Saturday, September 10, 2005
CBC 68: How to insult a province
(Note: I said earlier in this blog that if anyone from the CBC wishes to respond officially to any posting they are welcome to do so. I am repeating that now. The address is on the right hand column. After all, I do get unofficial responses. Any official response, as long as it comes from a @cbc.ca address and can be verified will be posted)
Senior management at the CBC has managed to insult a large number of people in the province of Prince Edward Island.
And the prime author of all this appears to be Fred Mattocks, TV executive director of production and resources, the likely co-author of the infamous "Fred and Krista" make their lives miserable on the picket line memo.
This is what happened according to an e-mail I received from PEI reporter Pat Martel and information posted on the PEI lockout blog Lockedoutx2.
Earlier this week, PEI Premier Pat Binns ordered flags across the province to be lowered to half mast out of respect for Gary Robichaud. The former NDP leader died after a lengthy battle with cancer.
Despite his illness, Robichaud took time two weeks ago to visit the picket line and offer his support for public broadcasting.
Lockedout PEI CBC staff contacted their regional manager who is in currently in Toronto to get the flag lowered outside CBC Charlottetown.
Martel says: "The manager agreed it was an appropriate gesture. An hour later he called back to say the request had gone to the top and Heritage Canada was now involved, but the manager was still working on it."
At that point, Martel says, they decided to lower the flag themselves, formed a circle and lowered the Maple Leaf.
Martel goes on to say that the remaining resident CBC manager emerged from the PEI plant: "waving an email from upper management, Fred Mattocks. He said there was protocol--and that we had no right to lower the flag. We were given five minutes to raise the flag--or security would do it. We refused, so the guard raised the flag. Fortunately the incident was photographed, and the story given to the local paper."
Nancy Russell in her PEI blog adds: "He [Mattocks] said it was a federal building and therefore not bound by any provincial decree".
Wonder if Mattocks checked with the PMO before he made that ruling? Paul Martin may be calling Robert Rabinovitch to say the CBC president should call Premier Binns and the Robichaud family and apologize.
More on Mattocks.
Most of the people who on August 14 worked for CBC.ca had no love for Fred Mattocks even before he was revealed as the author of the make their lives miserable memo.
That comes from a B.S. (before Stursberg that is, not the cow stuff) statement that Mattocks made to the annnual training seminar for CBC.ca staff called "WebEd."
At a opening plenary, a CBC.ca producer asked the many assembled managers on the stage of the Toronto Convention Centre when CBC.ca staff, many of whom have experience in the field, would get out of the office and be able to do some reporting along with the other two "media lines."
Mattocks snapped back with one sharp word: "Never." And then, after a couple of moments of reflection, went on to say something about how unnecessary it was with TV and radio reporters already in the field.
A few months later on October 2, 2003 two Canadian soliders will killed by a land mine outside Kabul, Afghanistan. It was a busy day, as anyone can imagine, but during a lull I took a moment to check the washingtonpost.com to see if there was new photography column on their photo and video page.
What I saw was a video interview from just the day before by a member of the Post's online staff with Sgt. Robert Alan Short, 42, of Fredericton, one of the casualties.
On such a day it took a few minutes to catch the attention of that day's producer for The National, but soon the CBC Washington bureau was in touch with the Post. The Post story quickly moved to the front page of the online edition and the video was also picked up by Global, CTV and CHUM and still screen captures moved by AP.
Two months later, I was in Boston at the narrative journalism conference where I spoke to a senior producer for the washingtonpost.com. He told me that what the Canadian media paid the online service for the rights to use the video paid for their VJ's trip to Afghanistan with some left over.
When Richard Stursberg, the convergence guy, became Executive VP, he was in a meeting of senior managers when a group of them apparently began their usual put downs of the online service and staff. Stursberg, according to people who were present, told them (not so politely I understand) that they were wrong, said he had plans to make CBC.ca more prominent in the CBC universe and that if online wanted assign people to the field, they could.
