371 replies to this topic

[Bob Fugger]

Joe Easingwood had no staff doing any work for him, it was all Joe. That is what is like for more CFAX hosts, they have to find and prep for their own guests.

Is Joe Easingwood aware of that Google contraption?!?

[G-Man]

Anyone go to the open house at the new cbc station? I would have gone if I was in town. Kind of funny that like 30 years (or more) after the building was built for the CBC they actually move in.

[North Shore]

Anyone go to the open house at the new cbc station? I would have gone if I was in town. Kind of funny that like 30 years (or more) after the building was built for the CBC they actually move in.

I went this morning, just after 0800. Very interesting to put faces to voices/names I've woken up to for the last several years! "Begin the day with a friendly voice, a companion unobtrusive.."

Also fascinating to see how they stitch a newscast (for example) together.

As for the digs, well, I didn't see the old ones, so I have no basis for comparison, but it seemed like a good, open, bright space. (Then again, I don't work in an office, so I don't really know what makes a good one?) Spiffy on-air broadcast booths and equipment.

[Mr Cook Street]

I stopped by, and the place looks nice. It is always funny hearing the distinctive, recognizable, radio voices, emanating from unfamiliar faces. Also this morning, North by Northwest is broadcasting live from the Royal BC Museum. Free museum toques and coffee!

[Mike K.]

Where's the new studio located?

[G-Man]

In the Chek building on Blanshard and Kings. Which has kind of made a media center with CBC, Chek and the TC right there. Perhaps a good spot for the new VV office

[Mike K.]

We're done with parking lots and lawns, thank you!

[Holden West]

So I'm lying in bed this morning listening to CBC's North by Northwest and this is a rough approximation of what I'm hearing:

Host: "Thanks for the news and weather, Dave. Now let's thank our listeners for posting some beautiful spring photos on our Facebook page. A lovely picture of the cherry blossoms in Fairfield was sent to us by Floyd McFloydster.."
[BaDoop]
News guy: "What was that?"
Host: I don't know. It's happened before."
News guy: "Today?"
Host: "No, for weeks now".
"Since we got the new audio system?"
"No, even before then"
[BaDoop]
"See, there it goes again"
Me: IT'S YOUR FACEBOOK NOTIFICATION ALERT YOU IDIOTS

[Mike K.]

Haha, that's priceless

[VicHockeyFan]

http://www.thestar.c...r_with_cbc.html

 

 

CBC’s sudden decision to cut ties with star host Jian Ghomeshi came after “information” came to the public broadcasters attention that “precludes us from continuing our relationship,” a senior spokesman told the Star.

What that information is, CBC media relations chief Chuck Thompson said he was not at liberty to say.

 

 

 

Ghomeshi, meanwhile, instructed his lawyers, Dentons Canada LLP, to file suit against the CBC on his behalf when the courts open Monday morning, according to a statement from the law firm sent out Sunday afternoon.

Ghomeshi is claiming general and punitive damages for among other things, breach of confidence and bad faith in the amount of $ 50 million, the statement said. He will also launch a grievance for reinstatement under his collective agreement.

 

 

[Mike K.]

$50 million?

[http]

He's the best thing on CBC R1 for the past decade, and the most popular.  How is it that someone in management thought they could summarily fire him (without public explanation, no less) without consequence?

 

 

Denton's is big guns; I doubt Jian can pay them straight up with his CBC salary, and I doubt they would take it as percentage case if they thought there was any chance at a loss.

 

Awaiting revelations of Monday.

[VicHockeyFan]

What the heck eh, he's just suing the taxpayer, why not go for broke.  Also, usually you don't instruct your lawyer that same day, as to what and how to file the very next day in court.

 

Someone needs to cool down.

[LocalMom]

SO curious about all of this. Like http, Jian was the ONE personality I listened to and enjoyed. But then there's this:

 

https://mobile.twitt...435684832509954

 

As http said, interest is piqued.

