Speeches and Interviews

January 24, 2003

The New CBC/Radio-Canada: Home of Canadian Journalistic Creativity, Innovation and Excellence

Remarks by Robert Rabinovitch, President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada at the National Student Media Conference, Montreal, Quebec

Introduction

Thank you. It is a real pleasure for me to have the opportunity to address such a large group of up-and-coming Canadian journalists.

These are extraordinary times to be involved in journalism.

We live in what Marshall McLuhan called, more than 40 years ago, a "global village".

A world where the pace of change is dizzying and constantly accelerating.

Where developments as far away as Argentina, the Middle East or Southeast Asia often have profound implications for Canadians.

Where media organizations around the world are facing technological change that is fundamentally changing the economics of broadcasting and revolutionizing how news and current affairs are produced and delivered to audiences.

Never before has the media's role been more important.

Never before have the pressures to achieve ratings and cut costs been greater.

Never before has the journalist's job been more challenging.

Today's journalists must find out the truth behind often-convoluted situations … and simplify, but not trivialize, that truth to ensure comprehension and appreciation by audiences.

Today's journalist must put the news in a global context, while reflecting local interests and concerns. Also, reporters are increasingly filing multiple reports … for radio, television and the Internet … and sometimes in multiple languages for all three platforms.

Editors and producers are employing desktop editing technologies that have literally transformed the news production process. Digital news resources can now be shared — it's called re-purposing — across platforms.

New management information systems are making news archives more accessible … and hence useful … to those assembling the programming.

As the digital revolution continues to dramatically re-shape the way news is produced and distributed, efficient production of compelling news and current affairs is critical. Success will belong to those media that best utilise new information technologies.

These are exciting times to say the least!

This afternoon, I'd like to explain how CBC/Radio-Canada is addressing today's challenges — as well as the opportunities inherent in these challenges.

CBC/Radio-Canada at a glace

But first, a quick review of CBC/Radio-Canada and the unique role it plays in the Canadian broadcasting system.

CBC/Radio-Canada is the only broadcaster providing coast-to-coast-to-coast services in French and in English, as well as in eight Aboriginal languages in the North.

We offer our programming on 18 different platforms:

• Two national television networks, CBC Television and La Télévision de Radio-Canada.
• Four national radio networks, Radio One, Radio Two, the Première Chaîne, and the Chaîne culturelle.
• Two all-news television specialty services: CBC Newsworld and Le Réseau de l'information (RDI).
• In the North, radio and television services in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages.
• Through partnerships, we launched three specialty television services in 2001: ARTV, The Documentary Channel, and Country Canada (of which we recently acquired 100% ownership).
• Radio Canada International, our short-wave radio service, delivers a Canadian perspective on and to the world in seven different languages.
• Galaxie, a digital pay audio service that currently offers 30 different channels, and soon 45, of continuous music, without talk or commercials, to over 2.5 million households across Canada.
• In New Media, we have two award-winning Internet sites: cbc.ca and radio-canada.ca.
• Radio Three offers English interactive programming for youth on the Internet through the award winning: newmusiccanada.com, justconcerts.com, 120seconds.com, cbcradio3.com, rootsmusiccanada.com.
• And French interactive youth programming through bandeapart.fm.

Across all these platforms, CBC/Radio-Canada offers high-quality, distinctive Canadian content … BY, FOR and ABOUT Canadians.

CBC/Radio-Canada — Leader in journalism excellence

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's largest news organization, employing over 800 journalistic talents in Canada and abroad.

We are the only news organization with a presence throughout the country and one of Canada's top news providers on wireless.

We are also the only news organization operating in both English and French, and the only one to place French-language journalists west of Ottawa.

CBC/Radio-Canada has an impressive international presence as well — 12 international news bureaus: in New York, Washington, Mexico, London, Paris, Moscow, Ivory Coast, Jerusalem, Cairo, Bangkok, Beijing and Amman, Jordan.

We are leaders in using the benefits of new technologies. With digitalisation and server technology, a single news team can generate reports that can be delivered in different formats on different platforms.

As our journalists master the skills of reporting in different formats and languages, we gain flexibility and limit costs.

But more importantly, it allows us to spread our resources over a larger territory and cover events from different points of view, thus providing our audiences with a larger context.

That's why we have so many reporters in the field, all over the country and around the world. The importance of having Canadian journalists on the ground to help us understand events cannot be over-emphasized.

We don't want to rely on other news reports and on so-called observers that have not resided in the area for years.

We want CBC-trained journalists to cover the events and bring them home to Canadians, with a Canadian perspective.

