A letter to Jennifer McGuire, General Manager and Editor In Chief, CBC News

Dear Jennifer …

I was hopeful for a while that the “new” policy on paid speeches was being taken seriously by the CBC and as a result, having an effect on the number of (seemingly all senior) CBC News journalists accepting paid speaking engagements. (In my view, “none” would be best, as you know.)

For some months – I guess in retrospect, it was just summer – the numbers were decidedly down and I wrote you to compliment you on the fact that progress was being made on an issue that you seemed to agree was important for the integrity of journalism at the CBC.

A perusal of the November stats on paid speeches is upsetting.

21 paid engagements by a variety of the most senior of the CBC’s TV and Radio journalists.

Let me ask, using a few examples, as to how you came to approve these events:

• Amanda Lang taking money to speak from the Portfolio Managers Association of Canada and from Sun Life. Does Amanda regularly report on the worlds of investing, pensions and insurance in Canada? Yes, she does.
• Peter Mansbridge taking money from Morningstar Mutual Investment Funds to speak at its awards dinner. Is Peter regularly involved in discussions of the world of Canadian investment, either in news items or in leading panel discussions on the “Your Money” panel? Yes, he is.
• Diane Buckner taking money from a prominent law firm and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to speak at an awards dinner honouring private business leaders. Does Diane regularly cover Canadian business issues in her reporting? Yes, she does.
• Diana Swain taking money to speak from PMI, a private sector organization (with some public partners) dedicated to improving “project management.” Does Diana often report on Canadian business and economic issues? Yes, she does.

In the new policy announced last April 24, you promised that requests for paid speaking engagements would be rejected:

“from companies, political parties or other groups which make a significant effort to lobby or otherwise influence public policy, even if the speech or event seems innocuous.”

Certainly, with any reasonable reading of this policy and considering the payers involved in the above examples and the others listed, one would have expected the CBC to have immediately refused permission for its journalists to attend – and be paid.

I appreciate the new “commitment to all Canadians that CBC will be more transparent” being honoured; i.e. releasing paid speech information after the fact, on a monthly basis.

But what’s the point, if you are continuing to allow – and thus encourage – exactly the same kind of behaviour to continue taking place that created such widespread public concerns about the impartiality of journalism at the CBC in the first place last spring.

You can do better.

Canadians expect that of you.

Sincerely

Frank

I had to leave Ottawa in 1997 because of Bob Carty.

We were sharing a small office on the top floor of the Chateau Laurier hotel, complete with gabled windows, where we both worked for the CBC Radio documentary program Sunday Morning.

After 4 years, Bob’s relentless accumulation of plaques and statues as winner of the major awards in broadcast journalism from around the world was filling the walls and bookshelves and one of us had to go.  Bob helped me pack for Washington.

(Has any other journalist at CBC ever won more of those awards?)

Bob was a very nice guy, with a very good heart and the sunniest view of an often-grim world that I ever met. And he saw a lot of the world over 30 years of reporting.

8 years later, in 2005, Bob helped me unpack my stuff in our office in Ottawa’s new Broadcast Centre

During those years in the US, I often called him and shared drinks to talk about American politics and culture because he had a deep understanding and feeling for how societies and power work and I always learned from our conversations

He was even friendly at 2 a.m. when my computer froze on a reporting trip in rural Maine and he was the only person I knew who could – and would – help me to be on air by 6 a.m. (Bob was one of the earliest explorers into the world of digital editing for radio at CBC and always eager to share his discoveries.)

We first met in the mid-80s at Sunday Morning and his laser-like focus on how ordinary people, anywhere, faced life’s challenges always amazed me. Chronicling the powerful was not for Bob.

He could turn anything into a compelling human story – the importance of good comprehensive health care for all, the banjo, a labour strike on the docks of Saint John, tobogganing, the banana blight in Central America, the theft of human genetic material for profit, the demise of the RCMP’s band ….

Welcomed into his home many times, we saw his devotion to his wife, Frances, and his love for his son Michael.

Bob was, to say it again, a very good man, generous and caring without limits, and an extraordinary journalist.

