Where was the News?

After seventeen glorious days the Olympics have come to an end. In Canada all seems right with the world. We won the most gold medals ever and of course, maybe more importantly, we won gold in hockey. The universe has unfolded as it should, at least north of the 49th parallel.

I will resist the inclination to heap too much more praise on the Olympic broadcasters. I thought they did a great job, some of you have had very specific complaints, I would characterize them as niggles. All I will say is that no Olympics has ever had total coverage in high definition of all the sports from all the venues. The fact that you had to be a subscriber to many of the channels is not the consortium’s fault. It was made clear from the time CTV, Rogers, APTN etcetera won the right to cover the games that events would appear on all the various and sundry channels that came under the consortium’s umbrella. If you did have access to all the channels you could choose to see every event live and in its entirety. That is a massive technological feat and one that was delivered as promised.

Where there was a major failure was with CTV and The Globe and Mail’s coverage of actual news during the Olympics. It’s one thing to be a shill, as former CBC News and NPR boss Jeffery Dvorkin points out, this is normal. Broadcasters always hype their own events. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I am referring to CTV News going seventeen days without a proper newscast. Five minutes of Lloyd at 11 p.m. give or take ten minutes depending on what Olympic event was finishing or starting is abysmal enough. Worse, on most nights, the five minutes of news provided by CTV was taken up by three minutes of what Brian Williams had just told us about the Olympic results.

CTV can have no excuse for ignoring the news of the world. On most days because of poor weather and built in extra days to make up for bad weather, there were long stretches where nothing was going on. Brian Williams was called on many times to fill airtime when there was no event to throw to.

Further still, there are two TSNs, four Rogers Sportsnets, APTN, Much Music and more channels that were available to pick up 30 minutes of slack per day while CTV provided a decent newscast.

Over at The Globe and Mail the editors decided that if you can’t beat them join them. Day after day the news was discarded for more Olympic stories. The front section never had more than three pages of non-Olympic news…oh, unless you consider three pages of sports news tacked onto the end of the front section most days.

The Globe insists it is Canada’s national newspaper. In that case doesn’t it have a duty to cover more events in Canada and the world than the self-sponsored and self-owned Olympic coverage? If a huge non-Olympic story took place in the last two and one-half weeks I defy a Globe reader or a CTV viewer to identify it. Can’t. They just don’t know about it.

For two media, newspapers and television, that are supposed to be hard hit by the new media they showed no understanding of their precarious situation. Any news junkie who cared was forced to scour the internet for news. Some of those people will have found new sources for their news content and won’t readily return to The Globe or CTV. Only this time CTVglobemedia will have no one to blame but themselves. One question though, what did all the news reporters do for the past two weeks? A paid holiday in the south I hope.

On a completely different note, I do hope my non-Toronto readers will forgive me a short rant. Last week one of the most popular broadcasters in Toronto left his show. Andy Barrie had hosted the morning show on CBC radio for decades and he was a major success story. In a crowded market he was number one. Quite a feat for him personally and for CBC Radio. Andy was not my cup of tea, I found him soft in a crunchy granola, Birckenstock kind of way, but I was always impressed by his popularity and success.

In other words, he will be very hard act to follow. Matt Galloway, Andy’s replacement has been an excellent host of the 4 to 6 show in Toronto. Unfortunately for Matt he is replacing an icon. That’s a difficult job under any circumstances. Matt has to know that he will continually be compared to Andy by a listenership that has been loyal to Andy for a very long time. So what do the brilliant producers of the morning show do? After a week of long goodbyes and tributes to Andy Barrie, the idiots at CBC radio bring Andy back for an encore and an even longer goodbye on Matt’s first show. This is lunacy. Why can’t the bozos at CBC Radio let go?

Matt Galloway should have been given a clean start to his own show, an opportunity to make the morning show his own. Ted Koppel didn’t show up on Nightline on the next show after he retired, Walter Cronkite didn’t return for a bow on CBS Evening News, Johnny Carson didn’t return to show up Jay Leno, Harvey Kirk and Knowlton Nash didn’t come back to haunt Peter and Lloyd. This sort of thing is just not done. It’s unseemly. Andy should have known better. The producers should have known better. The fact that it happened speaks to a dysfunctional CBC.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Andy Barrie, APTN, Brian Williams, CBC News, CBC Radio, CTV News, Harvey Kirk, Jay Leno, Johnny Carson, Knowlton Nash, Matt Galloway, Rogers Sportsnet, Ted Koppel, The Globe and Mail, Walter Cronkite

The Olympic Muzzle

There’s a new Olympic sized media brouhaha that’s popping up at CTVglobemedia. It appears that CTV and The Globe are so fearful of criticism of their Olympic coverage that they are willing to muzzle their own people.

