Bob CollinsFormer NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin never shied away from a good fight. He’s now a visiting professor in Toronto and writes quite a bit about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation vs. National Public Radio.
On his blog this week he takes on a sore subject — the allegation that public broadcasting is “elitist.” As usual, he makes few apologies.
As my friend and former CBC colleague Karl Nerenberg says, “Some think CBC may have already hurt itself by being too populist. But it has always been a tails they win, heads you lose situation for CBC TV. If they focus on quality and do not get big audiences, they’re too elitist and not worthy of public $$. If they try for bigger gross tonnage with more “pop” fare — then, the response is: who needs to pay them to do what commercial broadcasters already do! In a way, CBC can’t win.”
