[xipho]

CBC gets hate perhaps because it's intellectual. Growing up in a house with no TV it was on all the time. The best news, comedy, and music, and programs like Ideas to make you think. The US has PBS, but it has never felt quite like peak CBC to me. Of course this was 40+ years ago, YRMV now.

[goalieca]

CBC is far from intellectual. There’s far more politically neutral programming about current events out there including Steve Paiken on TVO. CBC News editors seem to be very selective about chosen stories and which seem to align with the narrative of the current political party. There’s little room for playing devils advocate. While they have a mission for diversity, it’s clearly not a diversity in thought they strive to represent.

[dyauspitr]

Whenever I’ve seen “diversity in thought”, it’s usually a justification for a room full of white people in a multi ethnic society, apparently thinking differently.

[canadiantim]

The CBC gets hate for being politically biased and involved, while being publicly funded. Many if not most of the people calling for defunding the cbc still believe it often produces high quality content.

[goodcanadian]

I have not watched the CBC regularly for a few years (because I no longer live in Canada), but I grew up in rural Alberta, about as conservative of an area as you can get. When I was young, I was annoyed by the slight liberal bias of the CBC. Then I met someone from Ontario who complained about the conservative bias of the CBC. It was at that point that I decided the CBC actually probably did a pretty good job of riding the line if people on both sides are complaining that it is biased towards the other side. Now, it is possible that it has changed (my politics certainly have), but I think it does a pretty good job.

[mykowebhn]

Alberta really does seem like the Texas of Canada.

On another note, I did a cross-country road trip across Canada many years ago. I loved it, and people were so nice everywhere, except in Edmonton, Alberta. The people there walked around with sneers and seemed to be suspicious of all visitors, like me. I won't ever be back in Edmonton for sure. Calgary, on the other hand, was super nice and the people friendly.

[goodcanadian]

That's interesting. Edmonton was the closest major city to me growing up. I always kind of liked it. There are definitely nicer cities in the world, but I have never had any complaints about it.

[lovethevoid]

Calling Alberta the Texas of Canada is exactly what it wants. It’s much more like an incompetent Michigan with an unreasonable amount of Trump supporters. Its heavy reliance on oil is a lot like Detroits heavy reliance on the automotive industry.

The fact that leadership was even seriously considering abandoning one of the worlds best public pension funds is indicative of how short term greed is killing the province.

[randomdata]

Alberta wasn't seriously considering abandoning CPP, it was seriously considering taking it.

[nucleardog]

Are they biased or just an outlier?

Almost every other news outlet in Canada has a definite slant and actively endorse one political party.

In that landscape, an outlet that’s truly neutral is an outlier and would _appear_ biased.

(And that’s not even getting in to how it would look next to a lot of the US “news” many people consume.)

For my money, the CBC gets a lot of shit not because of bias or political activism, but because they’re one of few news outlets (certainly big ones) that _isn’t_ actively espousing a particular viewpoint. When you already own the entire media landscape, that makes it a bit of a thorn in the side.

[randomdata]

> Almost every other news outlet in Canada has a definite slant and actively endorse one political party.

Unless you are counting Postmedia's 130 different brands as independent news outlets, that is quite an exaggeration. Torstar and Postmedia tend to endorse a party, as do a few other small newspapers you've probably never heard of, but that's about the extent of it. There are a lot more news outlets than that. Significantly, broadcasters, which includes the CBC, most certainly do not endorse a political party as doing so would be a clear violation of the Broadcasting Act.

[refurb]

“Intellectual” as defined by white middle class urbanites. But as a result, CBC programs comes across as rather narrow and tends to regurgitate the same takeaways no matter the topic.

This is far more true of national programming, but even for the local stations the reporter tend to come off as “my sht does stink”