[LocalMom]

Oh - and THIS:

http://www.xojane.co...-to-me/non-date

 

Which I am highly-suspect of - but who knows.

[Rob Randall]

Jian Ghomeshi

9 minutes ago

Dear everyone,

I am writing today because I want you to be the first to know some news.

This has been the hardest time of my life. I am reeling from the loss of my father. I am in deep personal pain and worried about my mom. And now my world has been rocked by so much more. 

Today, I was fired from the CBC.

For almost 8 years I have been the host of a show I co-created on CBC called Q. It has been my pride and joy. My fantastic team on Q are super-talented and have helped build something beautiful. 

I have always operated on the principle of doing my best to maintain a dignity and a commitment to openness and truth, both on and off the air. I have conducted major interviews, supported Canadian talent, and spoken out loudly in my audio essays about ideas, issues, and my love for this country. All of that is available for anyone to hear or watch. I have known, of course, that not everyone always agrees with my opinions or my style, but I've never been anything but honest. I have doggedly defended the CBC and embraced public broadcasting. This is a brand I’ve been honoured to help grow.

All this has now changed.

Today I was fired from the company where I've been working for almost 14 years – stripped from my show, barred from the building and separated from my colleagues. I was given the choice to walk away quietly and to publicly suggest that this was my decision. But I am not going to do that. Because that would be untrue. Because I’ve been fired. And because I've done nothing wrong. 

I’ve been fired from the CBC because of the risk of my private sex life being made public as a result of a campaign of false allegations pursued by a jilted ex girlfriend and a freelance writer.

As friends and family of mine, you are owed the truth.

I have commenced legal proceedings against the CBC, what’s important to me is that you know what happened and why.

Forgive me if what follows may be shocking to some. 

I have always been interested in a variety of activities in the bedroom but I only participate in sexual practices that are mutually agreed upon, consensual, and exciting for both partners.

About two years ago I started seeing a woman in her late 20s. Our relationship was affectionate, casual and passionate. We saw each other on and off over the period of a year and began engaging in adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission. We discussed our interests at length before engaging in rough sex (forms of BDSM). We talked about using safe words and regularly checked in with each other about our comfort levels. She encouraged our role-play and often was the initiator. We joked about our relations being like a mild form of Fifty Shades of Grey or a story from Lynn Coady's Giller-Prize winning book last year. I don’t wish to get into any more detail because it is truly not anyone's business what two consenting adults do. I have never discussed my private life before. Sexual preferences are a human right.

Despite a strong connection between us it became clear to me that our on-and-off dating was unlikely to grow into a larger relationship and I ended things in the beginning of this year. She was upset by this and sent me messages indicating her disappointment that I would not commit to more, and her anger that I was seeing others. 

After this, in the early spring there began a campaign of harassment, vengeance and demonization against me that would lead to months of anxiety.

It came to light that a woman had begun anonymously reaching out to people that I had dated (via Facebook) to tell them she had been a victim of abusive relations with me. In other words, someone was reframing what had been an ongoing consensual relationship as something nefarious. I learned – through one of my friends who got in contact with this person – that someone had rifled through my phone on one occasion and taken down the names of any woman I had seemed to have been dating in recent years. This person had begun methodically contacting them to try to build a story against me. Increasingly, female friends and ex-girlfriends of mine told me about these attempts to smear me. 

Someone also began colluding with a freelance writer who was known not to be a fan of mine and, together, they set out to try to find corroborators to build a case to defame me. She found some sympathetic ears by painting herself as a victim and turned this into a campaign. The writer boldly started contacting my friends, acquaintances and even work colleagues – all of whom came to me to tell me this was happening and all of whom recognized it as a trumped up way to attack me and undermine my reputation. Everyone contacted would ask the same question, if I had engaged in non-consensual behavior why was the place to address this the media?

