Taking flight from VOCM Valley, and other things in the air today
The snow is coming down in St. John’s this afternoon, and hopefully it’s the fluffy stuff that was predicted, albeit in some volume.
A good time to read and take things in. Here are a few things that have passed my way.
A change at VOCM Valley
VOCM’s flagship call-in show Open Line has for a few generations been one of the prime spots for influence in Newfoundland and Labrador, even as private radio has diminished continent-wide as a presence for audiences and advertisers.
Paddy Daly started his show this morning with news that’s he’s leaving.
I found his choice of words interesting: “I’ve made the decision that I’m resigning.” That language is not reflected, for what its’ worth, in VOCM’s own coverage of the change.
By necessity, Open Line is about heated feelings and opinions; that’s the point and always has been. But long before Daly ever hopped from Rogers to VOCM (he hosted the station’s other shows before getting the prime gig), Open Line came in for some criticism, particularly over how the system could be gamed.
When I was a young reporter, Voice of the Cabinet Minister was a nickname used to describe how politicians would happily accept an invite or often push for a prime spot, gaining access to the airwaves. It seemed to reach an operatic level in the Tobin era.
More than a decade ago, political scientist Alex Marland and a colleague looked carefully at how politicians manipulate the system to their advantage, with synchronized calls to VOCM, or making a splash on Open Line just as pollsters were in the field.
For his part, Daly steered the show with a professional flair. The CBC story described him as “quick-witted and often patient”, and that’s fair.
Bari Weiss, still on the ropes for her handling of changes at CBS News that have brought intense criticism, is the latest inside the Tiffany Network to make a bit of a crack about the image of Walter Cronkite. From Variety, about comments Weiss made at a town hall earlier today:
Walter Cronkite “had two competitors,” she told staffers gathered an “all-hands” meeting either in person or via digital connection. “We have two billion, give or take.”
Earlier this month, new anchor Tony Dokoupil started off a very rough launch by saying the news under his watch would be “more transparent and accountable” than Cronkite.
A weird thing to say, since Cronkite retired in 1981, when Dokoupil, born on Christmas Eve in 1980, was still a baby.
Retirement advice is a two-way street
Rob Carrick spent years writing (very good) columns on personal finance for the Globe & Mail, including plenty on retirement. He writes in his latest Substack newsletter about what happened when he took phone calls from people who fell outside the Globe’s traditional audience. He writes:
The people who read my work over the almost 27 years I spent at the Globe tilted toward an affluence that affords them a comfortable retirement. Most of the retired people I know are financially secure.
Last week, in a one-hour appearance on CBC Radio’s Ontario Today call-in show, I was reminded that some retirees are not as fortunate. The set-up question for the show that day was “Affording retirement: what keeps you up at night?” The answer from listener after listener, some with quavering voices, was not having enough money.
It’s a good read, and a reckoning of how great advice cannot help people who lack the means to act on it.
Come for the procedural, stay for the rum-running history
Allan Hawco & co.’s Saint-Pierre is back on the air this winter; CBC Television prepped this piece on the history of the French islands just off Newfoundland’s southern coast, and how their history has involved Prohibition in the U.S.
Quick hits
The international conversation about Mark Carney’s it’s a rupture, not a transition speech in Davos continues. On today’s influential Ezra Klein podcast from the New York Times, the headline is “The most important foreign policy speech in years.”
Meanwhile, Carney this morning brushed off comments from Donald Trump, who had said Carney walked back his rhetoric during a phone call. “To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the president, I meant what I said in Davos,” Carney said before a cabinet meeting.
An opinion piece in Memorial University’s student newspaper, The Muse, calls for the end of Bill C-18, also known as the federal Online News Act. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, reacted to the Trudeau government initiative by banning links to news in Canada. Writes Andrew Stinson: “It has caused far more harm than good to the press in this country, and it is time for Bill C-18 to be repealed.”
Driving the 401 in southern Ontario is never something I much enjoy. Today, snow squalls meant collisions involving no less than 50 vehicles. That link features coverage including photos from Quinte News like this one:
I’m not the only blogger looking for your attention. Jonathan Crowe, a colleague for many years, is writing at As The Crowe Flies, and his latest post this week is about retirement … a relatable subject for yours truly!