CBC News Vancouver was at the Abbotsford Entertainment & Sports Centre as part of being “on the road to visit communities around Metro Vancouver and in the Fraser Valley”. The promotions touted that they would be examining the stories of import to the citizens of the community they were visiting that day.
Did CBC News Vancouver address issues of local import or was their claim of addressing issues of local import simply more media hype?
I can only knowledgably address whether CBC News Vancouver addressed stories of import to the citizens of Abbotsford during their visit to the AE&SC.
During a record setting wet spring Abbotsford was the only lower mainland community to impose water rationing (or in politician speak: watering restrictions) beginning April 1st with the imposition of tighter rationing July 1st.
Given: Abbotsford city council is offering tax holidays to promote growth, even though the water delivery system is inadequate to meet current needs even under favourable (record wet spring) conditions; that council has stated they no intention of bringing needed upgrades to the water delivery system on line before 2018; the large capital cost involved in upgrading the water delivery system and the financial bind/disaster that city council has placed the City of Abbotsford in; the importance of water to the liveability of modern cities.
The issue of the water supply for the City of Abbotsford is of prime, if not the primary, interest to the citizens of Abbotsford. Did this item of considerable consequential importance receive even a mention on the CBC News Vancouver when they visited the Abbotsford Entertainment & Sports Centre?
No.
Given: Abbotsford city council has raised fees for sports fields, rinks and other sporting venues such that more and more children cannot afford the fees to participate in organized sports in Abbotsford; the fees for the cities exercise facilities are higher than the fees for private facilities; the city pleads poverty in addressing any of the growing social issues plaguing Abbotsford; that Abbotsford city council acknowledges that the act governing municipalities is designed to prevent the type of agreement entered into between the Abbotsford Heat and the City of Abbotsford but proudly claims to have legally circumvented this prohibition.
Did CBC News Vancouver ask mayor Peary about the fact Abbotsford City Council is purchasing, or at least contributing millions of dollars to the purchase, of a professional hockey team for a few wealthy, and obviously well connected, Abbotsford business people?
Did CBC News Vancouver ask Mayor Peary how or why a mayor would be proud of circumventing the intent of the act legislating municipal governance?
No and No.
Given: even the most cursory research on usage of the Abbotsford Entertainment & Sports Centre would reveal that the facility is seldom used; that the usage by other that the Abbotsford Heat is decreasing, tending to zero; that the AE&SC has become, for all intents and purposes a private facility for the Abbotsford Heat.
Did CBC News Vancouver do even minimal due diligence before professing the AE&SC ‘well-used’?
No.
No, No and No, No. Is CBC News Vancouver guilty of false advertising for the claim that they would be examining the stories of import to the citizens of Abbotsford when they broadcast from the AE&SC?
Is No, No and No, No merely further evidence that broadcast television has for years misused the term ‘news’ instead of the more accurate and reflective of reality: ‘stories that will sell the most advertising, maximizing the contribution of the stories department to the bottom line’?
Or does No, No and No, No attest that the over-the-air broadcast stories (aka ‘news’), in its focus on pursuit of profit over useful or needed information delivery, made itself as redundant1 as the over-the-air Canadian broadcast television currently is?
I would answer Yes, Yes, Yes. But Readers must consider the information and decide for themselves.
1Footnote: The over-the-air Canadian broadcast television is a Sunset Industry as it evolved to rebroadcast foreign, primarily US, television programming to Canadians in an era when there were no alternative ways to cost effectively deliver this programming. Cable, internet, phone lines and satellites can now deliver programming, more programming, more efficiently than over-the-air broadcast television. This is why maintaining the over-the-air Canadian broadcast television as it is currently constituted requires a permanent tax subsidy imposed on Canadians by the CRTC. Without this permanent subsidy the industry will be forced to contract and re-invent itself in alignment with the market for over-the-air broadcast television services in Canada.