Keeping Up Appearances
For most women on camera, being young at heart is not enough. A look at the role that youth and beauty still play in TV news
In February, 1991, the CBC’s Toronto station, CBLT, aired a clever, facetious television commercial for its six o’clock newscast. In it, Barbie and Ken style dolls sat at an anchor desk, their plastic hair perfectly coiffed, grins stuck permanently in place. Staring vacantly into space, they engaged in some idle chatter: HE: Over to you, […]
Blocking Papers
With a signed affidavit and an agreeable judge, anyone can silence the media
Until shortly before showtime on October 8, 1991, producers of CBC’s the 5th Estate believed they lived in a society that, above all else, upheld the freedom of the press. They were wrong. At 5 p.m., an Ontario provincial court judge granted an injunction preventing the 5th estate from broadcasting that night’s program, “Evil’s Fortune,” […]
Cop Out
Police seizures are forcing reporters to become partners in crime fighting. And even the Supreme Court condones it
In June 1987, CBC reporter Claude Gervais and a cameraman rushed into a post office in Pointe-Claire, Quebec to film angry strikers as they trashed the interior. The item that later appeared on the news did not show the faces of the strikers a stipulation of the union leader who let Gervais in-but some of […]
The Snooze at Six
...and seven, and eight and what sometimes seems forever on Newsworld
Right off, an ugly problem stood between me and my assignment to write a piece on CBC Newsworld, “the all-news channel for Canadians.” I would have to watch it. Try it sometime. While you yawn your way through another Capital Report or Ontario Update you get a small dose of what it must be like […]
Monitoring the Media
After some static The Media File is coming through loud and clear
Vince Carlin sat in Studio T, deep in the heart of the CBC radio building in Toronto, smiling patiently. Across the table, Trent Frayne, sports columnist for The Globe and Mail, and Brian Williams, sports anchorman for CBC, exchanged one-liners while fidgeting with their headsets. In the background, the voice of Edmonton Journal sports columnist […]
Under the Gun
How TV news delivers a captive audience to terrorists
For 17 days during the TWA hijacking in beirut last June, terrorists took over the airwaves as the networks battled each other for the inside story. In the months that followed, American networks came under fire for giving up their editorial control in exchange for drama. Meanwhile, networks that relied heavily on the American footage, […]
After It Happened
Elizabeth Gray's fight to prove the CBC was wrong
Broadcaster Elizabeth Gray is in the midst of a controlled panic. With three days to deadline she’s taken on a piece for CBC Radio’s Sunday Morning that will analyze the decline of the National Energy Program-no small feat for the most seasoned of the current affairs show’s field producers. But Gray characteristically has taken on […]
