CBC has received at least 350 e-mails protesting against the network's move to purge from its Web site the Coach's Corner segment in which Ron MacLean and Don Cherry argued the Iraq war. That and this report from The Globe and Mail's William Houston Posted on 04/10/2003 7:18:51 PM PDT by mhking
CBC has received at least 350 e-mails protesting against the network's move to purge from its Web site the Coach's Corner segment in which Ron MacLean and Don Cherry argued the Iraq war. That and this report from The Globe and Mail's William Houston
"Not one e-mail has agreed with the decision," a television source said. "No one has said it was a good idea. The response to the CBC has ranged from 'You're insulting us' to 'What is this? Russia?' "
The March 22 segment of Hockey Night in Canada's intermission show was removed from the CBC on-line page last week, right about the time Cherry repeated his pro-war remarks on a U.S. radio show. He also blamed the booing of the American anthem in Montreal on "French Canadians" and said the publicly subsidized CBC was "run by the government."
The CBC sharply criticized Cherry, stating that his remarks were "uninformed" and "inappropriate."
But that's only part of the story. The internal developments that led to Coach's Corner getting the hook on-line included differing views among management and a high-level meeting.
Two days after the spot aired, Joel Darling, the executive producer of Hockey Night, told the on-line department to pull it. However, the Webcasters balked, believing it should be part of the record.
Nancy Lee, the head of CBC Sports, was asked her opinion and said she felt it should stay. After all, the other Coach's Corner segments from this season are archived.
But Harold Redekopp, the executive vice-president of CBC Television, disagreed. A meeting was set up between Redekopp and Lee and the head of the on-line department.
"Harold, to his credit, listened to them plead their case -- the case being that it is censorship," a source said. "But he insisted it be taken down."
Redekopp, of course, made the wrong decision. In his attempt to suppress the spot, he gave it more attention.
The Web story was reported in Canada and in the United States, and the network received plenty of bad publicity.
There is also the risk, now, that information about the content of the controversial Coach's Corner will be distorted and become fiction -- that Cherry, for example, used a slur against French Canadians, when he did not.
"The argument that the on-line people made to Redekopp was that he was making the situation worse on a lot of levels," a source said.
"If word starts spreading that Cherry said this and that, and called French Canadians a pejorative, there's no public record to show that he did not." That and this report from The Globe and Mail's William Houston
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The "They" being the Frog-Canadians, not the Anglo-Canadians.
It's a Quebecker thing, not a Anglo-Canadian thing.
"Dont let the left-wing media types tell you you cant make in to the NHL if you want it bad enough youll get there dont let them discourage you"
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