The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation news used to have balanced panels to help Canadians understand issues. That idea seems to be gone along with Peter Mansbridge. Instead we can now get a biased, neo-conservative David Frum being lobbed soft-ball questions by an admiring news reader. And who trusts that?
What is even more annoying, Barbara Frum’s kid told us nothing we did not already know about his friend Donald Trump. After all, how many times do you have to hear about Trump’s narcissism before you start to understand it?
You almost feel relieved these days when a deadly hurricane can replace the daily ‘Fear of Trump’ newscasts.
Not that Frum can replace anything. His great claim to fame is that he wrote the “axis of evil” line for former U.S. President George W. Bush. As a political speech writer, he had obviously never learned that you do not claim credit for what you have written for others. The copyright belongs to those who pay you to write for them.
Even the times when I wrote speeches for free for my M.P. or for friends in politics, it was never revealed to the media who had written the speech. There was the odd time that it was obvious who had written it but the media would go along.
This has got me thinking back over my political career and maybe I was wrong to never personally publicize my political involvement. I was a ‘spin doctor’ long before they called the role ‘spin doctor.’ And I never called campaign operations a ‘war room.’ While I used to train campaign workers with quotes from von Clausewitz’ On War, I never believed in a War Room. It sounded too confining. The only way you can stay current with what is happening in a campaign is to constantly listen to the voters and feel the mood. If you are cloistered or only listening to sycophants, you are what is called ‘drinking your own bath water.’ You will delude yourself.
That is why I am concerned about the CBC failing its audience of people who want to not only hear the news but also to hear why. People like Frum hardly provide balance. We expect balanced news from the CBC.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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