Posts Tagged ‘cbc’

Rob Ford tells the media their questions. Then answers them. (Image from CBC)

Rob Ford is the mayor of Canada’s largest city. The dedicated Flacklife reader may note that I’ve covered Mayor Ford a couple of times here. The most notable post was the one in which I included audio of his interview (to use the term loosely) with CBC Radio’s national show “As It Happens” — an pre-booked interview which was 210 seconds of intense awkwardness.

That was October. This is August. And Rob Ford has worked hard on his media relations skills.

Today, he met with the Premier of Ontario, and afterward, met the Toronto media for a scrum. But this was a scrum with a difference. Listen and learn:

[audio:http://www.translucid.ca/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/robford1.mp3|titles=robford]

This is taking the Donald Rumsfeld school of media relations to an entirely new plateau. News conferences are far more pleasant when in two minutes you can tell the gathered reporeters what they would be asking, answer those questions, and leave.

I don’t know whether to rejoice at the innovation or… jump off a bridge.

Audio from the National Post’s Youtube channel.

A different kind of digital divide

UPDATED, December 21: after some chasing, I heard from Daryl Korell, who was at the Canadian Media Research Centre. While the Canadian Internet Project site is still down, he offered to pass on my coordinates to the project staff. I’ve asked for an interview with them, and if and when I get one you’ll hear about it.

If you’re going to advise people on communications, PR or social media, chances are you’ll spend a lot of time thinking and writing and talking about online life. I know I do. It helps if you’re passionate for understanding how people use media to communicate  Doing that means that I love to read stuff about what people are doing online. But I realized this morning, when I saw a CBC story about internet use among older people, that there’s a big gap here in Canada.

The story quoted something that I consult all the time: The Pew Internet and American Life Project. This project, one of seven that make up the Pew Research Centre, regularly publishes data about … well, the Internet and American Life. Of the Centre’s 117 staff, eight are working on the Pew Internet and American Life.

So far in 2010, the Pew Internet project has issued 19 reports on everything from government online to social media reputation management to “the future of the Internet.” Their reports are really great. I frequently download them, and I use them to write, make presentations, and the like.

But where’s the Canadian equivalent? For the Canadian who’s interested in these issues, there’s really no way to dive deep into this data that I can find.

• Statistics Canada does some work. In May, it released data on Canadians’ Internet use from its Canadian Internet Use Survey, which reported on data from a 2009 survey (the previous one was in 2007); in September, it released information on e-commerce in Canada from the same survey. As far as I know, that’s it.
• Industry Canada’s Digital Economy site has research on e-commerce dating to 2008, as well as a “research and links” page that doesn’t look to have been updated since 2006.
• A site called “Internet World Stats” has a 2007 review, mostly of broadband penetration in Canada.
• Emarketer has a report on Canada from 2008 that would likely cost a couple of hundred bucks.
• The Canadian Media Research Consortium (a group made up of partners from York University, Ryerson University and Université Laval) has the “Canadian Internet Project.” Unfortunately, the project’s site is down. But there are two reports, one from 2008 and one from 2004.
• Services like Comscore do monitor web traffic and offer Canadian statistics. But that’s site based, not user based. And they haven’t issued a release mentioning Canada since August 2009.
• Even the Pew Global Attitudes project surveys 22 countries but excludes Canada.

Am I missing out on sources here? Why is it that we don’t have something like the Pew projects? Tell me where I haven’t looked.

Most people here know I’m a music lover. And this time of year, I start thinking of one of my favorite seasonal songs, a fairly obscure tune called “Winter Song” by a British folk-rock group called Lindisfarne.

I love Christmas music, but as an atheist, I always feel like just a bit uncomfortable singing about the Lord and Christ being born and the like.

But “Winter Song?” I can totally get behind it. The lyrics (hope you don’t mind, Lindisfarne):

When winter’s shadowy fingers First pursue you down the street
And your boots no longer lie About the cold around your feet
Do you spare a thought for summer whose passage is complete?
Whose memories lie in ruins And whose ruins lie in heat ?
When winter comes howling in

When the wind is singing strangely Blowing music through your head
And your rain splattered windows Make you decide to stay in bed
Do you spare a thought for the homeless tramp who wishes he was dead?
Or do you pull the bed-clothes higher Dream of summertime instead?
When winter comes howling in

The creeping cold has fingers That caress without permission
And mystic crystal snowdrops Only aggravate the condition
Do you spare one thought for the gypsy with no secure position?
Who’s turned and spurned by village and town At the magistrate’s decision?
When winter comes howling in

When the turkey’s in the oven And the Christmas presents are bought
And Santa’s in his module He’s an American astronaut
Do you spare one thought for Jesus, who had nothing but his thoughts?
Who got busted just for talking And befriending the wrong sorts?

