Raise the Hammer

Here's what we don't need from CBC Hamilton:

• Bleeding leads. Let the outlets who are beholden to advertisers do what they know best: take police and fire scanner results and write out all of the gory details. This is safe news for them so let them have it. Skip it and give us some slow-game investigative stuff instead.
• That map - it looks nice and I love maps but it's non intuitive and gets in the way of the real content. The Dalton McGuinty story shows up in a bubble centred on James North. Like.... why? A map is fine for traffic but maybe not the best format for citywide news.
• Traffic reports - honestly - let the other guys work the traffic. It's a waste of limited resources that should be spent on more interesting stories.
• Human interest stuff. OK, we all like a little feel good story here and there but again, it's a waste of limited resources.

Here's what we do need - and fast:

• Investigative reporting of the stories that the other guys simply won't touch. Stories involving homebuilders, car advertisers, McMaster's screwups, etc. The other guys are afraid of lots of important material in this city because their paycheques depend on keeping the players happy. The first thing the CBC should have done when they started up was to take a huge issue and blow it open. SOmething like Aerotropolis for example. Instead we got fashion blog posts.

I kind of want to leave it as that one point because that's the only way the CBC are going to give anything productive to this city. They are going to have to pick some hard stories and work really hard at getting into the details that no one else is looking at. But I'll add a couple more:

• A real radio format - whether it's online or shared with CFMU, we need some actual audio.
• Local reporters who know the city and can think up some big issues worth delving into. People who aren't so amazed that the art crawl exists that they spend 25/31 days per month writing about it.
• Maybe a couple veteran CBC reporters who know what they can get away with in terms of investigative journalism. I am all for some fresh voices but they will be inherently nervous about doing anything groundbreaking so early in their careers.

I really want them to do something good for this city. Man... I don't want to lose them but at this rate they won't last. I hope they heed our calls.

You know what would make the CBC instantly better? If they replaced all of their aggregated crap with CATCH. I get more information from View than I do from CBC thanks to CATCH alone. If you're getting beaten by View, you know you have a serious problem.

Comment edited by seancb on 2012-10-15 23:11:06