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eye WEEKLY                                            November 16 1995
Toronto's arts newspaper                      .....free every Thursday
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MEDIA HIT PARADE                                      MEDIA HIT PARADE

                        STICKING IT TO THE CBC

                                  by
                              GREG BOYD

Jean Chretien's staff must be on cloud nine after transforming the 
PM's junket to New Zealand last week into a sparkling exercise in 
media agenda control.

Cut off from the distractions of domestic concerns, the few reporters 
with the means or connections to accompany Chretien halfway around the 
world gobbled up a succession of set-pieces about the perfidy of the 
CBC and the humble heroism with which the PM and his wife escaped 
certain death at the hands of a Longueil variety store clerk 
brandishing a penknife.

The occasion was the Commonwealth leaders' conference, where the 
remnants of the British Empire meet each year to object in the 
strongest possible manner to the French testing their nuclear weapons 
and the Nigerians hanging their poets.

Key to the latest Chretien media strategy were softball questions from 
reporters eager to link referendum-campaign rhetoric with an incident 
that is now obligingly portrayed as an assassination attempt. In the 
event, one Andre Dallaire snuck into the PM's residence at 24 Sussex 
Dr., eluded RCMP security and wound up face-to-face with Aline 
Chretien, who bolted the door and woke the Mounties and her husband 
(in which order remains to be seen).

Safe in Auckland, Jean Chretien muttered darkly about the virulent 
personal attacks he endured for the good of Canada during the 
campaign, allowing reporters to conclude that the eloquence of Lucien 
Bouchard inspired an attempt on the PM's life. Sadly, this doesn't 
readily explain why Bouchard wasn't similarly stalked -- odd when you 
consider that since his nearly fatal encounter with flesh-eating 
bacteria deprived him of a limb, anglo cartoonists and muck-slingers 
have seized it as a peg leg with which to soundly belabor the 
traitorous Frenchy.

After a few diversionary remarks about job creation, not Quebec, being 
his main priority, Chretien -- whose strategists pissed away a 10-
point lead in opinion polls and barely hung on for a slight edge in 
the final vote -- went on to excoriate the CBC, accusing the public 
broadcaster of referendum coverage that was "not very balanced."

The Liberal brain trust appear particularly antsy about CBC's French-
language wing, which had estimated the number of people who attended 
the last-minute Montreal rally for the No side at around 32,000 (the 
official police figure). Most English media, mindful of the 
extraordinary arm-twisting and favor redemption that the Liberals 
employed to keep their fingerprints off the rally, reported it a 
resounding success at 150,000.

Both figures are, in any case, considerably greater than 2,000 -- the 
number of employees the public broadcaster must lay off in April, 
1996.

In the great tradition of amateur media critics, Chretien concluded 
his remarks by noting that he doesn't actually watch CBC news very 
often. It seems he may not know a lot about news, but he knows what he 
likes -- which would be a state-owned broadcaster more carefully 
attuned to the needs of the ruling party. Maybe he spent too much time 
with the delegation from Gambia.

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