TORONTO — In an unprecedented move, a coalition of former CBC management executives, journalists, producers and other employees have sent a letter to the public broadcaster’s board of directors asking them to end CBC’s Tandem, a “dedicated service for branded content” which the letter writers say produces advertising indistinguishable from journalism.
According to a press release issued today by the former employees, the CBC board has agreed to discuss the new Tandem venture at a meeting on Wednesday with CBC president Catherine Tait and vice-president Barb Williams.
Among the former CBC employees who have signed the letter to the board are two former presidents, Tony Manera (1992-1995) and Robert Rabinovitch (1999-2007), and respected journalists such as Linden MacIntyre, Kelly Crowe, Peter Mansbridge and Adrienne Clarkson, as well as many others from the CBC’s editorial and management leadership ranks.
In their letter to the board, the former CBC employees wrote: “Those who have spent 20, 30, 40 years of their work lives bringing Canadians stories from their neighbourhoods, their country and the world, have a vested interest in the reputation and integrity of the CBC. Many risked their lives to deliver news to Canadians. Now management wants to ‘leverage’ that work — and the credibility, trust and reputation of the CBC — to benefit corporate clients.”
The letter outlines two instances where CBC’s online presentation of branded content “violated the ‘church and state’ division” between journalism and corporate advertorials, according to the former employees. In the first example, a sponsored podcast created on behalf of Athabasca University, called Go the Distance, appeared on CBC’s podcast page among all the other podcasts on offer, with no indication it was a paid-for product. The podcast has been removed from the podcast list, after staff raised the issue with CBC management, says the letter.
In the other case, a Gillette advertorial created for CBC.ca’s Culture and Life sections in May 2019 was labelled as sponsored content but looked like a news story. It was written by a regular CBC contributor who also writes journalism. CBC published additional stories a few weeks later about the same Gillette advertising campaign, but they were not labelled as sponsored content. After employee complaints about one of the follow-up stories, the copy on CBC’s website was updated in October 2020 to say Gillette was a partner in CBC’s sponsored content program, but the article itself was not connected to that program.
“Where is the line between sponsors and journalism? Just saying it is not sponsored content does not negate the fact that CBC.ca has a business relationship with Gillette and produces sponsored content for the company. This is a violation of the trust that Canadians have in their public broadcaster,” reads the letter to CBC’s board.
“We ask the Board to be transparent with Canadians over how the decision to approve paid content within the public broadcaster was made and how you believe this does not seriously undermine the integrity of CBC’s core programming, the provision of news and information.”
The group of former CBC employees has also written to the CRTC, asking the Commission to add Tandem to the agenda for the CBC’s licence renewal hearing in January 2021.
In addition, a public petition launched by the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting has garnered almost 7,500 signatures in less than a week, according to the former employees’ press release.
Criticism from the CBC’s union, the Canadian Media Guild, led CBC management to announce in October a pause in Tandem’s activities, says the release. However, the pause was only short-term and Tandem’s website and social media accounts remained active, and client information continues to appear on the CBC’s webpages, adds the release.
