Sharon Dunn, hired at age 22 in 1976 to anchor the nightly news at CBC in Halifax, got an assigment from Maclean’s last week to wonder where the female anchors are: “Wendy Mesley, come on down”. And while Katie Couric stopped being considered a laughing stock on the CBS Evening News, her Canadian critic is unkind: “She resembles a deer in the headlights, looking a bit propped-up, like a puppet on a string, unsure of what her next move will be.” Dunn is more generous toward the new occupant of the ABC World News desk, Diane Sawyer. The point she wants to make is that Peter Mansbridge can become some kind of national feminist hero — like when Knowlton Nash gave his gig to CBS-courted Mansbridge in 1988 — by stepping aside in favour of his ex-wife of 20 years ago: “Crusty old judges and mean-spirited spinsters all like Mesley. A modern day Mary Tyler Moore — warm and human, making the occasional flub, as she tilts her head one way, then the other with that disarming grin, anchor Mesley keeps gaining fans,” Dunn writes. “Let’s face it, there’s just something about Wendy that makes you want to watch her — she’s interesting, and she has that mass appeal that can move mountains.” Yet, after last October’s premiere of the revamped standing format of The National, when Mesley was widely ridiculed for a report where she donned an H1N1 survival suit in public, her recurring reports have apparently eased up on the stunts — and you never hear a word about them. Funnily, the argument from Dunn reinforces that CTV’s stalwart Lloyd Robertson — at age 76, nearly 15 years older than Mansbridge — is not considerably overdue for retirement.

“AUX delivers popular guerrilla reporters Kayvon and Narduwar for winter programming launch,” read today’s press release via GlassBOX Television, touted as the Canadian media company of the future, with an all-star broadcasting industry board of directors to match. But, when what they have to deliver are middle-aged men who irritate the famous with rambling questions a la Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, what does that say about the state of celebrity interviewing? The late Brian Linehan channeled his dream to go from Hamilton to Hollywood by perfecting his ridiculously over-researched interrogation style, but there was always the sense that he knew something you didn’t. Narduwar the Human Serviette, who changed his name from John Ruskin in 1986 and found his place on Vancouver campus radio station CITR, spouts off a similar depth of historical insight beneath the schtick — which led to years of appearances on MuchMusic, and a weekly hour now exported to seminal New Jersey station WFMU. But his early days of crashing press conferences and ambushing publicists meant playing up a noxiously hyperactive persona he will never be able to shake. Continue Reading

This morning, listeners to Newstalk 1010 were armed with new hire Jerry Agar’s opinion on Al Sharpton: “a race-hustling poverty pimp.” But, as a new voice hastily recruited to replace Los Angeles-bound Bill Carroll, he added that this doesn’t mean he doesn’t like black people. Then he went back to pondering whether or not the TTC should be considered an essential service — or whatever passes for a hot topic on the local Toronto airwaves. What the management of CFRB needed in a pinch, of course, was someone with experience stirring it up on the airwaves: who better than a native of Dauphin, Manitoba who, like Glenn Beck, did several tours of duty at the soft rock stations of middle America before he found his calling as a right-wing warrior. Continue Reading

How dare anyone suggest the 76-year-old anchor of CTV National News is ready for retirement? The perfectly credible rumour floated by Howard Bernstein, the current events producer who has no reason to make stuff up on his blog Medium Close Up, was floated on Monday night: “Every once in a while,” his entry started, “I hear something that’s impossible for me to confirm.” Yet, it took about 18 hours after the item was tweeted — most notably by Canwest News Service correspondent David Akin — for a denial to be issued. “I don’t know where this comes from, but the premise is that I’m tired, I’m worn out,” Robertson told Vancouver talk radio station CKNW host Bill Good while on a break from covering the Winter Olympics. “I’m fine, I’m thriving on it. I always do at the Olympics, the adrenalin begins to pump … I’ll be working 17 days straight and it doesn’t bother me at all.” Most vigorously refuting rumours on Robertson’s behalf: fellow CTV employee Stephanie Smyth, breaking news producer at CP24. So, a deeper reading of Bernstein’s blog post tells the story of how Robertson will likely wind down his 58-year broadcasting career — handing over the reins to Kevin Newman, currently of Global National, who has about six months left on his contract with a company that will spend the next few months changing hands to new owner Shaw. Speculation is that the future of Canwest will parallel what another cable television monolith, Rogers, have done with Citytv, paring back any pretense of being a serious news organization. Besides, the hysteria-inducing tabloid TV approach seems to suit for Leslie Roberts, suddenly rumoured (via a new insider-sounding comment at blogTO) to be getting a co-anchor sometime this spring — recent Citytv refugee Anne Mroczkowski.