Teach us tonight, John Doyle: From whence do we get our strongly negative opinions about the CBC, and in particular its flagship newscast The National?
“The idea that the CBC is a left-leaning news outlet is a concoction of the Conservative Party.”
Aw, shoot. We’ve been busted – I thought that was a private conversation between us and the PMO. Okay. But still, aren’t all Canadians forced to watch the CBC every night?
“The CBC is not shoved down anyone’s throat.”
You’ve got us again. The money to pay for it is yanked out of everyone’s wallet, but we’re not legally required to watch it. So, moving on, John Doyle, where does the CBC rank in terms of its relative importance as a cultural institution?
“(The CBC) is Canada’s most important cultural institution. We all pay for it in the same that we pay to have clean water and an education system.”
I don’t think that ever occurred to us. While it’s true that only two percent of Canadians watch The National, for example, and although it’s at least arguably true that clean water is a bit more essential – “important” – than the CBC, we all have to pay for The CBC the same way we pay for clean water – through taxes. Touché. One last question, John Doyle: why are so many people in the media so afraid of Sun TV News?
“Nobody is ‘afraid’ of Sun TV News. Some people are simply disgusted by the ceaseless attacks on existing media.”
Sorry. If you’d have just said so, we would have stopped.
dear EBD…’white man’s wind’….i’ll carry that phrase in my noggin til i’m under the green quilt….
so where was i ?…oh yes….your snark here…well done work on this Doyle dip…masterlymistressful….
so like uh….you wanna date if you’re ever out west?
land o goshen i hope you’re a girl or the offer’s withdrawn…but your snark seems ever so bronte-ish i will wager you be…
We let our home newspaper delivery expire last week. No more newsprint recycling bundles out of this house. It’s good for the environment not to read newspapers. Plus it’s a big vote with our dollars, we don’t want to support the idiot typists (like Doyle for example) that the newspaper foists on us. I don’t mind diversity of opinion but I don’t like looney or stupid (like Doyle for example). We’ll miss the grocery store fliers but they’re on the internet.
We’re really looking forward to Sun TV news, it’ll be nice to have some honest intelligent TV news broadcasts available.
Personally, I pay for clean water based on usage. Use less, pay less. Just like the CBC SHOULD be.
The proper response to that article should be…
“I will not dignify that by responding to it.”
That is the lefty way of winning a debate—other than shouting, and name calling.
For example, after denying a politcal bias at the CBC…he makes notice of the CBC’s implacable defence of the Gun Registry and bitter attack on the NRA.
I believe the NRA has more member/supporters in Canada than the membership of “Friends of CBC”.
I suspect my local Moose Lodge has more members than Cukier’s tax-supported “coalition” NGO.
I’ve said it before, but REAL Canadian culture – despite what arrogant wanna-be-elitist lefties would say – is what REAL Canadians consume, using their own REAL shekels. By definition, then, true Canadian culture is best defined by the marketplace, not a tax-funded shelter from which a select group of psuedo-intellectuals can lecture the rest of us on what OUR culture is. Sorry for the name-calling, but I’ve worked in the arts for close to 30 years, and I find that the taste of Canadians is remarkably diverse and creative, when they are given the chance to exercise it. The idea that only the CBC prevents our culture from being swallowed by the behemoth to the south shows a remarkable disrespect to us and our culture. We’ve progressed waaay beyond that, IMHO.
Typical neutral CBC news report —
“Last night’s windstorm is yet another proof of the urgency of climate change, says David Suzuki, as well as some professor in a distant land.”
“The Chilean miners are safe now, but are Canadian miners safe? Is the Harper government to blame for the danger they face?”
“We have failed to negotiate a deal with Al Qaeda Airlines, who wanted to have landing rights, well, not exactly landing rights as such …”
etc etc
yep, the CBC … advancing political dialogue one Toronto Star discussion panel at a time.
Clearly what we need are meters mounted on our Tv’s and radios to ensure that those people hogging the entire 1 Billion Dollars into their sphere will start paying up.
Alas, john begley (8:03), both of my testee-kules descended well before parturition, and have stayed put, give or take one temporary readjustment from a sports-related blow. And more to the point, I’m a lifelong fan of the double-x-chromosome club.
