From: schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck)
Subject: Re: Senate Interrogation
Reply-To: Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Distribution: can
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 22:32:20 GMT

John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:

>Now the 11th day of the 11th month has come, we see two items of note:
>the first, that the CBC ombudsman has condemned "The Valour and the
>Horror" for sloppiness and lack of balance, and that the senators
>involved have taken that as a vindication.

>Whoever took their complaint to the ombudsman took their case to the
>right place, and got the right result; the CBC will not show the series
>again until and unless the producers correct their errors. The senators,
>on the other hand, should not take this as any kind of vindication;
>it merely shows that not only did they have no right to try to
>dictate Canadian history, they had no reason to do so, either.

>Senators have the least right of anyone to call hearings of this
>sort: unelected but not experts, politicians but not accountable,
>they should never be allowed to meddle in the way Canadians tell
>their stories. To the feeble excuse that the NFB uses public money,
>I reply that since governments control the source materials (military
>records, etc.) for military history, they will always have control
>over the way military historians write if we let them.

>As it turned out, the ombudsman did a good job of holding the producers
>of "The Valour and the Horror" to account; the senators should have
>left the matter in the proper hands.

I think the Senators did a wonderful job in defending the memory of
the Canadians who died in WWII and those whose returned.

Let us remember the CBC is a public broadcasting instutution which
spends a pittance on allowing the people to respond to news shows and
documenteries. 

I will contrast them to the Globe and Mail.

The G & M has about 20 pages in it's News section of the 'National'
edition. Of those 20 pages, about half is ad space. That leaves 10
pages. Of those 10 pages, 1 page is devoted to letters to the editor,
where people can respond, where they applaud or chastise the views of
columnists and editorialist and news stories.

Thats 10% of the news pages dedicated every day it publishes.

The CBC produces several hours of news each day, along with the
occassional documentery. So lets say about 100 minutes each day is the
equivalent of the G & M 10 pages.

Does the CBC devote 10 minutes to viewers responses, applause or
criticism? No. How about 1 minute. I think not. As far as I know,
there is no time reserved for such feedback on the national network.
Our local CBC used to dedicate 3 or 4 minutes once a week to viewers
phone calls , and I think they still do but I haven't seen it since
the revamp of the early evening newscast.

The forum that veterans groups like Cliff Chaddertons have chosen to
respond to the Valour and the Horror is the Senate Committee. Why?
Because they are the only ones who would listen and give them time!

The CBC Ombudsman report has come out many months after the show was
broadcast, unlike a letter to the G & M which would show up within
days.

The Senators, unlike the CBC , has provided a public service to the
veterans groups and a public forum for their response.

I applaud the Senate Committee, and I urge the CBC to provide a daily
forum for the peoples view on it's news programs.

Without public debate, in a forum with the same viewership as the
original broadcast, the Valour and the Horror was just propaganda.

The CBC, as a publicly funded institution, with a mandate to serve all
Canadians, should not be in the propaganda business.



-- 
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"We've got to get bigger guns" -- Dick Durkin                  schuck@sfu.ca
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Newsgroups: can.politics