November 27, 2024 Submission to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications with respect to the study of CBC/Radio-Canada’s local and regional radio, television, and online services in the current media environment. Brief submitted by Helen Henderson, retired Senior Director of News and Programming, CBC Calgary Senators, thank you for the opportunity to address the committee. I regret that I was unable to appear before you in person. It’s an honour to talk about the CBC, an institution I sincerely believe has the potential to be even more important to Canadians than it currently is.

I spent 37 years as a journalist at the CBC, virtually all of that time in Alberta. I retired six months ago as the Senior Director of News and Programming at CBC Calgary. I worked almost exclusively in news and current affairs, so I will restrict my comments to that realm, and to my thoughts about journalism and the CBC from a Calgary perspective. I believe CBC is at its strongest when it’s reflecting Canadians to themselves, and when the ‘public’ takes centre stage in public broadcasting.

We need to spend more time, and money, on distinctly Canadian stories told through the multiple lenses of the Canadian experience. It’s not realistic to ask any government to increase the CBC’s budget in this moment so we must reallocate existing resources. I support stable and predictable funding in a re-imagined CBC. The mandate of CBC needs to be crisper, bolder and edgier if it is to survive. We need to clear a path to allow more Canadians to speak to each other more directly. CBC News is lucky enough to have a strong leadership team, who I’m confident can make the changes necessary.

Decentralization and a broadening of the range of Canadian perspectives are essential to that. My experience with deeply ‘local’ programming informs my submission. I’m often asked how it is possible that, for example, the Calgary Eyeopener (our radio morning show) can be so beloved in a city and province that many would think would be among the least likely to embrace CBC programming. As I left the Corp, fully one quarter of the local listening audience tuned into that show each day. It was among the most popular shows in the system.

How, in the most conservative city in the country could the show be number one for years on end? Because the journalists working on the show are committed to reflecting the audience they serve. They work hard to present a range of stories and a range of opinions on those stories. They understand that a city is more than politics and economics, that their listeners are genuinely interested in one another, and that, given the opportunity they will listen patiently and politely to one another. The show respects its audience enough to challenge them.

I know that if that show was programmed out of Toronto on a daily basis, it simply wouldn’t be as popular because the journalists involved would not understand, or appreciate, the city in the same way. I often point to stories about our oil and gas sector as one of myriad examples I could use. It’s vital to the economy of our city. The CBC in Calgary does many stories about the industry. They’re not fawning, but neither are they dismissive or demonizing. They are fact-based, informative and presented without judgment. I can’t say that the industry is treated with the same neutral hand across the Corporation.

And that does not go unnoticed in the province. The CBC is in a unique and privileged position to be able to help Canadians know and understand one another. I think with the advent of global media and social media, citizens of this nation actually know and understand each other less than ever. There’s a huge opportunity for CBC here. I submit that understanding happens best when not filtered through a ‘central Canadian journalist’s lens’. There was a time, for example, when 8 hours of daily network television on NewsWorld (now News Network) programming came out of Calgary.

That meant local hosts, local journalists and often local guests explaining Canada and the world to our audiences. The perspectives that come with living in a city cannot help but be reflected in things like topic and guest selection. And that’s a great thing. Currently too much of our programming comes with a Toronto, and specifically a ‘CBC Toronto’, perspective. As I left we had no network television shows out of Calgary and only a half hour national radio business show (the very successful ‘The Cost of Living’). -CBC needs to broaden the range of perspectives presented.

Increasingly they are programming to a small group of Canadians whose views align with the majority of those of folks inside the CBC. One of my colleagues very rightly pointed out the narrowing of ‘the acceptable range of dialogue’ we allow in our journalism. It’s not necessarily a problem unique to CBC, but it’s certainly one to be tackled by the public broadcaster. We shouldn’t be afraid to present ideas and opinions that are held by Canadians who would not see themselves as ‘progressives’.