Not that you’re not a strapping, fine-looking fella. I saw you years ago, not fifteen feet away, bringing drinks onstage for Jerry Lee Lewis – didn’t know that was you ’til you said so here – at that big cavernous mega-club on the Expo site in Vancouver. You were taller than I would have guessed – no offense, I always think of sailors as short-ish – and leaner, and there was no parrot on your shoulder.
Sharply dressed man you were, too – almost formal. Nice white shirt to go with the dark slacks. Very un-John-Doyle like.
clearly i’ve struck the wrong tone here…
asperges mei..
in contrition…for EBD let me quote sir ——- ——
‘do those above love to be loved
but scorn those whom love doth profess
do they call virtue there
ungratefuness..”
oh gad after a lifetime this is so wearying a task…
first timer, that was a good comment. Too bad that Doyle and Attwood are not capable of figuring it out.
I know that I should not have done so, but I could not resist responding to Doyle’ article. Those d** Marxist lefties are so arrogant in thinking that their world view is the only valid view.
Lately I have developed the habit of falling asleep on the couch in the evening.
The jokers that live here think it is funny to turn the TV to the CBC and leave me there to wake up to that. The horror!
I can hardly wait for SunTV!
Government run broadcasting services are for tin pot dictators.
I’ll never forget the 1992 election when the joint PBS/NPR news crew collectively cheered when Bill Clinton won the election. If the crew on Fox News was disappointed with Obama’s victory, they deserve Oscars for the best acting I’ve ever seen. Not a hint of remorse.
alright EBD…yer wrong about everything except what a good looking strapping 32 teeth still a smile that would melt a landlord’s heart etc etc etc i bore mesself sometimes…..
xly jerry lee was 38 years ago…imagine me and the real king of rock and roll in a club…the hallelujah chorus…the champers flowing..and only two customers…
beggars the imagination don’t it…
a memory i will take to the grave alongside of your exquisitely faint praised elimination of Doyle as a rival for meg atwoods laurels…
You all need a bumper sticker! Buy one for the wife/husband’s car too!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Privatize-CBC-Canada-Vinyl-Bumper-Sticker-10-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem27b5ac0153QQitemZ170551673171QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories
Look at the comments from this clown’s column! Hilarious!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/television/john-doyle/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-fox-news-north/article1709111/comments/
Strange that. The only thing I ever see from CBC is when they advertise ‘The National’ on Fox News Network. I dutifully turn off the sound. They can force me to pay for it but there is no way they will force me to watch it.
Holy smokes, j-beg, that’s a long time ago. The, erm, incident I saw was sometime around ’94. The killer didn’t look too pleased either – kinda gave the guy a killer look. I think he was trying to stay on the wagon.
Peter (8:46), those “snippets” are actually a pretty fair approximation of the The National’s coverage.
(“j-beg”!?)
Why is John Doyle paid to write stuff?
I have to point out the irony of this part of John Doyles’ attack on SunTV news, that has yet to be broadcast for even one second:
“4. Nobody is “afraid” of Sun TV News. Some people are simply disgusted by the ceaseless attacks on existing media …”
What about ceaseless attacks on yet-to-broadcast media? Sheesh, what a tool.
“(The CBC) is Canada’s most important cultural institution.”
Didn’t know the following shows were are part of our cultural institution:
Ghost Whisperer
Coronation Street
Wheel of Fortune
Jeopardy
What caught my eye in the article is this line, “A democracy has a public broadcaster, paid for by all citizens.” Last time I looked, PBS was mostly funded by corporations and memberships, so I guess that “great behemoth” to the south of us is not really a democracy. Thanks for letting me know that Doyle.
“A democracy has a public broadcaster, paid for by all citizens.”
5th century B.C. Athens had a Public Broadcaster, you know. ‘Course it was just radio back then, but still.
Yeah, it’s a curious statement – “A democracy has a public broadcaster, paid for by all citizens.”
Wonder what else is up there, ready to be pulled out?
And don’t forget “Little Mosque on The Prairie”, yeah, that’s Canadian, eh.
