arrogance?

Radio One is the information service, but it comes festooned with a lot of minimally talented local bands whose claim to fame is that they are playing next Tuesday at some lounge in the west end of Toronto. Sadly, I fear that many of their offerings would get scant attention if it weren't for the relentless plugging on Radio One. It feels like the revenge of outdated CanCon regulations and it makes for simply awful radio. Even the usually well-informed hosts on Radio One seem to be at a loss for words when they ask me to listen.

There is - I should mention - an online service on CBC Radio called Radio Three. It claims to be a source for indie Canadian bands and specializes in music that is even more toneless and talentless than what gets played on Radio Two. Whew! Do any managers inside the CBC listen to this?

Compare this with the music service called Espace Musique on the French-language service of the CBC - Radio Canada. It's worth learning French just for this service, because the quality of programs and the credibility of the announcers are simply spectacular.

Also compare (once again) with the musical offerings on NPR: there,  information programs have developed the "performance chat" between host and artist to a fine art form. You hear the musicians speak AND play. You learn about their influences and the hosts actually help the listeners get involved by being journalistic with and about the artists.

Even the interstitial music that is played for 30 seconds or so between NPR news stories are well thought out. So much so, that listeners began demanding to know the names of the snatches of songs. Out of that was born an entirely online music show: All Songs Considered, which became a hit in its own right. As a result I learned a lot about contemporary music (all genres) and want to know more.

So CBC Radio, I'm still here and still willing to stop switching to Sirius XM as soon as I hear the grim strains of yet another no-name band. But help me out by reaching half-way. Talk to me. What should I be listening for? Hello? Anyone there?