A few days ago I asked Bruce Dowbiggin, The Globe’s sports media columnist, why his column has disappeared. He did not really answer my question instead changing the subject. This is not the Bruce Dowbiggin I know who is one of the straightest shooting media people in Canada. He tells it like he sees it no matter what the circumstances. Just ask Don Cherry.

Then I saw this blog by William Houston. He is the former sports media columnist for The Globe and Mail and perhaps has an insight that is unavailable to the rest of us. Here’s what Houston had to say:

Where’s the Globe’s media critic?
“Curiously, Bruce Dowbiggin, the sports broadcast columnist for The Globe and Mail, has not written a word of analysis about Vancouver Olympic TV coverage.
Chris Zelkovich, who writes on sports television for The Toronto Star, has been filing daily columns. I’m writing for Yahoo! Canada in addition to filing to this webpage. There seems to be interest in what CTV and NBC are doing.
But Bruce? He’s cobbling together quotes about the Winter Games from the international media. His Feb. 18 collection consisted of seven quotes from sources such as an NBC news release and newspaper stories in the United States and Britain.
Why isn’t Dowbiggin critiquing the coverage of CTV and NBC? I emailed him and asked, but he didn’t respond. So, let’s guess:
Bruce decided to take some time off and just enjoy the Games on TV. Or the Globe didn’t feel it necessary to analyze the CTV telecasts. (Saturday’s edition includes a short feature by sports writer James Christie on Brian Williams and announcer Rod Black.)
Or perhaps it was decided Bruce would be in an untenable conflict of interest by being required to critique the Olympic coverage of a network (CTV) that is owned by the company (CTVglobemedia) that also owns the Globe.
But, that can’t be the reason. After all, he writes about TSN and TSN2, which are owned by CTVglobemedia. Other media writers comment all the time on the work of outlets owned by the company for which they work. Phil Mushnick, the sports broadcasting columnist for The New York Post, comments on Fox Sports. Both Fox and the Post are owned by News Corp. Howard Kurtz writes on media for The Washington Post and regularly critiques his own newspaper. It can’t be a conflict of interest issue, can it? The mystery continues.”

There’s really no mystery is there. CTV is afraid of a little honest commentary. I am led to believe that while Bruce Dowbiggin is collecting quotes, John Doyle was supposed to be critiquing the coverage. Well John is missing in action on that front. Oh, like Bruce he’s in the newspaper every day but I guess he doesn’t think Olympic coverage is worthy of a column or two. Give me a break. It is all too obvious that the muzzles are on and the journalism, on this subject for sure, has been shut down.

The bigger point is that it is a nutty decision. CTV and the Olympic consortium are doing a very good job. The network, along with TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, APTN and the internet have covered the Olympics better than they have ever been covered before, anywhere. Brian Williams is doing his usual masterful job of staying on top of everything and keeping the viewers well informed, I wish CTV used Brian more often and all year round.  On Sportsnet and TSN they are doing a very credible job covering events live. The internet coverage has been excellent providing both live action and add-on information never before available at an Olympic event.

There have been some surprise stars too. James Duthie has proven to be an excellent host whose wit and presence has brightened our screens. Sale and Pelletier are the best figure skating analysts I have ever heard. Their honesty and friendly family bickering have been a breath of fresh air. Jamie Campbell has been a revelation. For several years the far too stoic voice of the Blue Jays, he has come alive at the games. His call of Canada’s first gold medal will be most memorable for years to come.

Importantly, while the Canadian athletes have “blown the podium” the CTV coverage has been as close to flawless as can be expected. These Olympics are a huge enterprise. The technology and the partnerships have made almost total coverage possible. The consortium has put it all together in a way that will spoil us for anything less in the future. Will Canadians ever settle for single channel coverage of high-lights with the odd bit of live action thrown in again? We have seen the future and we like it. No, we demand it. All you have to do is tune in NBC to see the old style coverage. I guarantee you will be back to our Canadian channels very quickly.

The consortium gets a gold medal. CTVglobemedia gets a DNF (did not finish) for their fearfulness.