I will miss him.

The CAJ’s Spring 2014 issue of MEDIA magazine just posted … CAJ is the Canadian Association of Journalists

+ as always, other interesting articles

Posted today

This Just In: CBC’s New Ethics Policy on Paid Outside Speeches

Meanwhile, 10 0f the most prominent and well-known of CBC’s journalist are still listed on the websites of Canada’s major speaking agenceis as available for hire for a fee.

Just up on Huffington Post

The CBC Should Ban Paid Speeches By Its Journalists

In the absence of knowing all the facts about Peter Mansbridge’s recent speech to an oil industry convention (paid for by the industry)   – because I am not inside the CBC any more and because I can’t research/ask around and given any number of other caveats about not knowing all that I might want to know – I find myself feeling pretty unconflicted about my opinion on this issue.

I was a journalist at the CBC for 27 years.  (i.e. I’m not talking about Rex Murphy and Kevin O’Leary here, although the (self-serving and excusatory) muddy waters surrounding their roles as freelancers/commentators/voices are problematic, I’d argue.)

I can’t say that I ever memorized the Code of Journalistic Practices, but over the years, I certainly looked at it from time to time when potential  conflicts, etc. would arise.

And while the world is indeed gray and few things in life are simple and crystal clear, those guidelines were – and are – pretty good. Especially when I had others around me – and my supervisors – to discuss the concerns.

But there is another mechanism much less codified, but no less – in fact, generally  much more – illuminating and clarifying when questions come up about should I?/shouldn’t I?/can we?/etc. in the way the CBC practices journalism.

It’s called … The Smell Test … and anyone who has been around a CBC newsroom (a tax-payer funded newsroom) for a few years develops a pretty good nose for what passes that test – or doesn’t.

The famous question about Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber comes to mind here: “Brian, what part of being in a hotel room with paper bags filled with cash seemed like a good idea at the time?”

While I don’t know if all the quoted comments and justifications from Peter, Jennifer McGuire and others at CBC in recent days are accurately reported, the question still stands:

“Does giving permission to Peter Mansbridge to be paid by a Canadian industry association to speak at a private meeting pass The Smell Test as answered by virtually anyone working in a CBC newsroom across the country?” (Let alone by the Canadian public?)

Don’t look for halos over my head, but that’s a pretty easy question to answer: no.

Finally, if the quote of justification from Chuck Thompson, CBC’s Head of Media Relations, is correct:

“Peter is encouraged by management to speak on a regular basis, it’s part of an outreach initiative in place for many of our hosts that ensures CBC News and in this case our Chief Correspondent is talking to Canadians in communities across the country.”

The CBC should be paying for it, not outside organizations (of any kind,) which immediately calls into question the CBC’s impartiality.

It really is pretty simple.

Lincoln Electric’s annual profit-sharing bonus ceremony was held today in the firm’s Cleveland cafeteria. Here are the details, first for the US (parent corporation,) and second for Canada  (wholly-owned subsidiary.)

for the 3,000 US employees: 

80     =     uninterrupted years of paying an employee bonus  (i.e. profitable every year since 1934.)

$ 33,029     =    average 2013 bonus per U.S. employee

$ 81,366     =     average 2013 total earnings per U.S. employee    (= wages-or-salary + bonus)

$ 100.7 million  =     total pre-tax profit shared with employees (largest bonus pool ever)

0              =   number of layoffs in 2013       (65 years without any layoffs)

AND …. Lincoln remains #1 in the global marketplace (LECO: Nasdaq, currently at an all-time high)

The Guaranteed Continuous Employment Policy remains unbroken since at least 1948.  (The no-layoff track record may in fact go as far back as 1925.)
No one has been laid off for lack of work through the Great Depression, wars and now the Great Recession.

for the 264 Canadian employees:

74    =     uninterrupted years of paying a bonus  (continuously profitable since 1940 !)

