They offered me the office, offered me the shop. They said I'd better take anything they'd got. Do you wanna make tea at the CBC?
Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Inside the CBC

Tonight the CBC gets serious about sanctioned corporate blogging by launching inside the CBC, a news/gossip/hype blog. But it's not written by a committee or by a communications flunkie. It's written by lockout blogger, podcast visionary, dot-com millionaire, high school dropout, CBC freelancer, and CMG member Tod Maffin.

They've given him free reign to write the official blog of the CBC, unfettered and unedited. And they've opened up the comments, too.

Keep in mind that its the idea of the Ottawa Corporate Communications Department, architects of Rabinovitch's disastrous "silence is golden" media campaign of the 2005 lockout.

To go from that to this signifies a radical rethink.

For so long, the CBC has been in reactive mode on this stuff, like Stursberg's recent clumsy stint at the Globe and Mail. To actually reach out to employees and audiences in a direct, unfiltered, honest way is a major shift in how we deal with each other and the Canadian public. And a good one.

The truth is that since the lockout last year, the CBC has been studying blogs - including this one - very closely. They've learned a lot.

The stakes are high. The CBC risks embarrassment if Tod fucks up or turns on them, and Tod risks looking like a corporate lapdog.

Then again, maybe the stakes are not so high after all? To fuck up is human, and Tod is no lapdog, I can assure you.

What's the worst that can happen?

Whatever it is, at least we'll get to see it unedited.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How come we have to hear this from you, Ouimet?

The ubiquitous Net Pub Eng sure has lots to say when managers are appointed. Where's the Net Pub Eng announcement about something we could actually use?

8:30 AM, June 30, 2006

 
Blogger Ouimet said...

That's why you must read the Tea Makers every day, no matter what your boss says.

9:07 AM, June 30, 2006

 
Anonymous mondo bondo said...

Has anyone noticed that Ouimette looks like a very young Elvis? Maybe from Kid Creole?

10:36 AM, July 03, 2006

 
Anonymous Johnny Happypants said...

OK, I've given it a week.

Lapdog?

Are you being optimistic or kind?

"Inside the CBC" seems to be "the Grapevine" with slightly different formatting.

On a day when the National Post has an article "Heritage Minister cancels review of CBC Mandate", this clown features stories about a sale in the CBC shop and his upcoming white-bread tour of BC.

6:37 PM, July 06, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have to agree with Johnny. It may be pretty but it's nauseatingly bland, as well as horribly chirpy and outrageously optimistic. You'd think the CBC was a vibrant organization instead of a sinking ship with idiots as managers.As far as I'm concerned it's just another piece of management propaganda. I gave it a week but now I've seen enough.

12:51 AM, July 10, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah yes the Canadian institution that’s has an opinion of it’s self far beyond arrogant and self serving. They will give you cultural and financial reasons why they must stay in existence to hold our country together????? They will tell you about the protection of Canada’s private broad casters forgetting to mention they are the most protected of all with my tax dollars. They will sight England and France having more tax dollars paid per captia to public broad casting than Canada. They will also tell you Canada has the forth lowest level of public broad cast contribution of 18 Western countries.

They will tell you left on it’s own Canadian programming would not exist. Who knows Politicians have been hood winked into propping up the CBC forever

They will tell you they are Canada’s national broadcaster Forgetting the other net works who care equally if not for Canada

They will tell you they have a mandate which contributes to strengthening Canadian democracy, promoting and protecting Canadian culture and sovereignty. They say they will tell the country’s stories in a Canadian way. Providing a domestic perspective on international events. What do the other net works do????

They will help audience’s form their own opinions based on facts with unbiased factual information and help us also learn about each other. They will tell you with out considering the population is becoming more diverse there is a risk that social diversity could fragment us and cause isolationism but they can hold the country together. !WHAT! More Arrogance

In case any one at CBC reads this you are not the only ones who care about Canada.

Sorry to see job cuts

C

6:46 PM, March 20, 2009

 

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You are all heroes! Heroes!
- Anonymous

Ouimet is a flame under the CBC's ass and I love him/her for that... The philosophy behind bloggers like Ouimet is simply that conversations are good.
- Matt Forsythe

Ouimet is a flame under the CBC's ass and I love him/her for that... The philosophy behind bloggers like Ouimet is simply that conversations are good.
- Matt Forsythe

I'm reading everyone's comments with interest and will continue to do so for the next five years, whether the stuff I read agrees or not with what I am doing or trying to achieve.
- President Hubert

Interesting discussion at The Tea Makers if you can get past the language.
- Joanne (True Blue)

More than any other initiative or internal project Ouimet is demonstrating not only where the future of the organization lies, but also the challenges and obstacles that it will face.
- Jesse Hirsh

... disgraceful, reprehensible and, in so many ways, beyond rebuke
- KFP Payan

S/He is a hero!!!
- Canadian Blue Lemons

Always mouthy but still anonymous CBC navel gazer
- Parkdale Pictures

I make you ill? Great. Vomit away. Get rid of all that pleasing bile. Then go look in the mirror and ask, "hey, what have *I* added to the culture today?"
- Denis McGrath

Being in the employ of a sibling Clown Copulation, it amazes me that talent such as this thrive in the crown corporate cultures. Seems to me the best one can expect are Capons of Management, at worst, saboteurs like these.
- Th'PonyToBetOn

Surreal.
- Neil Sanderson

Feel free to contact us directly if you'd like confirmation / clarification on this kind of stuff.
- Jeff Keay, Head of Media Relations, CBC

I never gave that blogger permission to use our interview… I don’t think asking or being polite and showing common courtesy are in [her] vocabulary either…
- Barbara W

Ouch, these people are harsh!
- Hal Niedzviecki, Globe and Mail

Ouimet, I applaud you. This guy is a douche of extraordinary douchebagginess.
- JupiterPluvius

Much of the [CBC] blogging is banal but the standout is one allegedly written by a CBC manager.
- John Doyle, Globe and Mail
August 23, 2005

During the lockout of CBC staff in 2005, there was a sudden flowering of online commentary about the lockout and the CBC. Some of it made for fascinating reading ... Those that remained descended into the usual anonymously written, infantile nonsense. What passes for humour is often hilariously badly written hatred of real journalists.
- John Doyle, Globe and Mail
January 4, 2007

One of [CBC's] best known lockout apologists.
- CBC Watch

You're not a management stooge blogger. You can put that in your sidebar if you want ;>)
- The CBC Drone

An ungrateful rebel.
- Allan Sorensen

Predictably dismissive.
- Small Dead Animals

The best-written exercise in tough love aimed at CBC management and naysayers.
- Guy Dixon, Globe and Mail

Hey Ouimet, fuck you!!!
- Fuck Ouimet


CBC Blogging Manifesto

"[The CBC Blogging Manifesto] offers good advice to those wishing to blog about CBC/Radio-Canada, or to those wishing to carry out any similar self-publishing activity."
- CBC Senior Management