The CBC’s Peter Mansbridge will become an officer of the Order of Canada, according to a list of 75 appointees released yesterday by Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean.
Mansbridge, the chief correspondent of CBC News, anchors the flagship nightly news program The National and also hosts Newsworld’s Mansbridge One on One.
Born in London in 1948, the newsman — who turns 60 on Sunday — was educated in Ottawa and served in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1966 and 1967.
His career with the CBC began by chance when someone from the public broadcaster overheard him on the public address system at an airport in the town of Churchill, Man., where he was working for the airline Transair, and asked him to come work at the local radio station. He was 19.
I wonder if Canada is recognizing journalists and story-tellers as becoming people who actively shape the nation, as opposed to “just” reporting on it? Should our role be simply to reflect the changing nation, or do we have some responsibility to participate in that reshaping? I mean, I’m totally happy for Peter and the CBC, but — and I can’t quite put my finger on why — but this one’s not quite as cut-and-dry for me.
What do you think?
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I think I understand where you’re coming from here, Tod, and you are sticking your neck out a bit on this one. But you are speaking for a lot of us who’ve practiced journalism and broadcasting. Peter is not a jerk, and we’re all happy for him. But something about these kinds of awards makes us feel that there should be more substance to it if it’s going to be deserved. I could see Patrick Watson and Laurier LaPierre and others who’ve walked on the edges of daring broadcasting, but Peter doesn’t exactly have a history of doing much of anything other than … his job. Seems to me he’s been rewarded sufficiently, really.
But it’s not surprising. Our government these days is pretty milquetoast.
I think you are musing about a CBC that once was, and cannot return, given current management practices and program philosophy. Oh, there are a very few remaining glorious remnants of the past, but they’re fast fading to black. When the CBC Board is simply a rubber stamp, there is little hope for the future.
Tod, I understand what you’re saying, but my view is that anchors bring a sense of calm and help to rationalize the day’s events for people. Obviously they are but the public face of a huge team of reporters, writers, researchers, etc., but what they do, and how they do it, really sets the tone for what the audience thinks and how much they trust the CBC as an organization. I don’t really see Mansbridge as winning the award “just” for his reporting, or even particularly for having taken an activist role in shaping the nation — far from it.
By the way, you’ve written “oyesterday” in your first paragraph.
I think the best of journalists have always been as much nation-shapers as anything else, or anyone else in Canada. Certainly, the true is same elsewhere across this planet.