Western Standard - January 18, 2023


CBC president to go on cross country tour to promote state broadcaster


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

147.03842

Word count

777

Sentence count

45


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I want to start by talking about this narrative that many say was created by Trump,
00:00:04.880 you know, that the media is the enemy.
00:00:06.940 I myself struggle often to defend what we do here and the great journalism that we do.
00:00:12.900 What do you say to people who say that the media is feeding lies?
00:00:17.900 Well, first of all, I just want everybody, especially those people who work at CBC,
00:00:23.660 to feel proud of the incredible work of truth-telling.
00:00:27.200 And the gold standard of CBC Radio-Canada, the journalistic standards and practices,
00:00:33.520 are really the highest in the country.
00:00:35.480 So that's something really important to remind people of.
00:00:39.580 But I also think that we need to pull back a little bit.
00:00:42.840 It's one of the reasons I'm here in Vancouver doing an event with UBC and SFU tomorrow,
00:00:48.500 to talk about what's going on.
00:00:50.580 Why is there this decline in trust, not just for CBC Radio-Canada
00:00:55.980 or the media in general, but for public institutions, for politics, for government?
00:01:01.800 What is happening here?
00:01:03.720 And I say, and I think people would agree, that social media is what's happened.
00:01:09.360 And social media and the volume of information that is spewing out from so many channels
00:01:15.820 has led to this kind of undermining of our trust in public institutions.
00:01:23.560 And at the end of the day, the antidote to disinformation is more good, high-quality,
00:01:31.440 credible journalism, not just from a public broadcaster, but from all media outlets.
00:01:36.200 And so that's really what we're here to talk about.
00:01:38.020 So as media, how do we build that trust with people to make sure that they come to us
00:01:43.640 for that really good journalism?
00:01:45.760 Well, we continue doing what we do.
00:01:47.940 You continue what you do each and every day.
00:01:50.880 We earn that trust.
00:01:52.380 We know that there is actually a great researcher at the University of Victoria,
00:02:01.420 the Gustafsson Trust Measure, and they talk about affinity, ability, and authenticity.
00:02:09.220 About as organizations, we have to be true to our word and delivering credible news
00:02:14.920 is the purpose of the public broadcaster.
00:02:18.260 Reflecting our audiences' realities is our mandate.
00:02:22.580 So I just say keep doing the good work.
00:02:25.620 Canadians saw the value of the public broadcaster during a two-year pandemic.
00:02:30.000 We know that because we saw the numbers of Canadians that came to our digital sites.
00:02:35.520 Over 24 million Canadians came monthly to get that very, very valuable information
00:02:41.080 that they needed during that difficult time.
00:02:43.820 When we're in crisis, when we have a climate crisis here in B.C.
00:02:47.620 during the floods or the fires, who was on the front line there?
00:02:52.000 It was our journalists.
00:02:53.420 And we're not just there in the moment of the crisis.
00:02:56.340 We're there afterwards and in the community all through the recovery period.
00:03:02.540 Absolutely.
00:03:03.120 And that's what our journalism really is about, is being in the community
00:03:06.200 and connecting with people so that we can share their perspectives in a meaningful way.
00:03:11.280 I want to change gears a little bit here because one of the other mandates for the CBC
00:03:16.620 is supporting an independent production sector.
00:03:19.920 Now, obviously here in B.C. we have a lot of, you know, film and television just thriving.
00:03:25.080 It's a big part of our economy.
00:03:26.580 What is the CBC's role in that?
00:03:28.720 How do we help those productions go forward?
00:03:31.880 So that's the second part of my visit to British Columbia.
00:03:35.340 With the Indigenous Screening Office, Creative B.C. and the Canadian Media Producers Association,
00:03:42.620 we're meeting with over 200 producers tomorrow to talk about what the CBC does.
00:03:50.020 So specifically, our role is to identify and support emerging talent.
00:03:56.580 We're doing a thing here in Vancouver related to the nature of things, for example,
00:04:02.340 where we're doing workshops for filmmakers who have traditionally been underrepresented,
00:04:09.320 whether that's black filmmakers or Indigenous filmmakers or filmmakers that live with some
00:04:13.520 form of disability, and saying, that's a great show and a great way to refine and advance
00:04:20.560 your filmmaking chops, what better way than to work for a show as incredibly important
00:04:26.580 as the nature of things.
00:04:28.260 So when we look at the CBC, Radio-Canada, and our impact in the independent production
00:04:34.120 community, we are the only broadcaster in the country that has the majority of its programming
00:04:40.000 from independent producers, from Canadian independent producers, and we dedicate a good
00:04:45.780 part of our airwaves and now streaming waves to Canadian production.
00:04:52.620 No other entity has that mandate.
00:04:56.860 If you look at the entirety of our production output, we have about a $1.5 billion economic
00:05:03.900 impact throughout the country, coast to coast to coast, in terms of that production activity.
00:05:09.220 Thank you.
00:05:16.060 Thank you.