After a blog posting by Toronto Star media columnist Antonia Zerbisias suggested CBC is dumping most of its most experienced foreign correspondents for newbies, top news guy Tony Burman responded with a blistering e-mail that announced the planned formation of a World Affairs Unit.
Since most of the public affairs people at CBC are still locked out, one assumes he came up with the idea of making the announcement via blog all by himself.
Burman did a decent job of downplaying the conspiracy theory aspects of Zerbisias' piece (there's a concerted effort to replace old faces with young talent to appeal to a younger demographic), and demanded an apology, which is not forthcoming.
Part of Burman's e-mail to the Toronto Star columnist/blogger:
It is inaccurate to say that "(Patrick) Brown, (Don) Murray and (Paul) Workman are being recalled". It is also factually wrong to write that any of this has to do with the CBC going after "the elusive youth demo". And, even more important, it is dishonest for you to casually throw around offensive terms such as 'global purge' without any effort to verify your writing and place it in a truthful context.
Your blog reads as if you have been racing from room to room at the CBC, grabbing snatches of preliminary and confidential conversations, distorting their meaning.... and then breathlessly yelling it to the world - with no effort at background or accuracy.
Does he sound a bit angry?
Zerbisias backed off her suggestion that the foreign posting moves are motivated by CBC wanting to appeal to a younger demographic, but stood by the point that major changes were coming that would see younger correspondents reporting from foreign bureaus.
In his e-mail, Burman explained why he wasn't following the normal protocol for talking publicly about pending assignments for the foreign correspondents in question (ie. don't announce anything until contracts are signed):
"Your inaccuracies put me in the unfair and uncomfortable position of discussing what should be confidential matters between people at the CBC about the natural and inevitable changes that occur in any news organization. However, given your outrageous spin on this, I feel compelled to correct the record...."
Judging from the comments to Zerbisias' blog, not everyone agrees with Burman that Ms. Z. is the one doing the spinning.
Comments