Sending Strombo to interview Hillary Clinton is further indication that CBC News is just plain dead.
Why didn’t Mansbridge go? Or Rex Murphy, Mark Kelly or even Kevin O’Leary or the other celebrity fanboy, Ghomeshi?
Why did The Hour go out of its way and travel from the studio to get this “interview”, as it did for Sarah Palin?
Why are Americans so important but not Canadians?
Where is the interview posted? So much hype about a multi-platform CBC and yet all that’s available is a 2 minute teaser used to promote The Hour.
The brief snippet that we’re allowed to see does provide some clue as to what’s up.
It’s obvious that anyone, whether Matt Galloway or Ben Mulroney could do these kinds of interviews.
Hillary is boring. Always guarded and careful with her words.
The way the CBC dealt with this interview shows that they were not at all interested in what she had to say so much as they were interested in using the opportunity to promote and scrape more fake “cred” for The Hour. Any substance was considered a by-product of the primary goal – make George appear credible as a journalist.
Last question: can it really be true that no one at the CBC is conscious of how they’re humiliating themselves using George (who has no journalism credentials) to confront major heads of state?
Thinking of a 4 year journalism degree, kids?
Don’t bother. It makes no difference to “Canada’s most trusted news source”.
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Catherine Mercier hosts: “On soulignera également le 65e anniversaire de la fin de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale avec «Amour, haine et propagande» (30 avril au 4 juin, Radio-Canada) et «La Deuxième Guerre mondiale en couleur» (dès le 2 juin à RDI). ”
Qui? http://www.radio-canada.ca/heure-chine/blogue.asp
“In association with CBC Newsworld, Cable in the Classroom and the Library of
Parliament, RDI produced a nine-minute video entitled DépuTV. Hosted by Catherine Mercier, who is well-known among young people as the host of RDI junior, the video introduces 4th- to 6th-graders to the House of Commons and the various roles of our MPs. The video was distributed free of charge to elementary schools across Canada. “
Agreeing to do this interview was a very unwise move on the part of Hillary’s staff.
Anyone who knows the context of The Hour can so clearly see how doing this interview makes Hillary look really weak, like she’s easily fooled. She’s trying to be nice, not knowing that she’s essentially being taken for a ride, on The Hour’s self-inflating credibility train.
Really, Hillary, you seem to take George almost seriously, as you would Jay Leno or Letterman or Mansbridge. And we’re supposed to take you seriously and believe that you can solve problems in the Middle East?
Opps, Dawkins. I realized after I posted it but I can’t edit it. Maybe Allan will pity me and fix it for me. Then he can delete your comment and hopefully this whole controversy will just disappear.
Allan’s too busy trying to find a pornsite that doesn’t use Flash so that he can watch porn vids on his iPad. Good luck with that, Allan.
Someone was not impressed by George’s interview with Richard Dawson.
Strombo appears to have the scientific background of an asphalt shingle. #cbc #thehour
7 minutes ago via TweetDeck
Richard Dawson? Family Feud guy?
According to the Globe&Mail’s interview with B.Budd “the CBC wants more journalists on air as opposed to ’œpresenters,’ which is how Ms. Budd, who is an actor, has been described.”
Jian is a musician, and never studied journalism, so how do they justify keeping him?
This is what happens when the person in charge of programming at the CBC is an airhead weaned on Entertainment Tonight and MuchMusic.
Why are we paying for the CBC at this point? It’s nothing like PBS or the BBC. It’s more like E! Entertainment Television or Fox.
I guess it’s now a requirement that all CBC hosts share every banal detail of their lives & promote themselves and thus their shows incessantly?
They fired Barbara because she didn’t have a Twitter account.
It is multi-platform. You can watch the show and the full interview on the show’s website. The fact that it’s not on YouTube doesn’t negate the fact that it’s still online content, viewable from anywhere in the world.
They should hire Lights to replace Barbara.
That would be awesomely gnarly, dude.
Getting rid of As It Happens would be stupendously idiotic. You can not buy brand loyalty like that programme has built.
Not to mention the brand loyalty that program has built.
B. Budd’s departure may mean that Sturberg et al are going to pull the plug on AIH. Richard seems to have always had a hate on for anything in the CBC associated with past CBC successes.
Are they going to replace Barbara Budd with Erica Ehm?
Meanwhile, Barbara Budd is let go because she “isn’t a journalist”?…!
