Rewriting History

Throughout CBC's (now almost eight-week) lockout of 5,500 members of the Canadian Media Guild, interested outsiders such as moi could track the dispute through the websites, and in particular, the blogs, run by the union and especially the workers.

Some were anonymous, some not. Some were newsy, some were nasty. All of them informed in some way or another.

Among the most popular, as I have already blogged, were Todd Maffin's CBC Unplugged, Robin Rowland's the Garret Tree, CBC Drone, the unknown manager Ouimet, Jenkew and Matt Watts' site.

Oh and let's not forget the biggest little man on the picket line.

Anyway...

One of the fun things about the blogs was that CBCers spoke openly and plainly about what they feel is wrong about the place. Seems that upset management. So, among the many, many clauses in the Return To Work Protocol are No. 10 and 11:

Upon ratification, CMG and CBC will remove, as much as is possible, negative references and material to the work stoppage on all their websites.

Upon ratification, CMG will encourage CMG members to remove as much as
is possible, negative references and material related to the work
stoppage from web sites, podcasts, blogging etc. consistent with the CBC
and CMG accepted journalistic standards.

CBC Drone says s/he will ignore it, and keep reporting what's going on inside the public broadcaster. And so s/he should. CBC belongs to all of us, and we need to know.

Comments

[Robert McClelland]

"CBC Drone says s/he will ignore it, and keep reporting what's going on inside the public broadcaster. And so s/he should. CBC belongs to all of us, and we need to know."

Yes we do. But does CBC Drone also realize this sort of thing does nothing but fuel the right whinger's jihad to end the CBC?

[Antonia Z]

Robert, you know I love you madly and all but the patient is sick sick sick. Would you rather it continue to die its slow and inevitable death or have concerned insiders raise the alarm so that a cure might be found?

Anyway, you of all people should know that this is one jihad that won't be won.

[Mark Federman]

That's what the Internet Archive (and to a lesser extent, Google cache) is for - to provide an antidote to would-be revisionist historians.

Such a protocol is the work of bureaucrats who still do not "get" the effects of ubiqitous, instantaneous communication. The entire idea is to promote the type of emergent transparency to which weblogs contribute, to enable reflexivity on the part of those who would otherwise resist it, namely those in power. "Mistakes were made and things were said" is inadequate if the experience is to suddenly vapourize into a million random bits.

But then again, ephemerality is also a dominant effect, so, what the hell - once it's over, it never happened, right? Right?

[Diana-Marie]

Ah Mr. McClelland, how wrong you are! The CBCer's blogs have opened the workings of the organization to the scrutiny of supportive viewers/listeners as never before. They've also showing us the bedrock of the corporation; a smart, savvy and creative group of people not likely to be suppressed or diverted by 'right-whinge jihadists' or their own highly questionable upper management.
Other publicly-paid orgs or branches of government might well take a leaf out of their book and do some exposing in the blogosphere .....
In the meantime, may the peregrinations of the Gnome continue forever!!

[Ivan Prokopchuk]

Woo hoo Mark.
There's so much we can't write about.
Even if we are bloggers.
I opine Antonia is hip to it. Otherwise, why are the lead pargraphs to her blogs so opaque?
Like when I was a reporter for the Star.
Found a plot to stop the view of the lake by building Harborfront. Star helped me all it could. Paul Demorais built the damn thing anyway.
Ivan

[Robert McClelland]

I wasn't meaning to imply that the CBCers shouldn't criticize the CBC, only that they should be wary of how it can be used and should make sure it's smart, constructive criticism.

"Anyway, you of all people should know that this is one jihad that won't be won."

I wonder if the folks at PBS would agree with you. While I hope that the left is managing to contain this outbreak of imbecilism, I'd rather leave nothing to chance.