A Suggestion for the CRTC

Today, Canada's Global TV laid off 560 employees, or 5% of its workforce. I feel absolutely terrible for those who lost their jobs. One of the things this will effect is no more local staff in Kelowna. Instead, their news will now come from Victoria.

This got me wondering . . . if another company could provide a solid business plan to the CRTC, assuring them that they could profitably run a television station from Kelowna, shouldn't it be in the CRTC's mandate to immediately give them this opportunity?

The privilege of being a broadcaster in Canada seems to have been taken for granted the past few years. Locally here in Vancouver the most noticeable example in my mind is the radio station, CKNW. They let go of the brightest and most tuned in to the community, David Berner, and now have mediocre, yet high-paid talent in Bill Good, Christy Clark, and Philip Till. (For the record, I think Jon McComb is superb!) This is combined with the fact that the amount of minutes of advertising per hour has increased dramatically. All of this is happening on extremely limited public airwaves, which are essentially leased from you & I. Were the best interests of Vancouverites put at the top of the list with these changes? I think not.

Getting back to Global, I do have empathy for their financial woes but if another entrepreneur could run a local station more profitably, clearly paying their people less, but providing local coverage, then wouldn't it be in the interest of the citizens of Kelowna for this to occur?

BC Digital Divide in the News

With today being Boxing Day there's a great emphasis in the minds of many to shop, shop, shop. My friend, Dennis, and I had a different mission in mind. He picked me up at 10am and we drove out to Port Coquitlam. There we delivered a computer to a family that had recently lost everything in a flood. They were extremely nice and appreciative.

This donation was filmed by Global TV reporter, Grace Ke, and her cameraman. What's coincidental is that Grace was good friends with Dennis' younger brother back in high school a few decades ago!

If you're reading this on Boxing Day and live in BC then you can catch the segment on the 6pm and possibly the 11:30pm news.

Global Television Responds!

I just received a response to my inquiry to Global Television. You can read the original here.

Here's the e-mail I received:

Dear Mr. Werner,

Thank you for your email and interest in Global Television's Broadcasters of the Future Awards.

The Awards are one of CanWest (Global TV)'s initiatives as part of an industry-wide effort to address the under-representation of certain groups in the media. This is in accordance with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)'s mandate to ensure that all broadcasters contribute to a system that accurately reflects the presence of cultural, ethnic and racial minorities, and Aboriginal peoples of Canada.

For more information on this issue, please visit:

http://www.cab-acr.ca/english/social/diversity/taskforce/cochairs_message.shtm

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/b308.htm#


There are many other opportunities for aspiring broadcasters of all backgrounds to get involved with the media. We encourage interested applicants to contact the Human Resources office of their local station as many departments accept interns on an ongoing basis. Most CanWest job postings listed on www.working.com are also open to all applicants.

We hope this information is helpful. If you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to call.

Best regards,

#############
Executive Assistant
Global Television, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Inc.
81 Barber Greene Road, Toronto, ON  M3C 2A2

And here's my response back to her:

Dear ######,

Thank you for taking the time to respond. The wording of your letter seems very "canned", clearly vetted by PR people and lawyers, but at least you responded.

Based on your last name I suspect your heritage is Chinese. Did your parents raise you to think that you are inferior to your Caucasian colleagues? If not (and I assume not) then the official politically correct verbiage that you're forced to write is clearly different than the way you personally think Does this daily, internal conflict cause you to do any soul searching?

Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. Here in Vancouver I have dozens of friends and hundreds of acquaintances of every race and religion. I look at each person as an individual and not as a hyphenated friend. For example, I would never say the following: "My Indian-Canadian friend, Deenu, my African-American friend, Rochelle, and my Chinese-Canadian friend, Dennis ..."

The fact that your employer and the CRTC overtly differentiate on the basis of one's race is disturbing. I fully realize that they feel they're doing this for altruistic reasons. So did city planners in every major American city when they built large tracts of low-cost housing projects. Only decades later, when crime and drug use and poverty in those areas reached epic proportions did they admit they had made a mistake.

Perhaps one day you too will realize that treating entire racial groups as victims is not in their best interest. Perhaps one day.

Sincerely,

Robert Werner
Vancouver, BC