Filed under: Media Commentary, APTN, Brian Williams, Bruce Dowbiggin, Chris Zelkovich, CTV, James Duthie, Jamie Campbell, John Doyle, NBC, Rogers Sportsnet, Sale and Pelletier, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, TSN

Weekend Update

The Olympics start today and that’s great news for anyone who has attempted to watch CTV for the past three months. Hopefully when the coverage starts the endless repetitious promos stop. CTV has managed to make me tired of the Olympics before they have even started.

More good news, CTV News and The Globe and Mail actually covered what could be called negative, and dare I say newsworthy, Olympic stories this week. There was one item on the search for doping athletes and another item on the possibility, or as some may think, the probability, of more cheating by figure skating judges.

Let’s not get too excited though. CTV News and The Globe have not stopped shilling. Page three in The Globe still belongs to the interminable in-house torch relay. CTV stars and management along with Globe reporters still get their cute white uniforms and moment in the sun while former Olympic gold medalists like Kerrin Lee Gartner are still shut out. Heavens, Lloyd Robertson found five minutes on a heavy news day to interview his co-hosts for the opening ceremonies, Brian Williams and Catriona Lemay Doan. The special insights they offered were that Canadian athletes are ready to win some medals and that our days as genial Olympic hosts are over. That took up more than 20 percent of a national newscast.

Jeffrey Dvorkin, who was an important player at CBC News for years before going to the states to head up NPR (National Public Radio) News, reminds us that CBC also oversold the games when they had the broadcast rights. I was at CBC for the Calgary games and at CTV for the Montreal games but I don’t remember this much over the top, unabashed and unashamed selling ever going on.

Is it only me and cynical types like me that are turned off by so much hype? I hope not. I’d like to think my reaction is fairly representative of the audience at large. In any case, now that the actual games have started we can all cheer for our favorites and begin to forget the excesses of the Canadian Olympic broadcast consortium.

As if the end of the Olympic promos was not enough good news, CBC this week finally acted by chopping half of Mark Kelley’s abysmal CBCNN program, Connected with Mark Kelley. While I am certain that most Canadians would have far preferred complete cancellation, we will have to make do with the show being cut from two hours to one hour. A new producer was hired to run the show and perhaps to make sense of ludicrous format that depended on news nobody else cared enough about to air. It is my guess that CBC will eventually kill Connected when they can figure out a way to walk away from the show without losing too much face. The CBC brain trust also has to figure out what to do with the likable host who is responsible for creating the worst news and current affairs show on Canadian television.

In the meantime I hope the brass are going back to the same focus groups who told them they didn’t care for Connected to find out that CBCNN’s morning fare needs a lot of help. Heather Hiscox, Anne-Marie Mediwake and Suhana Meharchand are not helping viewership with their rehashes of yesterday’s news coupled with rip and read wire copy stories. If you are sick in bed and have run out of the kind of cold medicine that makes you drowsy, mornings on CBCNN are the perfect way to induce sleep.

People, CBC types, I don’t, or at least shouldn’t have to tell you: a television program needs content to attract viewers. Three or four hours of the next best thing to dead air doesn’t sell TV’s.

So incrementally it’s been a darn good week, meaning that progress has been made. It’s not time to celebrate yet but it is time to be optimistic that some sense may be beginning to return to Canadian broadcast journalism. At least I hope that’s the case.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Anne Marie Mediwake, Brian Williams, Catriona Lemay Doan, CBC NN, Connected with Mark Kelley, CTV, CTV News, Heather Hiscox, Jeffrey Dvorkin, Lloyd Robertson, NPR, Suhana Meharchand, The Globe and Mail

Hijacking the Torch

Who knew when it started that the Olympic Torch Relay would not only become an interminable tortoise run across Canada but worse that it would be hijacked in the most crass way by CTV, TSN and The Globe and Mail.

How do you make this patriotic run up to one of the most exciting sporting events in the world boring? Just ask the broadcasters and newspapers who own the rights to air the winter Olympics from Vancouver and Whistler.

When the torch relay began it became clear that CTV was going to cover it and run it like it is an in house event, a reality show for the rights holders. I don’t know how the torch bearers are chosen but I do know the best way to guarantee that you will get the opportunity to squeeze into one of those nifty white suits and strut down an avenue close to home making like Lady Liberty. The best way: become an on air personality for CTV or one of its affiliates. Whether it’s Seamus O’Regan in St. John’s or Ben Mulroney in Sept Iles it became very obvious very quickly that this wasn’t Canada’s torch relay it was the CTV/Globemedia torch relay.

