Stewart had been filling the role on an interim basis since the former vice-president, Richard Stursberg, was dismissed in August.

A few minutes after the announcement Stewart sent this note to staff:

January 10, 2011 – When I was little, I had a tickle trunk. It was red, just like the one on TV. In the morning I watched Casey and Finnegan and Mr. Dressup discover new things everyday, dressing up in what they found in their tickle trunk.

The CBC has for 74 years been that place where Canadians, of all ages, are taken on journeys, of all kinds, to so many different and interesting places.

My particular journey has taken me from watching Mr. Dressup, to working at the place that brought those magical stories into my home. And now today I have the privilege of leading an organization that holds such an important place in the hearts and minds of people across this country.

Canadians have always expected that their public broadcaster reflect, engage and inspire them, and that is when CBC does our best work. It is when we recognize and respect this country’s unique attributes that the CBC, in any form or medium, truly thrives.

The CBC gives the information and analysis Canadians need, from breaking news to enterprise stories to current affairs and everything in between. And even when the news we deliver is hard, we make it easy to get to, whether hearing it on 99.1, watching it on Rogers 582 or using an Android app to connect to CBC News.

The stories we tell, whether real or fictional, showcase a diversity of voice that recognizes and respects that Canadians have an insatiable curiosity. As a nation we enjoy a wide range of content that stimulates our brains, our hearts and even our funny bones. Canadians can thrill in the victory of favourite hockey teams, jump into a heated discussion of today’s politics, and the next minute, can relax to the sounds of a favourite piece of music.

And CBC knows how important it is to make programming that satisfies all these varied desires, and we build on what we’ve learned to make programming that celebrates and programming that challenges. But while the content may be challenging, CBC will make how Canadians get to their content easier than ever before.

CBC will define contemporary public broadcasting. We will use new platforms, new means to connect Canadians to the CBC, and to connect Canadians to each other. We will help to facilitate conversations both national and local.

For the past 74 years, the CBC has mattered. And as we move forward we will build on the best of our past to make the greatest of our future, so that CBC will matter even more.

Kirstine

The Age of Persuasion, a fascinating radio program about the black art of marketing, is finally available as a podcast.

The show, which uses tons of TV and Radio clips from ad campaigns has been struggling to get the legal rights sorted out to podcast for, well, it seems like forever.

The host of the show, Terry O’Reilly, personally made the announcement on the show’s blog, a few days ago.

Since the launch the podcast has been in the number 1 spot on iTunes’ top podcast list.

The show is also beefing up its web site. This season they’re adding lots of visual material to accompany the shows. Last weekend’s post was about green marketing, and with lots of images and YouTube videos, it’s a really fascinating entry.

The show is also celebrating it’s recent launch in the Chicago market. Under a distribution deal with PRI it was picked up by WBEZ in Chicago, the third largest radio market in the U.S.

If you haven’t heard the show before, you need to check it out, in my opinion its one of the best shows CBC Radio has to offer, you can find out more here.

I’ve been knee deep in the development of the new CBC initiative called Live Right Now.

It’s a massive initiative, straight across the country, and unfortunately it’s been consuming all my time and more.

The idea for Live Right Now is that we, we as a country I mean, can take hold of this epidemic of obesity and poor health in this country by taking a few small steps ourselves. If we then inspire a few friends with our changes, we can spark a movement.

The idea strikes at the core of the problem in this country. We are not necessarily overweight or obese because we don’t care. We care, it’s just that often we don’t know what to do, or we’ve stopped knowing how to do it, or frankly we have no-one to do it with. Taking a few small steps can open a door to learning more, knowing more, and getting back on the right path.

It’s a huge issue, in Canada estimates are that 2/3 of the country are either overweight or obese. Obesity alone affects one in four Canadians.

Think that it isn’t a critical issue? I think I heard that the obesity epidemic will cost the health care system $90 billion dollars. Personally obesity will shave years off your life. Dr. Arya Sharma, an obesity doctor, was saying on the Current on Monday that he doesn’t really see many older obese patients at his clinic. Because they don’t live that long.

Scary stuff.

Anyway, I’ve been working my butt off getting the site for the Live Right Now initiative ready, so, if you’re inclined take a peek, and maybe you’ll find something there to inspire others to change.

If this isn’t the best thing in the whole world, I don’t know what is.