I’ve seen anxiety around ‘platforming’ views that are in fact widely held among Canadians, sometimes shutting down legitimate and important stories. Our goal should be not to validate a particular stance but to use exposure and dialogue to foster intellectual and cultural understanding for our audience…whether sympathetic or critical of a position. Like most media the CBC too often positions itself as an arbiter of which stories, and perspectives define Canada. And whose perspective is correct and acceptable. It’s an unconscious bias, but one not examined closely enough. This issue is not trivial.

It erodes trust in the CBC and compromises its ability to genuinely represent all Canadians. I’m a big believer in pulling journalists from a much larger pool than journalism schools provide. Important as those schools are, we (again) need a more fulsome range of experience and thought than those schools provide. My personal experience in interviewing hundreds of job candidates over the years suggests that the students generally share a fairly narrow world view. That’s not healthy for journalism. We have examples to build on. The West of Centre podcast, based in Calgary, is an obvious example of what can be done.

Critics of the CBC will argue it fails to reflect conservative issues and viewpoints, yet the show is hugely popular across the country and across political affiliations. With a staff of not much more than one full time equivalent, the show consistently ranks in the top 10 political podcasts. The host, Kathleen Petty, does what I think the best journalists do… holds space for all ideas and treats all guests with respect and a healthy dose of skepticism. Yet in my time at CBC, the show had no permanent funding.

Initially we made local cuts to fund the show, and eventually our network colleagues gave us temporary funding. Fiscal times were of course tough, but to my mind this type of regional initiative needs to be embraced and built upon. I was excited and encouraged to see that the CBC recently committed to putting more journalists in smaller Alberta centres. If the CBC is to survive, it must distinguish itself from private outlets, providing a service, and content, that is a unique offering. Stepping into communities that are underserved by other media is a fine example of that.

Over the years I was at the Corp, we would spend whatever money we could save each year locally on what we called ‘pop-up’ news bureaus. We were on the Tsuut’ina nation, in Banff, Lethbridge, and in smaller rural locations for a few months at a time. It was never long enough, but the reception we received was universally positive. Albertans were incredibly excited to share their stories, to feel ‘heard’ by the Corp and by Canadians. Who doesn’t want their stories heard, their voices validated? This is exactly what the CBC should be doing and what no other media organization is in the position to do.

The stories it brings, and the trust it engenders are invaluable. Even one journalist in a community can be a game changer, as witnessed by our now-permanent Lethbridge bureau. The Corporation can win over the skeptical. It requires genuine curiosity and openness and a willingness to put in time. A quick example can be found in a piece by Calgary reporter Joel Dryden. He worked incredibly hard on a story about Alberta's gun culture. It was very difficult for him to get gun owners to talk to us, because of the reputation CBC carries. He persevered and eventually won the trust of a handful in the community.

After the story was published, some of the owners who wouldn't talk for the original story contacted him to say they would be happy to participate in the future because of how thoughtful and even-handed his story was. Imagine that outcome being replicated across all the stories the CBC does. CBC Calgary experimented with partnering with small town local papers in the last election. A time crunch and logistics got in the way of our rather grand vision but I think we were on to something. There’s a huge opportunity for CBC to partner with local news outlets where they still exist.

Their journalists on the ground have an understanding of Taber or Medicine Hat or Canmore that Calgary journalists wouldn’t. And CBC has the resources and platforms to share those stories with the nation. One final observation from a regional perspective. My colleagues on the French side locally are enormously valued by their colleagues and their audience. Those audiences are small however.

While I recognize that it would be political suicide for any government to change the proportions of regional funding between French and English services, there needs to be a re-think about how to make something larger with the sum of the parts. Again, I believe in the public broadcaster and its potential to be more to more Canadians. We need more distinctly Canadian stories, told from more perspectives and from journalists who live where the stories are. I know many of my former colleagues are aligned with the views outlined above.

I’d like to thank those journalists who’ve helped inform my thinking on this topic over the years. And thank you Senators for your time and for the invitation.