Night after night we are treated to pictures and clips not from ordinary Canadians, not from former Olympians, not even from youngsters who dreamed of toting the flame through their home town. No, we get words and pictures of CTV celebs like Sandy Rinaldo doing their bit to advertise the fact that CTV is the Olympic Broadcaster.

Leaving aside the fairness issue, that is whether all Canadians should have had an equal opportunity to carry the Olympic Torch, since when is it okay for reporters and hosts to make themselves the story? How do you cover an event if you are the star of that event? We all know the answer, you can’t and shouldn’t but that hasn’t slowed CTV one bit. Night after night their employees get first billing and the star treatment as they heft their torches through the streets and highways of the country.

Worse than unfair, it is stupid television production. CTV, TSN and The Globe are missing great opportunities almost daily to focus on the most heartwarming, interesting, crazy and uplifting stories that I am sure are there among the just plain folks who are doing the bulk of the relay. These great stories should be the centerpiece of the coverage. The stories of real Canadians from coast-to-coast-to- coast should be hi-lighted to show how an event like the Olympics can unite a country and bring out the best patriotic passion that Canadians are so shy about.

TSN could be focusing on the former Olympians and retired athletes making one last contribution to the Canadian Olympic effort.

Instead CTV and TSN have turned what should have been a democratic event into an in house broadcast. Pity.

And I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it. In the past few days, just north of Toronto and near Brantford, Ontario we have seen the complete abdication of CTV, TSN and Globe journalism. Native people, unhappy with the symbolism and their plight in this country have used the torch relay to make their point. Protests and roadblocks have been set up forcing the relay off its planned route twice. Interestingly CTV and the paper that calls itself “Canada’s National Newspaper” have chosen to all but ignore the protests. Why? When CTV paid millions for the rights did they give up on their job as journalists in order to become Olympic cheerleaders? If so, I would advise watching the Olympics on NBC.

A few years ago I produced a documentary on Sale and Pelletier, those wonderful figure skaters who were cheated out of a gold medal. It took forever to get CTV approval to tell the story because they were afraid it would reflect badly on the Olympic movement. We had to promise them that the IOC (the International Olympic Committee) would come out smelling like a rose because they forced the skating body to rectify the problem. The doc was a huge success garnering 1.5 million viewers. CTV came back to us and asked us to do another Olympic themed doc. We suggested a look at the anti-doping lab in Montreal. Montreal is the anti-doping centre for the Olympics and Dick Pound, a Canadian, is the anti-doping king. This is something Canadians should be proud of and informed about. The work done in Montreal is pivotal and we were actually granted full access to the labs and their work. No way, said CTV. Doping is not the kind of positive story we are looking for. Enough said about where CTV, TSN and the Globe are coming from.

Today’s Globe mentioned the fact that the relay had to change its route to Brantford but they did not bother to do any stories about what the native peoples on the Six Nations Reserve were protesting. They didn’t even cover the protest. When the protest north of Toronto took place a few days ago CTV National News ignored not only the protest but the issues around the protest. I daresay CTV and TSN will continue to ignore the Six Nations story. In fact it looks to me like CTV, TSN and The Globe will continue to ignore any negative stories that pop up between now and the time that CTV, TSN and The Globe lose the media rights to the Olympic Games four years from now.

Let’s hope CBC gets the Olympic rights back sooner rather than later because history has shown us that while CBC Sports may have glossed over some controversial issues, they did not abandon their journalism. And CBC News never shied away from the negative stories. Brian Williams is a fine reporter and sports journalist. Too bad it looks like CTV and TSN will never allow him to do what he does best.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Ben Mulroney, Brian Williams, CBC, CTV, Dick Pound, NBC, Olympic Torch Relay, Sandy Rinaldo, Seamus O'Regan, The Globe and Mail, TSN

Dropping the Ball

A few years ago I was a guest on a Hamilton radio station discussing the proposition that sports journalism on television is an oxymoron. Brian Williams, who was still with CBC Sports at the time, was my opposite number on the debate. He took great umbrage at the proposition. His proof being his own excellent work on several Olympic games including the coverage of the Ben Johnson scandal and Ross Regabliatti’s near disqualification for having traces of marijuana in his blood among others.

