The Sun Takes Another Shot
Yesterday the Ottawa Sun published an article on CBC executives raking up $60,000 in expenses during six months in 2006.
The article, like several others the Sun has published over the last few months, was based on an Access to Information documents. It details various expenses, like a day and half conference in Gatineau for 47 employees that cost $18,300. Gatineau is “just a few kilometres from CBC’s Ottawa headquarters,” the article noted.
Yesterday the CBC responded to the article saying it “paints a one-sided picture.” The CBC press release says “The vast majority of team meetings are held on our premises via telephone or videoconference, at little or no cost.” Adding that with the recession “off-site meeting expenditures have been reduced to the minimum.”
“Even though we still think these meetings are desirable on occasion, the associated budgets were the first to be cut when CBC/Radio-Canada was hit by the economic downturn,” the release says.
This is the latest round in a fight between the CBC and the Ottawa Sun that has been going on for a couple months now. Most recently, the Sun took a few shots in February when the corporation was hoping to get bridge financing, a move the paper characterized as asking for a “handout from taxpayers.” If it had gone ahead, bridge financing would not have cost taxpayers anything.
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With all those meals and drinks, no wonder Stursberg is gaining weight.
hey paul that same article was in yesterday’s winnipeg sun
I guess the article was in the whole Sun chain then.
For some background to the problematic aspects of the Sun Media chain check out this blog :
http://torontosunfamily.blogspot.com/
It seems like a pretty brutal place to work right now.
The response reveals much about the CBC and its claims of transparency.
They’re happy to go after others, and demand accountability, but turn the tables and it’s clear the CBC itself is very proficient at playing games.
First off, Paul, I want to say that I appreciate the effort you make here.
But I will challenge you if something I think a contrary view is missing from the discussion, and after all that’s what a blog is is for is it not?
I think you’re a little too quick to refer to the Sun chain as being in a “fight” with the CBC. That speaks to motives, when this is still a newspaper chain in the business of journalism.
Is the CBC in a “fight” with Brian Mulroney when they expose facts that have gone unreported?
Why then is the Sun in a fight with the CBC when they report on executive expenses? Was the CBC planning to reveal these costs?
Of course they weren’t.
Is the CBC covering up something?
I suggest that it is indeed avoiding being forthcoming about their actions.
Where in their carefully crafted response do they address the purchase of several bottles of wine (for so-called business meeting!) that were billed at $65 each?
What is their justification?
I don’t see anything referring to these.
And I don’t know why it seems so acceptable that alcohol would be a routine expense during work hours.
The CBC is response is a glaring example of why we need reporters, from any news organization, questioning the actions of CBC management.
I thought the Sun piece was a good example of a public service, and it seems that the CBC still takes the position that they did nothing wrong.
So for some us, the “fight”/the reporting, isn’t over when the CBC thinks everything they do is justified.
It appeared in the Ottawa branch paper as well. No surprise there, just sadness at the inevitability of it.
We need a third daily paper in Ottawa so badly…and I still hold that CBC ought to be fielding a national daily paper. The talent’s already been doing the work for the web service pretty well – even swamped as they’ve been and will be for months and years to come – and the brand name for the paper’s masthead is already tied to the CBC lock and stock.
Jan. 8, 2011
Where are the pages that show CBC executive expense submissions?
I used to be able to find them, but CBC keeps moving them, and now they seem completely hidden and unavailable.
Can you find them, Paul?
What’s with the CBC hiding this stuff?