The National anchorman took the elevator, or maybe just the stairs, to the CBC Radio One studios this morning to promote a book: One On One: Our Favourite Conversations and the Stories Behind Them. But chatter surrounding next Monday’s relaunch of the CBC News Network was a somewhat hotter topic, and who is Peter Mansbridge to duck away from a line of questioning? Particularly from a fellow employee, Jian Ghomeshi, who wouldn’t dare give him a grilling on Q. The revelation that the anchor will pointedly stand up for much of his nightly broadcast — untethered from the anchor desk he’s manned full-time since Knowlton Nash bequeathed it to him in 1988 to prevent a Wayne Gretzky-like defection to the U.S.A. — sparked a media suspicion that Mansbridge feigned surprise about. “It’s not like there was some hidden hand around here saying, ‘You have to stand.’”
Ghomeshi quoted blather from CBC News general manager Jennifer McGuire about wanting to present their on-air personalities “as journalists and as people.” What does that mean? Mansbridge audibly snickered in response. Then something about being “more transparent about the decisions that we make and how we make them” in an effort to echo “the way ordinary people hopefully carry on their conversations.” Three years worth of expensive studies have shown — this is the way to go!
An online version of The National will be uploaded at 6 p.m. each day, enough of a window for the anti-CBC brigade to tweet criticism of its editorial priorities before it hits the airwaves, and hope that a few more might watch. Barring that, there’s always the hope of a scandal a la David Letterman.
Wendy Mesley, the ex-Mrs. Mansbridge, stands out among the 1,000 staffers given new assignments as part of the CBCNN master plan — she will appear on The National “seeking answers to the provocative questions of the day.” Just what the consultants ordered! The only takeaway from all this, however, is the real-life Mansbridge finally spouting a quote to stand with Walter Cronkite’s legendary sign-off, comparing the new round of changes to ones of the past: “This doesn’t smell like disaster.”