It’s a Peter Mansbridge snow globe. There’s also a George snow globe, a HNIC snow globe, and a Being Erica snow globe, but none are as phenomenal as the Peter Mansbrige snow globe.

If you want one, come by my desk later this afternoon with a dollar, and I’ll sell you one. All proceeds go to charity.

And you thought you were done your Christmas shopping.

Now don’t get me wrong, my inner nerd is happier than a kid on Christmas about all this social media stuff. It just seems a bit, uhm… contrived.

I hope his office has the staying power to really keep up with it.

Beyond that I really think Lapointe has made a effort to set up the channels in order to be open and transparent here; and that’s truly commendable.

As the first post on the site says:

The CBC belongs to the people of Canada. As the public broadcaster, the CBC plays a unique role in Canadian journalism. At the CBC information is a public service. The Ombudsman is here to ensure CBC upholds its standards and practices to provide you with information programming of the highest quality.

We recognize your right to accuracy, fairness and integrity in CBC’s journalism. And we recognize your right to hold CBC accountable for the quality of its information programming.

What do you think of the new ombudsman site?

Watch until the 1:00 mark.

Too funny.

If you’re like me and you’re way behind on your Christmas shopping, you may be interested in these vintage CBC buttons for that special loved one in your life.

The description on the Etsy posting says it all:

I believe The Tragically Hip said it best, and I paraphrase from memory…”I was raised on TV, with nothing to live or die for, no religion too…”

The CBC.
It’s a Canadian Thing eh!

All that for only $6.25 USD.

You’re welcome.

The presentation will be from 12:30 to 1:30 at the Glenn Gould studio in Toronto.

Stewart will be joined by Neil McEneaney, executive director, finance and administration management, Jack Tomik, general manager, the revenue group (aka sales and marketing) and Fred Mattocks, general manager, media operations and technology.

They will be providing an overview of their respective areas.

If you’d like to put a question to any of these guys, or to Stewart herself, you can submit it in advance, to Quarterly.Update@cbc.ca. Note that this is an internal employee presentation and questions are meant to be from CBC employees only.

This media slap-fest has been ongoing for a while, and it’s about the dullest fight in town.

Since 2007 Quebecor has been trying to inflict death by a thousand paper cuts on the ceeb.

Its lawyers have been filling hundreds of access to information requests, getting entangled in legal fights, and this week they launched series of thinly-veiled Sun Media stories and editorials.

Although this whole thing started in Quebec, it’s since spilled into English Canada.

This week, Brian Lilley, of Quebecor’s-Sun-Media Parliamentary Bureau, lead the charge.

Early in the week he wrote a story of the CBC’s ‘anti-Americanism’, then followed that followed that with another story about how many trucks are in the CBC fleet, and finished off the whole week with a story on executive salaries.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that the journalism in the stories isn’t solid.

There’s a good deal of important information in the Sun Media stories; the fact that CBC executives paid out $800,000 in bonuses just prior to laying 800 workers, as Lilley uncovered, is alarming, as is some of the other stuff he’s dug up.

But the larger question I ask myself is what’s the motive?

Is this journalism in service of Sun Media’s readers? Or is this journalism in service of Quebecor’s business objectives?

I’ll leave that question for you to decide, in the meantime, here’s what the CBC’s Bill Chambers, the VP of communications, said this week:

We have not always had a perfect record on Access to Information, nor do we now. In the first weeks of being subject to the Act, we received approximately 400 requests from David Statham, Michel Drapeau and their partners, who have publicly acknowledged working for Quebecor Media. The extraordinary circumstances caused by this unprecedented volume has been recognized by both the Office of the Information Commissioner and the courts, including the Federal Court of Appeal in a judgment rendered last week against Mr. Statham.

Chambers went on to say:

As part of our belief in freedom of the press, we affirm fervently Quebecor’s right to pursue information relevant to the public interest, even from within CBC/Radio-Canada. As stewards of a public institution charged with “informing, enlightening and entertaining” Canadians, we will, in the same breath, try to ensure that the public is aware when anyone’s treatment of that information is distorted or misrepresents the truth. The Sun Media series has demonstrated how easy it is to select and twist facts to further a self-interested campaign.

What do you think?

Several CBC employees recently took part in Movember, a mash up of November and mustache.

According to Wikipedia Movember is “an annual month-long event involving the growing of mustaches during the month of November… to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer and depression.”

Ryan Couldrey, a CBC employee who also works as a photographer, captures the hair-raising results in Toronto. Click here to see the individual profile shots.

