Citizens Journalism Coalition

Audiences want to interact with the media-makers, be the media-makers and even set the agendas.

This applies to an even greater extent towards journalism and the NEWS. It's blowback resulting from corporate media control. Since Vancouver has the largest media monopoly in North America, combined with one of the highest concentrations of creative people, the probability is high that the CJC will occur here first.

this comment won't make Best......

Because I don't have time to refute each point...but sour grapes if I have heard it. Me thinks the author has spent far too many times alone stewing over the CBC. Perhaps some examples from other countries, where public broadcasters have tried to incorporate the voices of their own citizenry throught he use of technology. I will eagerly await the author's new and improved idea in her next article to the Tyee. Until then I will be part of an experimental group of Canadians willing to try something new.

The new CBC

Not only is the new CBC not attracting younger listeners, it's also turning off the older "CEEBsters", who aren't in the least interested in listening to old Gzowski reruns. I lost interest in Gzowski many years ago after listening to him and Gordon Lightfoot bemoaning their failures at their first marriages while they were both busy breaking in the new models for another go.

Old CEEBsters are simply going elsewhere. There are wonderful podcasts from all over the world. I recommend Late Night Live from Australia with Phillip Adams, any of a number of intelligent podcasts from BBC, radio New Zealand, Deutsche Welle, all over South America if you understand Spanish or Portugese, and any number from the Middle East and the Far East.

Don't blame the oldies for this one. We didn't do it and we don't want it. If young people are fed up with the CBC, tell them and walk away from it. It's your world and your taxes.

Do Not Disturb

It appears to be the case but it is not, (I think, anyway) what is really happening. It is, (again, just my opinion) becoming less democratic. The audience is just a footnote. It is all about media trendiness now....and image-conscious trendiness demands a moderate and safe middle ground where all the rough edges of things have been whittled off...where the extremes of feeling and opinion are held at bay.... or eliminated from view.

It is what we see happening in most media now. Our human quirkiness, our blessed "raggedly taggedlyness", the livelier voices that disturb or question are being edited out. So almost everything is glib or cute now.... or expected. And if it is quirky...it's a manufactured quirkiness....and geez, nothing like manufactured authenticity or "expected unexpectedness." But then a predictable marketplace must have a predictable media and a predictable audience that acts and responds predictably.... and that more importantly acts appropriately in order to further facilitate, entrench, and consolidate The World as Marketplace.

So whatever you do do not disturb this moderating or neutralizing process...which is really, at its core a death process that recoils away from all spontaniety, from all originality...and from life itself by relentlessly attempting to erase all of life's glorious "blemishes". All of our human quirks smoothed over and refined out into a shiny "presentable" "thingness". "A thing" worthy of the incessant, greed-fueled corporatism that now ravages the world and that depends on the creation of a neutralized and sanitized world view.... the world as one endlessly vast and ultimately repetitive mall.

The saddest part of this is that the angry, impassioned (now defined as "extreme") voices necessary to change this death flow are now being "moderated" out. The power to disturb no longer seen as the saving grace that it often is but now viewed only in a perjorative sense. So their voices are edited out.... or filtered out, until like malls all over the world, we all become the same. The world merely predictable product for a predictable audience/consumer.

There are few raggedly taggedly ends to warm the soul in the new CBC. The eccentric voices, the authentic voices, the sound of the unadulterated simple human voice that it once thrived on - the individuality and the unexpectedness of that are sadly fading away.

It is just not the same CBC so many of us were once proud to champion.

I hope The Tyee takes note.

Tuning out, stop paying!!!

So, Elaine Corden, since youth fans like [you] are tuning out, are you now also willing to ask that your tax $$$ stop going to CBC for programming and broadcasting that you no longer want to watch and therefore are no longer interested in subsidising?