Concerning himself, he was right. Brian Williams has made a long career of trying to actually practice sports journalism on TV. His recent Olympic and CFL mini-docs for CTV and TSN are no exception. Brian has proved to be a fine story teller and a prime example of how it should be done. But Brian could not name another television reporter who was doing the same. CBC did eventually produce an excellent weekly sports journalism show but today that’s long gone. Bruce Dowbiggin won a well deserved Gemini Award for his work on the Alan Eagleson scandal, but CBC sports refused to run his work so it ran on CBC News. Bruce is no longer a TV reporter, he’s a Globe and Mail columnist.

Now, name another sports journalist on TV today. I dare you. Rogers Sportsnet and TSN produce hours and hours of what purports to be sports “news” every week. A viewer is warned not to hold his or her breath waiting for journalism. For the most part, say 80 percent, the coverage consists of highlights from earlier action. On earlier shows there’s the odd preview of upcoming action. The rest of the show is filled with banter and lists of the top plays, best fights, whatever can be scrambled together from the archives to fill out the hours. But journalism, as in WHY an event or situation occurs and where it’s going, you won’t find it here.

It seldom existed on local television newscasts either. When you have only five or six minutes to recap the day’s events there is little room on the sportscast for actual journalism.

The one place I would expect some enterprising sports reportage in Canada is on hockey broadcasts. Now that games come in at just over two and one half hours there is a 30 minute hole to fill, and that’s on top of two 15 minute between period segments. So where are the stories? Where’s the field work? Where’s the old “up-close-and-personals” that we see on the NFL coverage and even NBA coverage. The same sportscasters that lament the lack of star power in hockey are doing nothing to alleviate the problem.

Hockey Night in Canada is truly a wasteland. The first intermission is always Coach’s Corner with Don Cherry and Ron MacLean. I will be the first to admit that it’s an entertaining segment. It’s like waiting for a train wreck. When is Don going to say something stupid about fighting or foreign born players? How will Ron get a word in and when he does what silly pun will the viewers be treated to? Between Don’s “I told you so’s” and Ron’s slavish support of the dinosaurs of hockey it is all too predictable and lacks any semblance of information.

Cut to the second intermission and the viewer is treated to a panel of rumor mongers led by Al Strachan. Has anyone kept tabs on how many times Al’s insights turn out to be correct? I suspect they are few. In any case this is inside hockey talk that speaks to a small minority of Canadians. If you want to sell the game and increase the ratings it’s time to go back to story telling. When I was a youngster there were actual feature stories on players, coaches, owners, referees, etc. They created interest in the people around hockey. They introduced us to the personalities that make any sport more accessible.

It’s not any better at TSN. The same panel returns intermission after intermission with the same predictable opinions. No depth. Nothing new. Cheapo TV that fills minutes rather than enterprising reporting and journalism that could really wow an audience. On TSN they even use the same formula for football, but at least on CFL coverage they do have the Brian Williams stories.

It is frightening to see how low game coverage has sunk to in Canada. Interestingly this has come at a time when sports journalism has been growing by leaps and bounds in this country. The newspapers are doing a great job. The Globe and Mail in particular has a fine group of writers and columnists. You seldom pick up a sports section without seeing great stories, interesting commentary and real insight into what is happening in the sports world. Writers like Stephen Brunt, Dave Shoalts, and Bruce Dowbiggin in the Globe and Damien Cox and Doug Smith in the Toronto Star never seem to fail in finding new stories and new angles that make one think about sports in new and interesting ways. They engage their readers with new information and new insights.

Even on radio, where sports radio has talk shows like Bob McCown’s show on The Fan 590, to delve into the issues by going to experts and people in the know. Sure, they have panels too, but they don’t stop there. McCown and the other radio hosts get interviews with general managers, coaches and players. They talk to Jim Balsillie and his lawyers. They get legal experts and business experts to help us understand the underlying decisions being made by leagues and teams. There is a strong attempt to answer the only real journalistic question: WHY.

At a time when sports is as much about the legal and business affairs of players, teams and leagues Canadian television is dropping the ball.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Ben Johnson, Bob McCown, Brian Williams, Bruce Dowbigging, CBC Sports, CFL, Coach's Corner, CTV, Damien Cox, Dave Shoalts, Don Cherry, Doug Smith, Hockey Night in Canada, Jim Balsillie, NBA, NFL, Rogers Sportsnet, Ron MacLean, Ross Regabliatti, Stephen Brunt, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, TSN