Enough time has passed to give the CBC’s revamped news presentation fair and careful viewing. The conclusion, it is found wanting.
For clarity’s sake if for no other reason, news reports should be plain, straight-forward and unadorned. Instead, in the new format the viewer is faced with a screen cluttered with subsidiary messages, duplicate images and distracting graphics. A battery of graphic blocks includes the prominent CBC tv logo, a second rectangle with a distracting rolling colour, and a message to remind the viewer that this is the news show; not programme, show mind. These graphics sit on what one takes to be weather information, yet unreadable. Beneath this is a rolling message, also too small for easy reading while, behind the presenter, a larger, constantly changing graphic tells the viewer this is the CBC news.
Really! This is more than overkill. It is dumb, dumb, dumb. Talk about multi-tasking; the viewer needs a doctorate in split-concentration for comprehension
Normal news viewing is a pathetic experience enough, but facing the Power & Politics show is an ordeal of endurance calling for fortitude and patience. Hosted by an aggressive presenter competing with the same battery of puerile graphics that characterize news show requires stamina. More depressing is the journalist’s raucous competition with those he interviews; boastingly called the ‘power panel’.
It appears more than the presenter can bear to ask a question and listen to the answer, but insists on automatically mouthing his own opinion. From where did the CBC draw its latest generation of journalists? What is CBC tv sinking to if not into a quagmire of despair?
I’ll turn to CTV for the news. What about you?
Tags: CBC tv