The writer tried to peddle the story and, at one point, a major Canadian media publication did due diligence but never printed a story. One assumes they recognized these attempts to recast my sexual behaviour were fabrications. Still, the spectre of mud being flung onto the Internet where online outrage can demonize someone before facts can refute false allegations has been what I've had to live with. 

And this leads us to today and this moment. I’ve lived with the threat that this stuff would be thrown out there to defame me. And I would sue. But it would do the reputational damage to me it was intended to do (the ex has even tried to contact me to say that she now wishes to refute any of these categorically untrue allegations). But with me bringing it to light, in the coming days you will prospectively hear about how I engage in all kinds of unsavoury aggressive acts in the bedroom. And the implication may be made that this happens non-consensually. And that will be a lie. But it will be salacious gossip in a world driven by a hunger for "scandal". And there will be those who choose to believe it and to hate me or to laugh at me. And there will be an attempt to pile on. And there will be the claim that there are a few women involved (those who colluded with my ex) in an attempt to show a "pattern of behaviour". And it will be based in lies but damage will be done. But I am telling you this story in the hopes that the truth will, finally, conquer all. 

I have been open with the CBC about this since these categorically untrue allegations ramped up. I have never believed it was anyone's business what I do in my private affairs but I wanted my bosses to be aware that this attempt to smear me was out there. CBC has been part of the team of friends and lawyers assembled to deal with this for months. On Thursday I voluntarily showed evidence that everything I have done has been consensual. I did this in good faith and because I know, as I have always known, that I have nothing to hide. This when the CBC decided to fire me. 

CBC execs confirmed that the information provided showed that there was consent. In fact, they later said to me and my team that there is no question in their minds that there has always been consent. They said they’re not concerned about the legal side. But then they said that this type of sexual behavior was unbecoming of a prominent host on the CBC. They said that I was being dismissed for "the risk of the perception that may come from a story that could come out." To recap, I am being fired in my prime from the show I love and built and threw myself into for years because of what I do in my private life.

Let me be the first to say that my tastes in the bedroom may not be palatable to some folks. They may be strange, enticing, weird, normal, or outright offensive to others. We all have our secret life. But that is my private life. That is my personal life. And no one, and certainly no employer, should have dominion over what people do consensually in their private life. 

And so, with no formal allegations, no formal complaints, no complaints, not one, to the HR department at the CBC (they told us they’d done a thorough check and were satisfied), and no charges, I have lost my job based on a campaign of vengeance. Two weeks after the death of my beautiful father I have been fired from the CBC because of what I do in my private life.

I have loved the CBC. The Q team are the best group of people in the land. My colleagues and producers and on-air talent at the CBC are unparalleled in being some of the best in the business. I have always tried to be a good soldier and do a good job for my country. I am still in shock. But I am telling this story to you so the truth is heard. And to bring an end to the nightmare

[VicHockeyFan]

About two years ago I started seeing a woman in her late 20s. Our relationship was affectionate, casual and passionate. We saw each other on and off over the period of a year and began engaging in adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission. We discussed our interests at length before engaging in rough sex (forms of BDSM). We talked about using safe words and regularly checked in with each other about our comfort levels. She encouraged our role-play and often was the initiator. We joked about our relations being like a mild form of Fifty Shades of Grey or a story from Lynn Coady's Giller-Prize winning book last year. I don’t wish to get into any more detail because it is truly not anyone's business what two consenting adults do.

 

 

Why write about it on Facebook then?

[Mike K.]

Oh - and THIS:
http://www.xojane.co...-to-me/non-date

Which I am highly-suspect of - but who knows.

Classic:

"I also figured that the friendship might lead to exciting Toronto career opportunities down the line."

Excellent reason to befriend someone.

[sebberry]

50 million... shades of grey?

[Jill]

Why write about it on Facebook then?

 

Probably because he's just lost his job over this, even though, as he points out, no one has made a formal complaint against him.