There were also Movember events in Ottawa and Vancouver.

In Vancouver, participants got the Mayor to officially proclaim the month of November as Movember. They even managed to persuade the mayor to grow his own mustache.

In Ottawa, “Stu Mills was also a participant in the Movember festivities, growing his very own “Stu Manchu” and drawing attention from the likes of singer-songwriter Jim Bryson.” Bod LeDrew a former CBC staffer and contributor, said in the comments, “Stu was the top Movember fundraiser in Ottawa, with more than $11K raised!”

In total Canadians raised $19,890,551 during the Movember fund-hair-raising drive.

Congratulations to all who participated.

As Bill Brioux, the Canadian Press television critic, said on his blog, last week’s episode drew 925,000 viewers.

Brioux  says this surprising given that the show is not a promotional priority for the corporation. He says the cast has come to describe the show as “the series between two shows CBC promotes.”

“Being backed into a tight corner seems to have emboldened the cast and writers,” Brioux wrote yesterday. With little promotion coming from the corporation, they’ve taken matters into their own hands.

In October they released a video of 80 year-old Gordon Pinsent reading bits of teen-sensation Justin Bieber’s memoir. That video has 60,000 views.

This week they were quick to react to Danny Williams’ resignation and put together another Pinsent bit. They uploaded this clip in advance of tonight’s show:

The show airs tonight (Tuesday) at 8:30.

The massive image rotator that used to consume the top of the screen is gone replaced by much more news and sports content. The new page packs in more stories, and longer headlines. Shockingly, it’s also aligned in the centre of the page.

With the renewed newsy feel to the page, Radio and Televison programming has been given less prominence.

Check out the new page here. What do you think?

The index of all the documents is available here.

Posting the documents online makes them available to the general public, not just the person who made the request. The CBC also committed to updating the site as new documents are released.

CBC President and CEO, Hubert Lacroix said of the announcement ”we’re taking yet another step in our efforts to give Canadians the information they need to understand the way we manage their money.”

Ryan Couldrey, a CBC employee who also works as a photographer, wants to capture the hair-raising results.

He’s organizing a photo shoot for Toronto employees next Tuesday, Nov 30th, from 10am to 3:30pm.

Here’s the flyer for the event.

In a piece in the Globe’s blog today, Spector says to the long running feud between Quebecor and Radio-Canada in La Belle Province, “now includes Anglo journalists who’ve been drafted in support of Quebecor’s war against Radio-Canada.”

The piece was prompted by an article in the Sun today about the CBC’s efforts to fend off a bunch of access to information requests, some of which were filed by Sun Media.

In case you were uncertain about Sun Media’s stance on the issue, the online article was accompanied by this clever little graphic.

Spector didn’t point out that this war of words with Sun Media has been going on for quite some time now.

In April last year, Sun Media published a series of articles on expenses of senior CBC executives.

Prior to that in February, CBC President Hubert Lacroix got into a tit-for-tat with Greg Weston, a reporter with the Ottawa Sun. At the time Lacroix accused Weston of “horrendously distort[ing] the facts,” saying his reporting of issues were “distortion of facts or are flat-out wrong.”

The new guidelines, officially known as the CBC Journalistic Standards and Practices, was released this afternoon after having been approved by the board of directors.

The document entirely reorganizes the previous edition. It’s now loosely organized around beats, but there are number of sections around the use of social media.

First off, the document states that the CBC won’t give in to the urge of other news organizations and many blogs in posting first, and verify later.

It says “We are consistent in our standards, no matter what the platform, in disseminating information. If we would not put the information on air or on our own website, we would not use social media to report that information.”

Many CBC News staffers will be surprised to learn that these guidelines also apply to their personal use of social media.

In our personal social media activity, we are mindful of our professional association with CBC, and ensure what we do conform to CBC social media and conflict of interest policies.

These new standards are not dramatically different from other employee conduct documents that have been released in the last few years. However given the proliferation of social media, they represent a renewed effort by the corporation to protect the CBC brand when employees are using social media in their personal lives.

Implicit in this effort is the acknowledgement that social media is public and ever-present and that the lines between personal and professional lives are becoming non-existent.

Enkin said that the guidelines are not set in stone. “Our goal is to make this a living document. It is a tool to help our journalists make smart, ethical decisions in situations where there are many shades of grey, and to guide them to carry out the best public-service journalism we can provide,” she said this afternoon.

