I used to enjoy NPR, which sometimes managed to be balanced in the old Fairness Doctriine way. I stopped listening around 2014 when they dropped all pretense of objectivity and simply parroted the standard DEI/ESG/Banker line. A lot of things happened quietly and suddenly in 2014, giving the sense of a power shift somewhere in the upper levels of the aristocracy. It wasn't an obvious inflection point like 1946 or 1974, but clearly something big was happening.
Like many of your other readers and you, yourself, I was a CBC radio — there’s no other word for it — junky. I had it on in every room at home and when possible in my office and car as well. I shaved while listening to Metro Morning starting with Joe Coté and finally ending at some point with Matt Galloway. It wasn’t Matt, himself, it was the whole culture of the CBC. Either I’d moved away from it or it had moved away from me, I couldn’t be sure. But I was done and began listening less and less until now I don’t listen at all. I have friends who are still avid CBC listeners but I’ve learned that it isn’t worth it to get into it with them. My objections to the direction the CBC has taken only upset them and serve no purpose. Better to stay silent and get my radio conversation fix from a few free-thinking podcasts such as yours. Thanks for filling the void! I often listen to you as I shave in the morning or in the car on my way to work.
I remember vividly receiving an internal CBC email, inviting me (and the rest of the staff at the Toronto building) down to the third floor to raise a glass to the CBC Radio Drama department, which was shuttering. Dead, after decades of brilliant programming, without so much as a whimper. Some sandwiches brought up from that mediocre restaurant in the Atrium and brief acknowledgement before the plug was finally pulled. I don't know if anyone even noticed, but to me, it was a tragic and disgraceful end. To add insult to injury, the CBC (which has one of the most complete archives of any public broadcaster in the world, I am led to understand) buries their history, so these old broadcasts (like the one you heard, with Studs Terkel, I suspect) live somewhere in Gatineau, inaccessible to all. All that unbelievably rich, Canadian history, buried. Why? I have my suspicions, but you never really know.
Once, many years ago, I approached a CBC Radio producer, with the idea to do a podcast that would trot out some of these old broadcasts such as "The Happy Gang, "The Transcontinental", "Carry On Canada" "Nazi Eyes on Canada" etc; with the idea to airing them to a new audience. Zero interest.
It's a shame. Shows like 'Morningside' opened my world and made me appreciate all that was rich and interesting in our beautiful and diverse country. Where do we turn to now? The Corp(se) is so agenda driven that after five minutes of listening I'm in a rage, so I avoid it like the plague.
I was born, raised and lived my whole life to the sound track of the Greats; Gzowski, Arthur
Black, Bill Richardson, Carol Off and the crew on As it Happens. I could tell time by the voices I heard say nothing of the “Beginning of the long Dash…” The people and programs that strove to connect this country, to join us in collective sadness, joy, humor and music. CBC was my reliable anchor to who I was as a Canadian. Until it wasn’t… that loss was profound. Lacking a common public square where the intent is to gather everyone as equals, to act with integrity is a devastating loss as a Canadian. I gradually find places and broadcasters with some of this “feeling” but rarely can I trust that those around me had that experience today too. Thank you Tara Henley for starting Lean Out. You saved my Canadian bacon😉 when I was so very
politically homeless and in desperate need of a voice on the radio.
CBC radio touched my life in many ways for over forty years. However, I stopped listening to CBC radio about 5 years ago when they changed their programming so it sounded more and more like the music I could hear on every other radio channel. They no longer seemed to feature as many talented, up and coming Canadian singer/ song writers. I stopped listening to CBC News a few years later when I realized how hopelessly biased the reporting had become. Now I no longer support funding the CBC because, in my opinion, it has stopped telling the stories or sharing the talents and gifts of most Canadians. Unfortunately, nothing has quite taken the place of CBC as it once was.There is no longer a broadcaster that unites the Canadian people.
Having Vicki Gabereau rally the troops during The Red River Rally, my kids growing up tuned into The Vinyl Cafe every Sunday, Peter Gzowski laughing until he cried with Stuart McLean over the discussion of grasshoppers…radio transforms us.
“When we lost public radio to the ideologues…” and not only CBC, but seemingly the entirety of Mainstream Media! I would like to understand how that came about… any
We were Classical Liberals. Tolerant. Certain that in a competition of ideas we would prevail. They took advantage of our naivete, and hijacked the education system, spinning out Woke Warriors like a virus that hijacks a healthy cell.
