CBC’s latest layoffs
CBC is downsizing, once again, and there’s no plan to stop. The broadcaster’s latest strategy includes reducing the workforce about 25 percent by 2020. CBC estimates that 1,000 to 1,500 jobs will be lost over the next five years. This is in addition to eliminating 657 jobs because of a $130-million cut announced earlier this year. Before cuts, […]
The Alumni Essentials: expanding the story
When a story like the Jian Ghomeshi saga gets as big as it has, it presents a challenge for media organizations: how to differentiate themselves. The Toronto Star is breaking the coverage, and everybody else is picking it up and often just repeating it. This week’s Alumni Essentials shows how important intelligent, contextual analysis is as a […]
Can crowdfunded Ricochet survive to create a journalistic utopia?
Ricochet is the latest attempt to unite crowdfunding and journalism in Canada. On October 2, Ricochet launched as an independent, interactive, investigative and not-for-profit online news outlet with a promise to embrace Canadian identity by producing bilingual content. Their campaign video was posted on Indiegogo on May 20 and managed to raise an impressive $82, […]
Selling the second-screen experience
How CBC’s and Global’s interactive approach keeps stories alive and viewers coming back.
By Harriet Luke Five medical experts enter the Ideas Room on the third floor of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in downtown Toronto. They’ve flown in from Saskatchewan, Wisconsin and England to help tackle some complex data. It’s 9 a.m., and the glass-walled room provides a sense of openness as Anita Elash, an associate producer at The […]
The Schnozz
A fond look back at Larry Zolf, his words, his wit and all his warts. Why it was so nice listening to you, Larry
Larry Zolf is prepared for an ambush. A pair of thick, black-framed glasses sits atop his schnozz, the legendary nose that’s been described as his spare sex organ. A microphone clenched in one hand and a 60-pound Frezzolini news camera in the other, he stands on the stoop of a mansion in Montreal’s prestigious Westmount […]
Morning Glory
As commercial stations duked it out for ratings supremacy in the toughest market in the country, the unexpected occurred: a Toronto CBC program hosted by Andy Barrie climbed quietly to the top. How did that happen?
Andy Barrie pulls up in a taxi to the Front Street entrance of CBC’s downtown Toronto fortress at approximately 5:30 a.m. After settling the fare with his long-term driver, who jokes that Barrie has paid for at least 10 per cent of his mortgage, the king of morning radio grabs his copies of The Globe […]
In From the Cold
After travelling the globe to cover hard news—from bitter chocolate to the Rwandan genocide — Carol Off came home to take over As It Happens. But, people wondered, could she possibly enjoy the show’s trademark soft interviews? They should have heard her on the pelican that swallowed a pigeon
Late one morning last October, Carol Off, the new host of CBC Radio One’s evening flagship As It Happens, prepares to interview Zemedkun Teckle, spokesperson for the Ethiopia Ministry of Information. Ensconced in a recording studio in the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in downtown Toronto, she dons her headset. The wall behind her features a groovy […]
The “Gee Whiz” Effect
Bob McDonald and his Quirks & Quarks colleagues cover science with infectious enthusiasm. It's a 32-year-old formula that still offers lessons on how to make difficult topics compelling
The toys look like muses. They line the office partitions, overlooking producers at their desks in this third-floor corner of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre: a small dinosaur, a baseball in a case, an uncompleted Rubik’s Cube, a shot glass, a tiny model space shuttle, two snow globes, a Pez dispenser, a model of an atom […]
Crewless
Cheaper, faster and better: Working solo, video journalists are infiltrating TV news. Everywhere
It’s hockey night in Windsor and the hometown’s Spitfires are hosting the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in a Monday night battle at Windsor Arena. Nine rows above ice level, Scott Scantlebury is looking through the viewfinder of his Canon Hi-8 video camera. He could be the proud father of a player filming a home movie […]
Rex Appeal
How many Newfies does it take to host a national call-in show, inflame the nation with small-screen soliloquies, produce incisive documentaries and still read six hours a day? Just one
Among the posters that adorn the walls at CBC radio’s Morningside studio in Toronto hands one that depicts dozens of colourful pairs of woollen mittens. They’ve formally displayed on an old wooden rod, but there’s something distinctively homemade about the way they hang. The muted shades of red, blue and grey blend together as the […]