The new guidelines are available here. What do you think of them?

To support a family all you have to do is send an email to remembrance.souvenir@cbc.ca with your name and employee ID number (it’s on your security pass).

When you send the email a one-time donation of $11 will be made to the Canadian Military Families Fund (MFF). Your donation will be deducted from your December 2nd paycheque and a charitable tax receipt will be sent to your home address.

Founded by General Rick Hillier, the fund helps children who have lost a parent or whose parent has been seriously wounded while serving this country.

The deadline is this Friday, Nov 12th.

Fred Parker, the chief director at The National, is the man behind the initiative.

“Throughout the years I’ve spent covering Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, I never cease to be touched by the faces of the victims of war and by those who are wounded by the loss or the injury of a loved one.

Up until last year, I kept thinking that there had to be a way to show support to the families of those who make the ultimate sacrifice and put themselves in harm’s way for the love of their country. Thinking back, I wonder why no one ever thought of supporting the families of the victims of war in this way, sooner.

It’s such a simple initiative – all it takes is 11 dollars to begin to make a difference in the lives of those families touched by war – but its impact is profound,” Parker explained on the internal employee portal. “I really feel that this could help military families heal in a way they otherwise might not be able to. And we would have a hand in that recovery.”

The funds go to after school programs, counseling services, or any other program designed to help a child who has lost a parent or whose parent has been seriously wounded while serving this country.

Since the departure of Dave Scapillati in 2009, Moore has been serving as the Executive Director of CBC Sports and the General Manager of the marketing and sales department.

In a note to staff this afternoon, Kirstine Stewart, the interim vice-president of English CBC, said “I know this wasn’t an easy choice for Scott to make, as he believes deeply in the mandate of the public broadcaster and has been a strong supporter of our current strategies. He’s made a “next step” career decision, which is not uncommon among talented people. I want to thank Scott for his contributions to the organization over the past four years.”

November 4, 2010 – CBC Radio fans can now listen to CBC Radio One, Radio 2 and Radio 3 on iPad thanks to the latest update to the highly popular CBC Radio app. The new universal app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is available now on the Apple App Store.

“It’s truly exciting to be able to offer the full slate of CBC Radio’s diverse program excellence in such accessible and innovative ways via the iPad. It feels like a whole new rich content experience,” said Denise Donlon, general manager, CBC Radio.

Listeners can listen live to any CBC Radio station across Canada or program favourite CBC Radio shows on-demand such as The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti, Q with Jian Ghomeshi, The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers, the new Day 6 with Brent Bambury, Writers & Company with Eleanor Wachtel, As it Happens with Carol Off and much more.

Enjoy live streams of CBC Radio 2 including Radio 2 Morning hosted by Bob Mackowycz, Tempo hosted by mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah and Drive with Rich Terfry. Plug into CBC Radio 2’s live streams of Canadian composers, Canadian songwriters, classical and jazz channels or catch CBC Radio 3 with all genres of new music including indie rock, hip hop and electronica.

The updated CBC Radio app brings iPad users the full range of CBC Radio content already available to those with iPhone or iPod touch. Users can also access the CBC Program Guide to find out what’s playing now or to plan their CBC Radio listening schedule.

As well, the updated app also offers audio sessions from CBC-TV favourites, letting listeners enjoy audio-only versions of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, Mansbridge One on One and the CBC News At Issue panel.

CBC Radio content accessible through the CBC Radio app includes:

• CBC Radio One: A wide range of local, national and international news, current affairs, documentaries, arts and culture including 63 on-demand programs and 22 live streams.

• CBC Radio 2: The best Canadian music, commercial-free: classical, jazz, singer-songwriters, pop, R&B, world, soul and much more. Four on-demand programs and nine live streams.

• CBC Radio 3: A ‘Best Online Radio’ nominee at the Webby awards two years in a row, CBC Radio 3 is THE place to discover the best new Canadian indie acts. Five on-demand programs and one live stream, plus access to more than 100,000 tracks from more than 20,000 artists via the now embedded in-app CBC Radio 3 website.

The app also lets users run CBC Radio content as multi-tasking background audio while tending to other tasks on iPhone or iPod touch. For iPhone, the app also remembers episode playback positions if listening is interrupted by an incoming phone call.

The CBC Radio app is available for free from the Apple App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

More info:

CBC mobile services