THE SHAMELESS CBC

     Over the last few years — fueled in part by a $675 million boost to its funding by the Liberal government — CBC has pursued an aggressive policy of expanding its online news site.
    If a reporter scores an important scoop or completes a lengthy investigation, within hours that story will be quickly rewritten and posted to CBC.ca for free, and often without attribution (watch for the phrase “CBC has learned” to spot these types of rewrites).
To be sure, rewriting a competitor’s scoops is common across the industry, but one has to wonder how “constantly rewriting someone else’s reporting” fits within any reasonable interpretation of the CBC mandate. It is the action of a news organization mercilessly slugging it out for web views, not a broadcaster that ostensibly uses its millions in federal funding to stand above the fray.

   On top of everything CBC.ca is still fighting for online ad dollars. Despite having most of their bills paid by the public treasury, CBC.ca still sells online ads as a fun extra revenue stream — rather than as the existential bid for survival that it is for their competitors.