Keep American TV out of CBC

Keep American TV out of CBC as we have some very great movies, Documentaries, family content, etc it is a Canadian institution and should be kept as such!
As far as any and all so called reality shows (garbage) go, it's just another way to dumb down the masses "US" just like our education system (another story). The Reality is it costs next to nothing to produce them but the advertisers are making obscene profits on them and plug at least 1/3 more commercial breaks in every hour.
We are very lucky to have the CBC, as it was once and could be again a great strong democratic voice for all Canadians!
Our Fed Liberals for 10 years kept cutting OUR CBC funding and now S Harper is carrying on chopping more of Our CBC funding. I for one would be willing to pay another 10-15 bucks a month "x30 million" for the CBC to be free of all commercials and political interference! The advertisers dictate what and how they want and demand TV stations to operate just look at our media (What a "sad" laugh

Pardon me?

What exactly does 'democracy' have to do with providing relevant and timely information; a range of opinion and intellectual stimulation and the arts; decent drama and a range of other cultural programing?

And I don't think it has a thing to do with how old the audience is.

The CBC is making, and has been for some time, some incredibly stupid management and programing moves but turning the network into an nation-wide example of a cable community access channel is just insane.

The worst rot is evident around mid-day. Where oh where did they dig up the Gill Deacon show? And now they're showing re-runs of Carlo Rota from the damn food channel. My God. Get some new management from the ranks of producers and people who know the industry and fire the suits like the two 'Roberts' - Rabinovich and Stursberg.

CBC daytime makes Oprah look good. And that's not easy.

But can the idea of pandering to specific demographics - it won't work. This country is too big and diverse for that kind of highly local and transistory vision.

And, for gosh sakes send Rick Cluff out to the golf course permanently and hire Stephen Quinn for 690 in the morning. And retire Shelagh Rodgers too while you're at it. Stale!!!

Thank you

Lynn:

Thank you so much for expressing what is in my own heart, and better than I believe I could do it!

You have no idea, what a lift it gave me to read your input, on a day that is a little bleak in my own life. It warms incredibly. Thanks again, for being out there and taking the trouble.

CBC radio is better

Off is the TV, which shows of the prettiest people and the hippest this or that. Radio focuses on content much more, and the CBC radio programs are much better, except for a few exceptions. The Early Editions in the morning is pretty good (although it does pander occasionally to sensationalism interviews or reporting). It provides both sides of the coin, interviewing parties with opposite points of views. It is definitely much better than CKNW (although it is always good to have several sources,... and the TYEE is one of those sources).

Still better than the alternatives!

Why is it open season on the CBC? Every author in the country feels free to attack the CBC. Why are the other Television programming providers in this country spared similar harassment and persistent attacks? Other than writing for the Tyee who do these freelance journalist work for and would these employers tolerate such abuse? Maybe that will provide us with the answers?

In my opinion the programming offered by the CBC is far superior to the programming provided by its competitors even if the ratings don't reflect it.

To dorothy

Thank you, dorothy....that was very kind of you.

The warmth of your words made me feel less alone as well in what I was trying to express above.

I'm sorry this has been a difficult day for you...may tomorrow be a brighter one.

Lack of substance

CBC's problem is the current trend to a lack of substance. One does not have to listen to reruns of Gzowski. He was great for the times but might be a little to moderate today. Still one does not need to throw out intelligent and meaningful discourse and go to the inane nonsense which makes up much of the CBC's programming. Catering to a younger audience one should not assume they are all idiots. In fact one should give them something beside the latest antics of Paris Hilton to think about.

The CBC has until recently been the more cerebral than the other networks. Now the only thing that makes them different is the lack of paid advertising. That difference is not enough to keep the CBC alive.

Maybe the objective is to kill the CBC by slowly making it so much like the other stations that we will object to paying taxes to support it. That kind of stealth has been used by politicians before.

As I've said earlier that I

As I've said earlier that I would gladly pay 10-15 bucks a month over top of what is already paid out to CBC by our taxes, (This could bring anywhere between 2-4 hundred million a year) as long as it is totally free of all corporate influence by commercials and government influence! A REAL TRUTH News for all Canadians, like what is the real agenda behind TILMA, ATLANTICA, and SPP’s? S Harper's and the Fed Liberal's dirty deeds/tricks which actually are on the cusp of treason "USA False Flag Wars" and "War crimes against humanity" as they are and were complacent and with knowledge in regards to the turn over of our captured and suspected Taliban combatants to the Afghans for torture of same POW's!