Their shorts are in a knot and their teeth, such as they are chatter because that is all they are wearing and we can see them. We have to pay for the CBC but we do NOT have to like it.
It is time we stopped taking it on the chin and started punchin’ back. Down with the CBC! UP with SunTV. I wonder why we sit by and let this all happen. I know many of us here and elsewhere online do write, call and not just to the CBC to tell ’em they are gawdawful but to our MP’s.
With absolutely NO result that is positive.
And then there is the CRTC… oh, don’t get me started!
I find Doyle barely coherent, but I theeenk he’s implying in Number 5 that Kory Teneycke had something to do with “fraudulent signatures” showing up on the Avaaz “Stop ‘Fox News North'” petition.
BTW, EBD, this: “both of my testee-kules descended well before parturition” is not quite normal I believe.
My understanding, Black Mamba, is that pre-birth descent is perfectly normal and desirable. Just look at what happened to Adolf: his lack of bilateral descent (at least, according to a rhyming and perhaps apocryphal account that made reference to Albert Hall) is arguably what made him a bit standoffish.
Bear in mind that I was referring to my Mom’s partu…oh, never mind. Shoulda said “before I popped out.”
Why are we even talking about this? I’ve been undergoing Rebirth Therapy, and tomorrow I enter the birth canal; this exchange is very upsetting, and disruptive to the process.
I mean really, does Doyle believe his own tripe?
The very title of his piece gives his bias away.
Is Sun Media in any way connected with Fox News in the US? No.
Is Rupert Murdoch in any way connected with Sun Media? No.
But he, and many of his fellow travelers, persist in this ignorant, incorrect, and infuriating association that has no basis in fact. Idiots like Doyle are the main reason I stopped reading the Grope and Flail.
I like your idea, Mark in Calgary.
About that ‘curious statement, EBD – something about citizens in a democracy being forced to pay for a commodity that they do not use or want – Doyle made that up. He has never read anything like that anywhere or at anytime.
I don’t watch those idiots except when links here at SDA or Jack’s Newswatch lead me there to point out something too stupid to ignore.
EBD – gosh, you’re right. I had an idea they normally stayed put ’till puberty, but not according to the internet; well anyway, you’d know better than I would I suppose.
There’s a nice bit in Portnoy’s Complaint where at the age of eight the eponymous hero finds his left one going into hiding, which he takes as a sign that it’s decided the world is not safe, just like mother said, and/or possibly that he’s turning into an androgyn. In retrospect that passage should have tipped me off.
Sorry, is this off-topic? Um… if the CBC isn’t left-wing then I’m King Zog of Albania.
This Doyle column is dated Sept. 16. I posted the following here early the next day:
Doyle: “The CBC is not shoved down anyone’s throat. A democracy has a public broadcaster, paid for by all citizens. That’s what happens. As a public broadcaster, it is mandated to be different. It is mandated to be Canadian, and mandated, among other things, to put the Canadian arts, both high and low, on the airwaves.”
One common trick of the left is to blur the distinction between voluntary and coerced, and here is a glaring example. If you have better things to do with your money than support the CBC, it is definitely “shoved down your throat”.
Also, the claim that “a democracy has a public broadcaster” is ridiculous. A democracy is a political system in which the people have a say in electing their government, and nothing more. There is nothing whatsoever in there about broadcasting. It was the Soviet Union that had the propaganda newspaper Pravda, and since broadcasting is the electronic form of the newspaper, dictatorships try to have their propaganda broadcasters but democracies need not and should not.
He continues: “It is Canada’s most important cultural institution. We all pay for it in the same that we pay to have clean water and an education system. Canada is located next door to the great behemoth of U.S. broadcasting and the country needs a distinct cultural institution anchored in its public broadcaster.”
If it’s an “important cultural institution” to you, then you pay for it. It’s not important to me; I hardly ever watch it — maybe two or three times over the past twenty years, with the exception of occasional sports events like the Olympic Games and this year’s World Cup. American culture is rather feeble; it shouldn’t be that hard for Canadians to compete with it.