Our journalists are out there, often putting themselves in danger, gathering and presenting the facts, as accurately and as fairly as possible, soliciting comments from all parties involved, and letting listeners and viewers make judgments of their own about the event at issue.

Take the potential war in Iraq. We have made plans to deploy journalistic personnel in Baghdad, Amman, Israel and Kuwait. Already, we have a strong presence in the area. This week for example, Peter Mansbridge is hosting The National from the region.

No other Canadian broadcaster dedicates as many resources or has as many journalists on the ground as CBC/Radio-Canada. But it is the only way to provide an independent and balanced coverage of events as they unfold.

This is our mandate: not a financial bottom line, which necessitates reporting on Iraq from off-shore.

I'd like to take a minute here to talk about our mission.

In a recent lecture to the University of Missouri School of Journalism, the publisher of Ha'aretz, Israel's oldest newspaper, described a newspaper mission in a way that holds true for any news organization.

He said: ‘Our mission is to tell the truth as nearly as can be ascertained and to tell all the truth as far as we can learn it. It is not necessarily to write according to the wishes, fears or beliefs of our readers.'

But let's not kid ourselves. Telling the truth and providing all sides of the issue are not always popular. Each side accuses you of taking the other's side. You're accused of being biased. People and organizations mount campaigns against you. It is not always easy.

However, we will not shelter Canadians as we are informing them. These are the values that support quality journalism.

Rarely has our connection with Canadians been more evident than it was in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 when 16 million Television viewers and four million Radio listeners in Canada — and millions more across the U.S. and around the world — turned to us for the latest information and Canadian insights on what was happening.

A more recent example of CBC/Radio-Canada's leadership and innovation in news was evident in Problems and Cures: A CBC News Inquiry.

Over seven days leading up to the release of the Romanow report on health care CBC News on Radio, Television and the Internet delved deeply into the issues that are dominating the national health care debate.

Our French News teams were also on top of the issue, presenting live, call-in shows with health specialists in the days leading up to the report's release, a special report on RDI's En Santé and live coverage, analysis and reactions on the day of the report's release.

Audience response to our health coverage reinforced the fact that Canadians welcome such programming. On our cbc.ca website, for example, Canadians responded to our Romanow coverage at the same record levels as they did on September 11th.

Only CBC/Radio-Canada could — or would — mount such an important multi-media initiative about such a pressing public issue.

High-quality journalism costs money and doesn't often garner large enough audiences and advertising revenues to make a compelling business case for profit seeking, bottom line-oriented media organizations.

The continuing importance of CBC/Radio-Canada

In today's increasingly complex and uncertain world, there has never been a greater need for truly effective media in Canada.

Just as freedom of opinion is vital to our democracy, so too is having access to diverse views.

Citizens must understand the issues and choices before them.

If we are to preserve the Canada we want, we need a strong voice and strong connections to one another across every region, province and territory.

The increasing concentration of media ownership in Canada is a cause for concern and another compelling reason for maintaining a strong and vibrant national public broadcaster.

As a result of media industry consolidation and integration, there are now fewer but bigger players.

They have the capacity to exert more control over editorial content and, quite frankly, to limit job mobility.

This is a serious concern.

It could ultimately erode the public's access to information critical to making informed decisions about their future and the future of their country.

In Canada today, the high level of media concentration highlights that … now more than ever … CBC/Radio-Canada is delivering an essential service to Canadians.

We are an alternative voice … one that specifically seeks to reflect the full scope of Canadian views and perspectives.

Meeting the challenges of today's broadcasting industry

Two years ago, we concluded that the time had come to make CBC/Radio-Canada a true public broadcaster.

We recognized that we had to make our networks more distinctive and less commercial — a real alternative and complement to the privates — and we had to build on our strengths.

We also had to look at new ways of doing business, to generate new revenues and operational savings to re-invest in high-quality, uniquely Canadian programming.

We have made significant programming changes across all media lines to enhance our relevance to Canadians and our distinctiveness in the new competitive environment.

We have introduced new talents, new voices and new faces, while substantially reinforcing regional presence and reflection.

We have boosted significantly the amount of commercial-free, educational programming for Canada's children and youth.

Exciting changes in news and public affairs

Nowhere are our renewal efforts more evident than in news and current affairs.

Over the past two years, we've been building on our strengths and enhancing our news gathering and reporting on multiple programs, networks and platforms.

Across the country, we have opened 19 new News bureaus, further boosting our industry-leading capacity to deliver live and breaking news coverage and special events from just about anywhere in Canada.

We have also redefined the way that national and regional news programming is broadcast.

In English Television, for example, we both re-vitalized and removed the commercials from the newscast portion of The National, and introduced a number of new programs including CBC News: Canada Now, CBC News: Sunday, CBC News: Disclosure and CBC News Big Picture.

