Our public broadcaster charts its course in a world of Snapchat, clickbait, and teenage YouTube stars
- by Tom JokinenTom Jokinen Updated 15:16, Nov. 11, 2019 | Published 15:16, Aug. 21, 2017This article was published over a year ago. Some information may no longer be current.
Photograph courtesy of the Canadian Press
At the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, I make a wrong turn. Third floor, east side: used to be the radio newsroom when I worked here ten years ago. Then, it was a frantic hub of creativity and human disorder, knee-deep in newspapers and Styrofoam Thai takeout containers that popped when you stepped on them. Today, it’s home to something called Communications Marketing and Branding, where people meet in glass boardrooms with catchy names. Stencilled onto the glass of the “Idea Room” are these words: Modernity. Technology. Progress.
I find my bearings and make my way to the fourth floor, where staffers are holding the morning digital-news meeting. I follow the noise to a huge space with actual walls. The vibe is casual: fleece, hiking shoes, relaxed banter. Management was kind enough to put in a foosball table, but there’s no ball for it. A TV monitor is perched on a stack of photocopy paper. On the wall of the meeting room, an unmarked dry-erase board. On the table, an untouched Globe and Mail. Thirteen people are here, with one disembodied voice on a conference call from Ottawa. It looks a bit like the old days, except for one big difference: everyone clutches a smartphone and studies it instead of making eye contact. Some clutch two.
The goal here is to review what happened overnight, anticipate what’s to come, and decide how to share all this with the Canadians who follow CBC News online and on their phones. Such daily huddles are crucial for a public broadcaster desperate to stay relevant at a time when people are consuming media in entirely new ways. “If we were starting over,” CBC president and CEO Hubert Lacroix said last year when describing Strategy 2020: A Space for Us All, the corporation’s latest five-year blueprint, “the smart money would invest everything into digital.”
It’s hard not to feel that the CBC is, indeed, starting over. Strategy 2020’s signature motto is “mobile first,” which means making the smartphone audience the top priority, and creating content specifically for it. It’s a mandate that, by reallocating resources traditionally earmarked for television and radio, promises to transform the company. Nothing will be spared: news, current affairs, entertainment, children’s programming. The aim is that by 2020, one out of every two Canadians—18 million people—will access the CBC digitally. What the CBC will look like if that happens is anybody’s guess.
Yesterday, police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, released a dashcam video of officers shooting an unarmed black man. “Run it on the website,” says one producer. “Do we obscure the video out of respect for the dead man?” asks another. “No need.” The video was shared extensively online, unedited, before anyone at this meeting got out of bed. The conversation shifts to Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama, who are both visiting the United Nations in New York today: Trudeau, to give his first UN address as prime minister, and Obama, to deliver his final UN speech as United States president. The producers decide to carry the addresses on Facebook Live. A new project by Gord Downie, of the Tragically Hip? The team decides to “push social,” which means: get the story out on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. There’s plenty of nodding. What about the story the Globe ran about a new extradition deal with China? There’s silence. “Sounds like talk at this point,” decides one editor, which is a polite way of saying: nothing jumps out that will silk-purse this sow’s ear into a sexy digital story. Leave it to radio.
Back at his office, Brodie Fenlon, a senior news director, discusses the meeting with me. Time moves quickly for his team. Decisions are made and deferred, but the point is to come to some agreement about what to obsess over today. In the past, they had two ways to showcase those obsessions: radio and TV. Now there are “platforms.” Take Facebook Live, which streams live video to social-media subscribers. It didn’t even exist a year ago, says Fenlon, but it’s already “an integral part of our assignment.” This is the CBC’s new reality: get familiar with the digital landscape, and fast. “We place our bets and figure out what works,” says Fenlon. “When we get there, something else comes along—like Snapchat.”
Snapchat is a social-media app that allows people to send photos or video as messages. Once viewed, the “snaps” self-destruct—a trick that has made the company the undisputed global platform for dick pics. But the app has bigger plans. Snapchat Discover, first introduced in 2015, has become a sought-after vehicle for media companies who want to reach a younger audience. Essentially a digital newsstand, Discover’s offerings include documentaries, investigative features, and articles. Uploaded daily, the content vanishes after twenty-four hours—but not before the more popular posts have captured millions of views.
The Walrus uses cookies for personalization, to customize its online advertisements, and for other purposes. Learn more or change your cookie preferences.
Before you go, did you know that The Walrus is a registered charity? We rely on donations and support from readers like you to keep our journalism independent and freely available online.
When you donate to The Walrus, you’re helping writers, editors, and artists produce stories like the ones you’ve just read. Every story is meticulously researched, written, and edited, before undergoing a rigorous fact-checking process. These stories take time, but they’re worth the effort, because you leave our site better informed about Canada and its people.
If you’d like to ensure we continue creating stories that matter to you, with a level of accuracy you can trust, please consider becoming a supporter of The Walrus. I know it’s tough out there with inflation and rising costs, but good journalism affects us as well, so I don’t ask this lightly.
Will you join us in keeping independent journalism free and available to all?
Samia Madwar
Senior Editor, The Walrus
Hey, thank you for reading!
Before you go, did you know that The Walrus is a registered charity? We rely on donations and support from readers like you to keep our journalism independent and freely available online.
If you’d like to ensure we continue creating stories that matter to you, with a level of accuracy you can trust, please consider becoming a supporter of The Walrus. I know it’s tough out there with inflation and rising costs, but good journalism affects us as well, so I don’t ask this lightly.
Will you join us in keeping independent journalism free and available to all?
Here at The Walrus, one of the things I admire most is how my team strives to create timely stories that address the issues of the moment. But each one of these stories requires meticulous research and fact checking, and that costs time and money.
So to help out, I’m asking you to consider becoming a monthly donor. When you Make It Monthly, your contribution goes further, ensuring a steady stream of support so that my team can do their best work, no matter the moment. So are you in?
Rose Danen
Development Officer, The Walrus
Hey, thank you for reading! Your support goes further when you Make It Monthly.
Here at The Walrus, one of the things I admire most is how my team strives to create timely stories that address the issues of the moment. But each one of these stories requires meticulous research and fact checking, and that costs time and money.
So to help out, I’m asking you to consider becoming a monthly donor. When you Make It Monthly, your contribution goes further, ensuring a steady stream of support so that my team can do their best work, no matter the moment. So are you in?