Our tax supported propaganda machine refuses to allow comments from Canadians.
http://www.cbc.ca/mt_ept/stories/2010/10/13/niqab-may-be-worn-during-testimony-court.html
The BBC is Ulster’s most important cultural institution…
Come on guys…
I watch three shows on CBS: Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and Hockey Night. The first two I’d rather watch on ABC, if only to spared the endless commercials for Rick Mercer, Rick James, Dragon’s Den, and David Suzuki.
But really: HNIC? I’ve been watching it since I was kid. And as a Leafs fan, it’s been pretty painful for the last few years (but we’re 3-0-0; reserve Yonge Street in June!!) There’s no way that anyone could put any political spin on it.
Now I know there are is an endless list of forgettable shows: The Beachcombers, The Little Mosque on the Prairie, Becoming Erica, Quentin Durgent, This Hour, etc. and etc. And the people at HNIC seem to rise above it – have you ever watched hockey on a US network? Never mind glowing pucks – their camera angles are wrong, their closeups are terrible. We’re not only the best hockey nation in the world, we’re the best at televising it. I’ll give the CBC their due for that.
The idiots in the media who blasted SunTV for trying to get a class one license have made the argument to defund the CBC for us.
They were aghast that someone would have to be forced to pay for SunTV.
(They wouldn’t, they could always drop their cable subscription.)
But all those arguments against giving Sun the class one license also apply to us being forced to fund the CBC.
Will Harper have the cojones to use those arguments to cut the CBC funding?
When did producing pathetic sitcoms and boring game shows become one of the core duties of government?
John Doyle’s inane and disingenuous statements about the CBC’s importance to Canadians simply prove the point of its being an echo-chamber for cossetted, like-minded, close-minded, know-nothing, nincompoops.
“We all pay for it in the same that we pay to have clean water and an education system.”
Yeah, and I pay for sewage services, too.
I watched the Chile miners rescue on BBC World service which was first class. I flipped to CBC Newsworld to see what their coverage was like. It was pitiful and I soon went back to the BBC.
“We all pay for it in the same that we pay to have clean water”
What a dumb analogy. I guess that means that, in the interest of “balance”, municipal water systems should pour cyanide through the pipes?
You know, like Judy Resnick through the CBC “water pipe”…
A democracy does not fund state TV, a despotic sociaists’ nation funds state run TV to ensure the state reports news that is “State friendly”. CBC should be defunded, it does not serve Canada, it serves the GTA zone exclusively. If we must fund that object of Liberal adoration then move it’s head office to the Prairies, then it might represent some Canadians outside the socialists’ parasitical GTA zone.
“We all pay for it in the same that we pay to have clean water and an education system.”
We can’t live without clean water, but I’m pretty sure we would get by without the CBC’s Little Steaming Pile On The Prairie.
Or Jeopardy.
I know I do.
Can Doyle show us where in the Magna Carta it says we need to have state produced moronic sitcoms, biased news, lie filled documentaries, and boring comedies.
Maybe it’s on the back…?
Does the liberal mind really place equal values on pop culture entertainment and clean water?
Can Doyle explain how and when the production of mindless sitcoms became one of the core responsibilities of government.
Over the next 20 years the new F-35 fighters will cost us $16 billion, over the same time period the CBC will suck up $22 billion of our tax dollars.
National defense or reruns of Anne Of Green Gables…..?
You make the call.
“We all pay for it in the same that we pay to have clean water and an education system”
A statement this ridiculous has to be tongue-in-cheek. If so, then Doyle has a decent, if slightly bizarre sense of humour. On the other hand, if he is serious, then he is terminally delusional and should be restrained in a rubber room lest he harm himself or others.
Defund the CBC and defund it now! I will continue to hound my MP on this issue. Even if it doesn’t get immediate results, it is beneficial to vent occaisionally.
Doyle = elitist bloodsucker.
“The idea that the CBC is a left-leaning news outlet is a concoction of the Conservative Party.”
The above statement IS a concoction of the liberal party.
$1.2 Billion = CBC annual subsidy from taxpayers
$120,000 = CBC annual subsidy per employee
$1,200 = CBC annual subsidy per viewer/listener
Q.E.D.