Kai Nagata meet Howard Beale. Kai Nagata used to work for CTV at the network’s Quebec City bureau. Howard Beale is fictional. He was played by the late Peter Finch in the 1976 movie Network. They both have their rants. Howard Beale’s rant was a one-liner. Kai Nagata did not have an editor for his rant and it ran on for some 3000 words.
But if you think the Beale character was pissed, you should read what Nagata has to say. Rife with youthful idealism, Nagata scolds both CTV and CBC for their management of what they think is news and their political biases. He regurgitates all over the recent Will and Kate show on both networks and questions the gushing excesses. You get the feeling that the subservient treatment of the royals was the final straw.
We were particularly amused by his comments about the clash of cultures between CTV News and its new Bell Canada bosses. Konrad von Finckenstein and his Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) cohorts were warned of what would happen if they allowed the Bell Canada takeover of CTV. This is just the start.
Regrettably, there is nothing really new in Nagata’s rant. He only had about ten months in Quebec City and one tends to question whether he really had enough experience to be in that position. His complaint about the sexualization of television reporters is hardly new. Again we wonder if he felt he had somehow passed the sexual measurement by his bosses.
What Nagata complains most vociferously about is the directions of the Harper government. While we can hardly disagree with him about that, we wonder what that has to do with his job in Quebec City. The Quebec National Assembly will hardly be a front-line effort by CTV news while its friend Mr. Harper is running the country in Ottawa. If anything, Quebec would be a good place to work and gain experience for that period.
The only concern in that last statement was something Nagata said in his rant that still has us puzzled. He said about his posting to Quebec City that it is a good place to learn French. We simply cannot believe that CTV News would send someone to report from the National Assembly who was not completely fluent in both Canada’s official languages. Nobody is that pretty on air!
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