CBC president to go on cross country tour to promote state broadcaster
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, I sit down with the President and CEO of CBC Radio-Canada to talk about the decline in trust in the public broadcaster and what we can do to rebuild it. I also discuss the importance of supporting the independent production sector and the work the CBC does to support them.
Transcript
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I want to start by talking about this narrative that many say was created by Trump,
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I myself struggle often to defend what we do here and the great journalism that we do.
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What do you say to people who say that the media is feeding lies?
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Well, first of all, I just want everybody, especially those people who work at CBC,
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to feel proud of the incredible work of truth-telling.
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And the gold standard of CBC Radio-Canada, the journalistic standards and practices,
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So that's something really important to remind people of.
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But I also think that we need to pull back a little bit.
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It's one of the reasons I'm here in Vancouver doing an event with UBC and SFU tomorrow,
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Why is there this decline in trust, not just for CBC Radio-Canada
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or the media in general, but for public institutions, for politics, for government?
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And I say, and I think people would agree, that social media is what's happened.
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And social media and the volume of information that is spewing out from so many channels
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has led to this kind of undermining of our trust in public institutions.
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And at the end of the day, the antidote to disinformation is more good, high-quality,
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credible journalism, not just from a public broadcaster, but from all media outlets.
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And so that's really what we're here to talk about.
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So as media, how do we build that trust with people to make sure that they come to us
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We know that there is actually a great researcher at the University of Victoria,
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the Gustafsson Trust Measure, and they talk about affinity, ability, and authenticity.
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About as organizations, we have to be true to our word and delivering credible news
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Reflecting our audiences' realities is our mandate.
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Canadians saw the value of the public broadcaster during a two-year pandemic.
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We know that because we saw the numbers of Canadians that came to our digital sites.
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Over 24 million Canadians came monthly to get that very, very valuable information
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When we're in crisis, when we have a climate crisis here in B.C.
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during the floods or the fires, who was on the front line there?
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And we're not just there in the moment of the crisis.
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We're there afterwards and in the community all through the recovery period.
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And that's what our journalism really is about, is being in the community
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and connecting with people so that we can share their perspectives in a meaningful way.
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I want to change gears a little bit here because one of the other mandates for the CBC
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is supporting an independent production sector.
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Now, obviously here in B.C. we have a lot of, you know, film and television just thriving.
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So that's the second part of my visit to British Columbia.
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With the Indigenous Screening Office, Creative B.C. and the Canadian Media Producers Association,
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we're meeting with over 200 producers tomorrow to talk about what the CBC does.
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So specifically, our role is to identify and support emerging talent.
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We're doing a thing here in Vancouver related to the nature of things, for example,
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where we're doing workshops for filmmakers who have traditionally been underrepresented,
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whether that's black filmmakers or Indigenous filmmakers or filmmakers that live with some
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form of disability, and saying, that's a great show and a great way to refine and advance
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your filmmaking chops, what better way than to work for a show as incredibly important
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So when we look at the CBC, Radio-Canada, and our impact in the independent production
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community, we are the only broadcaster in the country that has the majority of its programming
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from independent producers, from Canadian independent producers, and we dedicate a good
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part of our airwaves and now streaming waves to Canadian production.
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If you look at the entirety of our production output, we have about a $1.5 billion economic
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impact throughout the country, coast to coast to coast, in terms of that production activity.