Technorati tags
journalism, CBC, blog, news, lockout,
CBClockout,PEI,
Prince Edward Island,
9:09 AM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
Links to this post
(Note: I said earlier in this blog that if anyone from the CBC wishes to respond officially to any posting they are welcome to do so. I am repeating that now. The address is on the right hand column. After all, I do get unofficial responses. Any official response, as long as it comes from a @cbc.ca address and can be verified will be posted)
Senior management at the CBC has managed to insult a large number of people in the province of Prince Edward Island.
And the prime author of all this appears to be Fred Mattocks, TV executive director of production and resources, the likely co-author of the infamous "Fred and Krista" make their lives miserable on the picket line memo.
This is what happened according to an e-mail I received from PEI reporter Pat Martel and information posted on the PEI lockout blog Lockedoutx2.
Earlier this week, PEI Premier Pat Binns ordered flags across the province to be lowered to half mast out of respect for Gary Robichaud. The former NDP leader died after a lengthy battle with cancer.
Despite his illness, Robichaud took time two weeks ago to visit the picket line and offer his support for public broadcasting.
Lockedout PEI CBC staff contacted their regional manager who is in currently in Toronto to get the flag lowered outside CBC Charlottetown.
Martel says: "The manager agreed it was an appropriate gesture. An hour later he called back to say the request had gone to the top and Heritage Canada was now involved, but the manager was still working on it."
At that point, Martel says, they decided to lower the flag themselves, formed a circle and lowered the Maple Leaf.
Martel goes on to say that the remaining resident CBC manager emerged from the PEI plant: "waving an email from upper management, Fred Mattocks. He said there was protocol--and that we had no right to lower the flag. We were given five minutes to raise the flag--or security would do it. We refused, so the guard raised the flag. Fortunately the incident was photographed, and the story given to the local paper."
Nancy Russell in her PEI blog adds: "He [Mattocks] said it was a federal building and therefore not bound by any provincial decree".
Wonder if Mattocks checked with the PMO before he made that ruling? Paul Martin may be calling Robert Rabinovitch to say the CBC president should call Premier Binns and the Robichaud family and apologize.
More on Mattocks.
Most of the people who on August 14 worked for CBC.ca had no love for Fred Mattocks even before he was revealed as the author of the make their lives miserable memo.That comes from a B.S. (before Stursberg that is, not the cow stuff) statement that Mattocks made to the annnual training seminar for CBC.ca staff called "WebEd."
At a opening plenary, a CBC.ca producer asked the many assembled managers on the stage of the Toronto Convention Centre when CBC.ca staff, many of whom have experience in the field, would get out of the office and be able to do some reporting along with the other two "media lines."
Mattocks snapped back with one sharp word: "Never." And then, after a couple of moments of reflection, went on to say something about how unnecessary it was with TV and radio reporters already in the field.
A few months later on October 2, 2003 two Canadian soliders will killed by a land mine outside Kabul, Afghanistan. It was a busy day, as anyone can imagine, but during a lull I took a moment to check the washingtonpost.com to see if there was new photography column on their photo and video page.
What I saw was a video interview from just the day before by a member of the Post's online staff with Sgt. Robert Alan Short, 42, of Fredericton, one of the casualties.
On such a day it took a few minutes to catch the attention of that day's producer for The National, but soon the CBC Washington bureau was in touch with the Post. The Post story quickly moved to the front page of the online edition and the video was also picked up by Global, CTV and CHUM and still screen captures moved by AP.
Two months later, I was in Boston at the narrative journalism conference where I spoke to a senior producer for the washingtonpost.com. He told me that what the Canadian media paid the online service for the rights to use the video paid for their VJ's trip to Afghanistan with some left over.
When Richard Stursberg, the convergence guy, became Executive VP, he was in a meeting of senior managers when a group of them apparently began their usual put downs of the online service and staff. Stursberg, according to people who were present, told them (not so politely I understand) that they were wrong, said he had plans to make CBC.ca more prominent in the CBC universe and that if online wanted assign people to the field, they could.
Technorati tags
journalism, CBC, blog, news, lockout,
CBClockout,PEI,
Prince Edward Island,
9:09 AM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