$  19,000     =    average 2013 bonus per Canadian employee

$  73,300     =     average 2013 total earnings per Canadian employee     (= wages/salary + bonus)

$  5 million =     total pre-tax profits shared among employees

0           =     number of layoffs in 2013

  These figures once again provide convincing and reassuring evidence that it is possible to run a very profitable, very large, technologically superior multinational business based in North America while honoring your obligations to employees, customers, investors and society at large. This need not be a zero-sum game, a delusion embraced by far too many, especially in the past few years.

Lincoln Electric remains in 2013, as it has since the 1930s, the dominant player in the global electric welding industry and yet, it refuses to lay off its employees in tough times.

Happy Holidays  and all the best for 2014.

I always enjoy Leah Eichler‘s column in the Saturday Report on Business. She did a short piece on automation this week, and used part of a discussion we’d had on the promise and perils of IT and automation.

Automation Is Good – If It Makes My Job Easier

Most of you probably know that the guitar has been a big part of my life for 50 years.

Most of you have also probably heard about the devastating floods in Alberta in June that forced more than a hundred thousand people to abandon their homes to walls of water, submerging much of Calgary.

These two seemingly-unrelated narratives intersected a couple of days ago when I learned (a bit late) that Amos Garrett, one of my guitar heroes, a huge influence on my playing, one of the most unique and revered guitarists in pop, R&B, blues, folk and country music history and a friend .. was one of those people.

Amos’s musical chronology and influence is too long to detail here, but take it from me, he is guitar royalty. His playing on “Midnight at the Oasis,” Maria Muldaur’s 1974 hit, remains, unquestionably,  one of the most famous guitar solos in pop music.  Beyond that, think Emmylou Harris, Stevie Wonder, Paul Butterfield, Bonnie Raitt, Geoff Muldaur, Ian and Sylvia, The Heavenly Blue, Jesse Winchester … and hundreds more.

Amos has lived in High River, just south of Calgary for many years. During the June flood, seven feet of water cascaded into his basement, destroying many of his guitars, a rich lifetime’s personal possessions, his wife Denise’s home office and, with cruel irony, Amos’ prized fly-fishing gear. Much of the rest of the house was also severely damaged: like other affected Alberta residents, his insurance does not cover flood damage; clean-up and repairs will easily reach into the six-figures.

Fundraisers have already been held in Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto.

You can contribute to the life-rebuilding effort for Amos and Denise, his wife – and to getting Amos out playing again right away! – here’s how:

1. MAIL : checks payable to “Amos Garrett” and mail to:
501 8 Street SW, High River, AB T1V 1B9

2. You can DIRECTLY use Interac® e-Transfer from your Canadian bank account to Amos by email …… send a transfer (check your bank’s easy system for doing this) to amosg@shaw.ca

3. PayPal: If you don’t already have an account, go to the this link and click sign up.
Once in, find the “send money” tab to your top left and send to info@meetyourmusic.ca

4. ATB Financial: In Alberta, you can go to any ATB Financial branch and donate directly to this intrust account
07209 -219-00186665600 (need more details, check out this link   for MeetYourMusic.ca in Calgary)

All contributions will go directly to Amos & his wife.

thanks for helping … and please share this email if you feel so inclined!

Frank

Cognitive psychologist Gary Marcus, whom I recently met in New York at the roundtable on sustainable employment and technological change, sent me the following link to a fascinating new PBS video on what “being human” might mean as artificial intelligence technologies (AI) develop further and further. Gary is one of the experts who is interviewed.

Will Humans Still Be Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence?  runs just over 8 minutes. You’ll see some of the latest human-machines, and get a sense of how quickly this world is advancing – or threatening?

As Gary says in the film: “Once somebody develops a good AI program,”it doesn’t just replace one worker. It might replace millions of workers.” And that, he continued, may bring another concern when it comes to our relationship with our notional robot overlords: “What happens if they decide that we’re not useful anymore? I think we do need to think about how to build machines that are ethical. The smarter the machines get, the more important that is.”

Gary writes widely on cognitive development and artificial intelligence. His recent book Guitar Zero  (described as “Jimi Hendrix meets Oliver Sacks”) is on many best seller lists these days, including the New York Times.