I lived in the North for 25 years and CBC was our Commons - everyone listened to it and it was a general talking point with your friends about whatever interesting subject had been discussed on CBC that week. When I moved to the South I kept listening trying to hang on to that feeling of community but slowly those familiar radio voices became captured by a non-sensical dogma that I simply couldn't relate to - it was as if they had turned off their sense of curiosity and enquiry. Now I collect podcasts.
Thank you, Tara, for putting into words what I started feeling about CBC radio a few years ago. I used to listen like an addict, but lately it has become so sterilized. Maybe it's ideological capture, like you say, that makes them so cautious, homogeneous, and boring.
I fed your paragraph about the CBC radio host into ChatGPT and asked it to identify the "famed radio host" and it said it was hard without more details but it's top 3 guesses were: Carol Off, David Suzuki and Jian Ghomeshi. So there you go, it was probably beloved radio legend Jian Ghomeshi. Whatever happened to that guy?
My best guesses were the Chicago radio host Studs Terkel and the CBC's own Peter Gzowski. The segment would have aired in 2001/early 2002. Peter Gzowski passed in Jan of 2002, so that made the most sense, but I think I did an archive search at one point and came up empty.
Dave Croft of CBC North interviewed me one morning in the restaurant of the old Gold Rush Inn in Whitehorse some time back in the mid 1990's. A few years later, at a family gathering, my brother told me that he had enjoyed listening to that interview while doing his deliveries in St John's Newfoundland. Now THAT'S public radio.
I used to enjoy NPR, which sometimes managed to be balanced in the old Fairness Doctriine way. I stopped listening around 2014 when they dropped all pretense of objectivity and simply parroted the standard DEI/ESG/Banker line. A lot of things happened quietly and suddenly in 2014, giving the sense of a power shift somewhere in the upper levels of the aristocracy. It wasn't an obvious inflection point like 1946 or 1974, but clearly something big was happening.
Like many of your other readers and you, yourself, I was a CBC radio — there’s no other word for it — junky. I had it on in every room at home and when possible in my office and car as well. I shaved while listening to Metro Morning starting with Joe Coté and finally ending at some point with Matt Galloway. It wasn’t Matt, himself, it was the whole culture of the CBC. Either I’d moved away from it or it had moved away from me, I couldn’t be sure. But I was done and began listening less and less until now I don’t listen at all. I have friends who are still avid CBC listeners but I’ve learned that it isn’t worth it to get into it with them. My objections to the direction the CBC has taken only upset them and serve no purpose. Better to stay silent and get my radio conversation fix from a few free-thinking podcasts such as yours. Thanks for filling the void! I often listen to you as I shave in the morning or in the car on my way to work.
I'd sit alone and watch your light
My only friend through teenage nights
And everything I had to know
I heard it on my radio
You gave them all those old time stars
Through wars of worlds invaded by Mars
You made 'em laugh, you made 'em cry
You made us feel like we could fly (radio)
So don't become some background noise
A backdrop for the girls and boys
Who just don't know, or just don't care
And just complain when you're not there
You had your time, you had the power
You've yet to have your finest hour
Radio (radio)
I remember vividly receiving an internal CBC email, inviting me (and the rest of the staff at the Toronto building) down to the third floor to raise a glass to the CBC Radio Drama department, which was shuttering. Dead, after decades of brilliant programming, without so much as a whimper. Some sandwiches brought up from that mediocre restaurant in the Atrium and brief acknowledgement before the plug was finally pulled. I don't know if anyone even noticed, but to me, it was a tragic and disgraceful end. To add insult to injury, the CBC (which has one of the most complete archives of any public broadcaster in the world, I am led to understand) buries their history, so these old broadcasts (like the one you heard, with Studs Terkel, I suspect) live somewhere in Gatineau, inaccessible to all. All that unbelievably rich, Canadian history, buried. Why? I have my suspicions, but you never really know.
Once, many years ago, I approached a CBC Radio producer, with the idea to do a podcast that would trot out some of these old broadcasts such as "The Happy Gang, "The Transcontinental", "Carry On Canada" "Nazi Eyes on Canada" etc; with the idea to airing them to a new audience. Zero interest.