When winter comes howling in (twice)

Here’s how they performed it in 1984 in Newcastle:

So here’s the selfish (somewhat) part. “All in a Day,” our local CBC Radio afternoon show is soliciting donations for an organization called the Causeway Work Centre. Causeway does great work, giving people with mental health issues or other difficulties opportunities to do work that’s tailored to their ability. That gives them everything that work gives us all — skills, money, fulfilment, dignity… They change lives, for the better. Every day.

And the person who donates the most gets to get the amazing Sarah Harmer or Rolf Klausener do a cover song of their choice. Now, some people will try to get them to do something out of character — Black Sabbath, or Mel Tormé, or something. But I really want to hear their take on this song. And I’m willing to ask for your help to do it — and risk humiliation.

If I get this, I promise to record my own cover video version of the song and put it up on the site. But ONLY if I get this.

If you click on this link and donate, then tell All in a Day that you’ve done it, I have a chance of hearing this song covered. And most importantly, you help a worthy organization. Help a brother out, willya?

I was pretty gobsmacked yesterday when I heard Richard Fadden, the head of CSIS (Canada’s intelligence agency), tell CBC’s flagship newscast The National that his agency knew of cabinet ministers in provincial governments and members of municipal governments who were “under the influence” of “foreign governments.”

Fadden didn’t point to a specific country, but dropped a serious hint by mentioning that about half of CSIS’s budget is devoted to China. He also said that his agency had informed the federal government at its highest levels of their concerns — the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Privy Council Office (PCO).

The reverberations haven’t stopped yet — and yesterday’s 5.0 earthquake that was centred near Ottawa was just a physical manifestation of those ripples.

I’ve not worked for CSIS, either as an employee or a consultant, and I’ve never played in the sandbox of federal politics . So I’m looking at this from the outside, as a PR guy.

At some time in the past several weeks, our chief spook does an interview with one of CBC’s most respected journalists (winner of multiple awards, and some say the inspiration for Live Aid) in which he subtly points at China as an influencer of Canada’s political class.

The day before China’s president arrives in Canada for an official visit, CBC airs the interview as part of a package looking at Canada’s intelligence operations. This is also just before the G8 and G20 meetings are held in Ontario, bringing multiple heads of state to Canada for discussions at the highest of levels.

Fadden then retracts some of his comments in a statement:

“Recent comments I made in the context of a special report by the CBC on CSIS have given rise to some concerns about foreign interference in Canada.  The following statement is meant to place those comments in context.

All of the activities of the Service take place within the law and the CSIS Act in particular.  The CSIS Act requires the Service to investigate threats to the security of Canada – including foreign interference.  The Service has been investigating and reporting on such threats for many years.  Foreign interference is a common occurrence in many countries around the world and has been for decades.

I have not apprised the Privy Council Office of the cases I mentioned in the interview on CBC.

At this point, CSIS has not deemed the cases to be of sufficient concern to bring them to the attention of provincial authorities.

There will be no further comments on these operational matters.”

It didn’t take long for a frenzy of reaction to start. Premiers, mayors, intelligence analysts — all were weighing in on what Fadden had said, and then on the retraction.

Calls for Fadden’s resignation began to surface, while others (such as former senior public servant and current columnist Norman Spector and right-wing blogger Adrian McNair) called for heads to roll at CBC for their journalistic practice.

So from a PR perspective, what can we draw from this?

1. It’s pretty rare for CSIS to open itself up to media scrutiny as it did for The National. So I find it hard to believe that this was done without a great deal of forethought. And even if it was given little prep time, given the time lag between the taping of the interview, some negotiation should or could have been undertaken to mitigate the damage of Fadden’s remarks. At the very least, I hope they brought in some outside interview prep; if they didn’t, then that explains a lot in terms of the miscues.
2. Is CBC at fault here? Should they have broadcast the interview at an earlier time? It’s hard for me to agree with that. What’s CBC’s job? To deliver news and to get ratings. They maximized their exposure with this story. Brian Stewart and Peter Mansbridge didn’t make Fadden say what he said. They ran with it. As they should have.
3. If we agree that this was deliberate, then the most important question to my mind is: what does CSIS gain by having this information come out publicly? If we believe it was a mistake, then the question becomes: how could CSIS get this SO WRONG? Is it a case of an agency and a person unused to dealing with media fouling up? Or is Fadden just loose-lipped (NOT a characteristic he’s known for, apparently, or one that’s desirable in a spymaster).

It’s been interesting contrasting this with the McChrystal affair in the United States. In one case, a general known for his outspoken, maverick image stops too far over the line and resigns; in the other, a senior bureaucrat barely known in the media at all speaks frankly, backtracks, and appears to be waiting out the storm.

(Photo credit: Charlotte Morrall, CC licenced on Flickr)