POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY BRAD WHEELER IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This is pure dreck.
What was the actual path of Ghomeshi at CBC?
They were looking for youngish folks who know about pop
music, with the dubious idea that CBC should not reflect Canada's best in
brains and talent but what a young, not-very-serious crowd might like.
Ghomeshi, whose only talent is for record promotion, was one
of several they started working with a few years ago.
First, they gave him a short show called The National
Playlist, an absolutely pointless show which they dropped after not a long
time, but it was long enough to know how uninteresting Ghomeshi was.
Then, they pushed him again, despite the failed show, by
having him as summer host for Shelagh Rogers. That was likely the most
pointless broadcast in CBC Radio history.
He demonstrated a lame sense of humor with a tiresome
routine about his efforts to read James Joyce, over and over again. His other
high point in humor included a conversation about shoplifting with another lame
personality.
So what did the new management do after he twice proved
himself a mediocrity?
Why they gave him a still another new show, after they got
rid of the talented Shelagh Rogers.
Ghomeshi quite regularly managed to make a mess of things,
demonstrating poor preparation for interviews and a clear lack of judgment over
taste and ethics.
And on that new show, they spent what, for CBC, was a
fortune on advertising and getting big-name interviews for him to fumble his
way through, and fumble he did on many occasions.
I've never heard that kind of promotional effort for anyone
else on CBC, including dozens of far more intelligent and interesting
personalities.
Then they also dumped Bill Richardson, a class act entirely,
from Canada Reads and gave that to, who else, Ghomeshi.
The question couldn't help coming up: who was he in bed with
at CBC management to get that kind of effort, especially after so many failings
and lame efforts?
The one lesson from the whole thing reaffirmed the old
cynical advertising and marketing principle: throw enough crap at the wall, and
a lot will stick.
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Being an outlet for Canada's best minds and talents,
providing a place to go for young people curious about serious things,
providing a showcase to the world, and giving guidance to Canada's newcomers -
those are goals worthy of a public broadcaster.
The CBC of Jian Ghomeshi, Evan Soloman, Laura DiBattista,
Matt Galloway (the best of the lot, but still lacking in interview skills),
Julie Nesrallah is not worth supporting anymore.
They are lackluster talents, and they are not interesting
minds, the people they displaced being giants by comparison.
It has been a clear downward spiral, and it now provides
remarkably little of which to be proud.
I was once a person to leave the station on a good part of
the day, but now I rarely listen.
The whole spectrum of junk radio out there already supplies
the kind of fluff stuff the Ghomeshi mob likes. What's the point of paying
taxes for more?
CBC management has managed to alienate its genuine audience,
and it has in large part ceased to serve its legitimate purpose.
Why, even the language and grammar have been allowed to
decay from the days when they tried setting standards.
But here's another buddy of Ghomeshi's praising the
mediocrity to the skies, just as CBC management has spent so much on him for,
oh, so little.
As I said, throw enough crap on the wall....
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"to watch as so
many of these Harper-loving, CBC-hating minions tied themselves into
contradictory knots to actually defend ol' Billy Bob was really . . . well, was
really a sad and yet a delightful sight."
I think you are quite confused.
First, Ghomeshi is not a "liberal" in any
meaningful sense of the word.
He loves right-wing hacks like Margaret Wente and the
infamous woman lawyer from Montreal who called an author names on the air.
He also likes American low-life hucksters like Billy Bob and
Gene Simmons.
Second, those who seriously dislike Ghomeshi are not
CBC-haters.
Again, quite the opposite.
He and his nasty little crowd have reduced CBC in quality,
intelligence, and just plain civility.