It's a shame. Shows like 'Morningside' opened my world and made me appreciate all that was rich and interesting in our beautiful and diverse country. Where do we turn to now? The Corp(se) is so agenda driven that after five minutes of listening I'm in a rage, so I avoid it like the plague.
I have long wished for some Gzowski reruns to brighten my day🥺. What a gift that would be.
I was born, raised and lived my whole life to the sound track of the Greats; Gzowski, Arthur
Black, Bill Richardson, Carol Off and the crew on As it Happens. I could tell time by the voices I heard say nothing of the “Beginning of the long Dash…” The people and programs that strove to connect this country, to join us in collective sadness, joy, humor and music. CBC was my reliable anchor to who I was as a Canadian. Until it wasn’t… that loss was profound. Lacking a common public square where the intent is to gather everyone as equals, to act with integrity is a devastating loss as a Canadian. I gradually find places and broadcasters with some of this “feeling” but rarely can I trust that those around me had that experience today too. Thank you Tara Henley for starting Lean Out. You saved my Canadian bacon😉 when I was so very
politically homeless and in desperate need of a voice on the radio.
CBC radio touched my life in many ways for over forty years. However, I stopped listening to CBC radio about 5 years ago when they changed their programming so it sounded more and more like the music I could hear on every other radio channel. They no longer seemed to feature as many talented, up and coming Canadian singer/ song writers. I stopped listening to CBC News a few years later when I realized how hopelessly biased the reporting had become. Now I no longer support funding the CBC because, in my opinion, it has stopped telling the stories or sharing the talents and gifts of most Canadians. Unfortunately, nothing has quite taken the place of CBC as it once was.There is no longer a broadcaster that unites the Canadian people.
Having Vicki Gabereau rally the troops during The Red River Rally, my kids growing up tuned into The Vinyl Cafe every Sunday, Peter Gzowski laughing until he cried with Stuart McLean over the discussion of grasshoppers…radio transforms us.
Crickets
Thank you. Yes, it was crickets. Pure gold.
I had never heard that segment until you flagged it! Amazingly, it's online: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1690490586
“When we lost public radio to the ideologues…” and not only CBC, but seemingly the entirety of Mainstream Media! I would like to understand how that came about… any
thoughts and ideas welcome.
We were Classical Liberals. Tolerant. Certain that in a competition of ideas we would prevail. They took advantage of our naivete, and hijacked the education system, spinning out Woke Warriors like a virus that hijacks a healthy cell.
Well that was well summarized! Bonus points for brevity and flare.
Sounds like the Peter Szowski I used to listen to on CBC.
I lived in the North for 25 years and CBC was our Commons - everyone listened to it and it was a general talking point with your friends about whatever interesting subject had been discussed on CBC that week. When I moved to the South I kept listening trying to hang on to that feeling of community but slowly those familiar radio voices became captured by a non-sensical dogma that I simply couldn't relate to - it was as if they had turned off their sense of curiosity and enquiry. Now I collect podcasts.
Thanks Tara. I am one of those who used to listen with my coffee in the morning
"Nobody got to hear..." is a powerful passage. So true. "Until human voices wake us, and we drown"
Thank you, Tara, for putting into words what I started feeling about CBC radio a few years ago. I used to listen like an addict, but lately it has become so sterilized. Maybe it's ideological capture, like you say, that makes them so cautious, homogeneous, and boring.
I fed your paragraph about the CBC radio host into ChatGPT and asked it to identify the "famed radio host" and it said it was hard without more details but it's top 3 guesses were: Carol Off, David Suzuki and Jian Ghomeshi. So there you go, it was probably beloved radio legend Jian Ghomeshi. Whatever happened to that guy?
My best guesses were the Chicago radio host Studs Terkel and the CBC's own Peter Gzowski. The segment would have aired in 2001/early 2002. Peter Gzowski passed in Jan of 2002, so that made the most sense, but I think I did an archive search at one point and came up empty.
What a beautifully written expressive piece.
Dave Croft of CBC North interviewed me one morning in the restaurant of the old Gold Rush Inn in Whitehorse some time back in the mid 1990's. A few years later, at a family gathering, my brother told me that he had enjoyed listening to that interview while doing his deliveries in St John's Newfoundland. Now THAT'S public radio.