CBC President Hubert Lacroix said last week that because of the CRTC decision denying the CBC the right to negotiate a price with cable and satellite providers for their TV signals, he’ll be forced to cut a few Canadian programs and services.
If one of the programs that he’s forced to cut is “The Hour”, which due to it’s low ratings seems quite likely, what will they do with George? Will he take over for Peter Mansbridge or will he become the host of Q (currently hosted by the utterly useless and expendable Jian Ghomeshi)?
Take that “Great question!” remark with a grain of salt. Hillary handled him like a parent trying to teach a child without hurting his feelings.
George’s embarrassing ignorance – “Things like Iran and Nuclear Weapons, things like North Korea and the Middle East, all of the sudden they’re all presented as security issues.”
Hillary corrects him – “My view, George, is that they’ve always been security issues”
LOL
SCN is dead but an American is more important to interview for The Hour. Pretty much sums up why its dead, I guess.
I think it’s all part of the CBC’s grand plan to end up like SCN.
Okay with me if it means a lower HST.
I always wonder what Ian Hanomansing feels about the George/Jian “scoring” all this attention with their celebrity interviews. He is a REAL reporter with street cred, great looks, great personality, wonderful voice, intelligence and he gets ignored. But wait: he gets to live in Vancouver/Nirvana, so I suppose there is justice.
And maybe it’s a sign of his great talent that he doesn’t crave attention from celebrities for his self-esteem.
Hanomansing was hired back when the CBC were hiring people that didn’t come from the MuchMusic talent pool. The only way that the CBC would hire him nowadays would be if he came to the interview dressed up like Ali G.
The comment, and this reply, are friggin’ hilarious…and true. Bang on.
George is doing his research and memorizing his questions while Jian is…..getting his hair done…..or at a party…..or Twittering…..or in a “random chat”…..or “managing” Lights.
George’s Twitter: “In Ottawa to interview Secretary Hillary Clinton. See it tomorrow night on The Hour. Song for the day: Blitzen Trapper – Heaven and Earth.”
“I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden, and I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I’m not gonna do it.”
~ George Blagojevich
When did Hillary become such a neocon chickenhawk? Is she forgetting that she married a draft dodger? “Women’s rights are a security issue”? Great! Go fight another pointless war with some country because the women there wear burqas. Have fun bankrupting your country.
George did a good job and why should he NOT interview her ? She was a presidential candidate and is kind of a big deal !
“CBC is conscious of how they’™re humiliating themselves using George”. Hillary said herself. “Good question George”, seems like she was impressed.
George did a good job.
This clip was deliberately chosen.
And that, PoonGirl, means it was intended to showcase George in as flattering a light as humanly possible.
It’s a promotional piece, PoonGirl.
How about just taking the snippet and throwing it into a collage of how great George is. Just that one brief line “-good question, George” is what they hoped for, got, and chose to present. Isolated, it comes off exactly as George and the show’s producers intended. Notice the graphic that’s glued on to this video.
You ask good questions, George!
Never mind that you couldn’t possibly have thought up or framed that question all by yourself, as other journalists must.
She remembered his name!
Outstanding.
It’s all fake.
When the interview with Palin was over she said to George – “how did you like all them non-answers?”
None of that mattered to George. He wasn’t listening anyways.
The only point was to be able to say “we’ve got Sarah Palin”. There was no news or anything worth quoting in that interview. It might as well not even have happened, it was of so little use.
Just about every interview George does has a banner over it that reads BULLSHIT.
The primary pursuit of George and The Hour is the facade of journalism and entertainment, never the actual substance of either.
I have to give George credit. He does his research on the interview subject and he has his questions memorized and he doesn’t stare at his question sheet throughout the entire interview, unlike Jian Ghomeshi.
Jian & George do their own research?
When questions are memorized, is there enough room left in George’s head to also listen to the answers?
I wonder.
I think that post was meant as a back handed compliment to George, by saying that he’s nowhere near as incompetent as Jian Ghomeshi – which can hardly be considered praise.
He does his research? Wake up. There’s a team of producers who work the phones and read the papers. George and any other interviewer are just about putting a face on everyone else’s work.
The journalist is a cantankerous, old fashioned drain on resources.
At a ‘Content Company’ like CBC, it’s easier to groom presenters from broadcast arts programs into para-journos.
You’re right, though. It would be a lot cooler if CBC had hack journalists as presenters, like on Teamakers.