And, thanks to greater emphasis on regional production … not to mention advances in digital and satellite technologies … the national portion of CBC News: Canada Now is now produced in Vancouver, while CBC News: Disclosure originates from Winnipeg and Toronto.

In French Television, we amalgamated Le Téléjournal and Le Point and extended L'Heure du Midi to include more regional news.

We launched 5 sur 5, a highly interactive weekly magazine that gives French-speaking Canadians a platform for self-expression.

We also opened the new Centre de l'information in Montreal, a broadcasting facility that combines and digitizes resources for the gathering and production of news for French Television and RDI.

We are encouraging CBC/Radio-Canada employees to diversify their skill sets by learning and practicing a variety of editorial, production and technical tasks. It's called multi-skilling and we firmly believe it is the way of the future of journalism.

We have opened a number of one-person News bureaus in underserved regions of Canada. These are staffed by a video-journalist who reports, shoots and edits materials for his or her own story.

Quite frankly, the days of being a reporter, an editor or a camera operator alone are disappearing. Today, we see producers who edit, camera operators who produce and edit, as well as studio switchers who also direct programs. And of course we have anchors that can produce, write and report.

The new face of journalism is perhaps best represented by our foreign correspondents — well-known Canadian reporters like Don Murray, Patrick Brown, Neil Macdonald, Céline Galipeau, and Michel Cormier.

Reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, China, India, and Moscow.

Our journalists are expected to deliver their reports in English and French, for Radio, Television and Internet audiences. Indeed, eight out of 10 of our foreign correspondents report in both languages. Many edit their own material in the field.

They are the new swashbucklers of Canadian journalism … trailblazers who are bringing the news to Canadians where, when and how they want it.

And we will continue to innovate.

In Ottawa, for example, we are consolidating all our operations — currently spread out across the region in five separate facilities — in a new, modern Broadcast Centre in the heart of downtown. All of our news people will be in one room working together and sharing information.

This move will enable our various news teams to work in a more collaborative way … sharing resources, ideas, expertise, and modern digital facilities to produce national, regional and local news for our many platforms.

The resulting efficiencies and synergies will mean we are better able to meet Canadians' demand for high-quality, leading edge news and current affairs.

CBC/Radio-Canada Youth Opportunities

As Canada's national public broadcaster and Canada's largest news organization, CBC/Radio-Canada is also committed to the development of young Canadian journalists.

We are committed — quite frankly — because we require a steady supply of bright young minds and fresh new ideas to maintain our leadership position.

Each year, we offer young journalists like you the chance to learn on the job and see the dynamic, creative environment at CBC/Radio-Canada.

There are many excellent examples:

Innoversity Internships that help visible minority persons, and persons with disabilities to establish the skills they need to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.

Unpaid internships at CBC Television for journalism students at University of Western Ontario, Ryerson, Carleton and Concordia … and soon, a new and expanded internship program at French Television.

Awards such as French Television's Bourse Fernand-Seguin, offered to Canadian journalism and communications students who have never had the opportunity to work in broadcast media.

Or the annual Bourse René-Payot, which we offer in collaboration with public service broadcasters in Belgium, Switzerland and France.

There's also English Radio's Peter Gzowski Internships, which offer radio production training and broadcast opportunities to journalism students at Trent University, Simon Fraser, Memorial University, and McGill.

Each year, the CBC Newsworld Joan Donaldson Scholarship is awarded to Canada's top journalism students from across Canada.

Today, I am pleased to announce that eight winners have been selected for the 2003 scholarship. The winners represent Universities from across the country. In addition to a cash award, each recipient will receive an intensive four-month internship, allowing them to experience first-hand the dynamic, creative environment at CBC News.

Conclusion

As you take your places in Canadian journalism, you do so in interesting times.

In the years ahead, technological change will continue to revolutionize the way news is gathered, produced and delivered.

Economic pressures will continue to re-shape the business of journalism.

Media organizations and journalists — including you — will continue to be criticized, attacked and have their integrity called into question from time to time.

But what could be more rewarding than finding out the truth, explaining the complex and helping create an informed public?

Canada needs top-notch journalists to support its continuing evolution as a vibrant, independent society.

No matter what the technological changes, journalism depends on the quality of people who choose to make it their profession.

Journalists like you — emerging from the most educated, technologically proficient generation of Canadians.

We at CBC/Radio-Canada need the best among you to maintain our leadership position in Canadian journalism.

That's why we continue to focus on creating the kind of rewarding and creative environment that attracts the best.

Thank you again for this opportunity to speak to you. I welcome your questions and comments.