Mother Corp. gussies up her all-news baby

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Regular CBC News viewers across the country could be forgiven for doing a double take this week when tuning into what used to be Newsworld, the all-news channel now restyled as the CBC News Network, or CBC NN. That name … Doesn't it strongly resemble that of a certain American cable news network?

And then there's the network's new look: busier, brighter sets festooned with huge TV monitors; a greater emphasis on star reporters; multiple, ever-changing camera angles; and news anchors talking directly to those monitors as they chat up reporters delivering their missives from the field.

CBC executives say the changes - part of a massive overhaul of news operations across the network's television, radio and online services - not only give the news more immediacy, but make the news-gathering process itself more transparent. "Transparency" is the new buzzword at CBC News.

To that end, the CBC is attempting, among other things, to break down the old familiar format in which a Walter Cronkite-like authority figure reads the news, while reporters discretely file segments from the field. On the CBC News Network, there's lots more conversational banter happening between anchors and reporters, part of an attempt to show viewers what reporters know - and what they're still trying to find out. As well, reporters are filing shorter, punchier news hits throughout the day, as stories develop.

The idea, say CBC executives, is to give the broadcasts the same feel as a news special or election coverage. Reporters injecting themselves into the reporting, and, for instance, referring to what politicians told them or what they learned, "is deliberate," says Cynthia Kinch, director of CBC News Network. "This is far more news as it breaks, as it develops. And we move the story through in a conversational way, and pull the curtain back on the editorial process."

Critics note that CNN pioneered just that kind of reporting years ago, its news team taking to the air whenever new details become available on a story. Ditto the practice of more onscreen graphics, and what appears to be a greater focus on younger prime-time anchors - in CBC News Network's case, the most prominent among them being Evan Solomon and Mark Kelley.

"Those of us who think public broadcasting has a role to provide something distinct from private broadcasting were just taken aback by this," says Jeffrey Dvorkin, former managing editor of CBC Radio and one-time head of news at U.S. National Public Radio.

Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of CBC English services, has long made it clear that he wants to reach the widest possible audience, even though, as some critics argue, that risks introducing a certain sameness between the CBC and private broadcasters.

"For the last four or five years, the news [industry]has gone through a convulsive change," Stursberg says. When CBC polled Canadians about how they consume news, respondents said they expect to get headline news instantly, any time of day, Stursberg notes. Indeed, that's precisely what has led the CBC to make available an online 10-minute version of The National hours before the newscast hits TV screens.

Stursberg adds that the relaunch of CBC News had been in the works long before the industry faced a slump in advertising, and CBC instituted job cuts, earlier this year.

Over the many years spent working on the News Network's new look - a process that extends as far back as a 2003 poll that asked Canadians how they perceive the CBC and Canadian news media in general - CBC executives have visited other news networks around the world to look over their operations. As general manager and editor-in-chief of CBC News, Jennifer McGuire, points out, networks as diverse as CNN and Britain's Sky News have long followed the practice of getting their anchors to engage in back-and-forth conversations with reporters on large screens.

But "the myth that it's somehow CNN-based is entirely that: a myth," says McGuire, who adds that those tours of other networks concentrated more on learning about their news-gathering operations. "The programming schedule is our own. We did our own research. We looked at our own resources. And we came up with our own schedule, designed by our own people."

As for the interactive use of screens, she insists that's less a style element than a tool to allow the anchor to appear visually closer to the news. As well, she adds, those changes that are purely stylistic - including whiter, brighter sets - were created in-house by CBC graphic designers. "The impetus is not mimicry. It really is this idea of getting [viewers]to where news happens," McGuire says.

What particularly exasperates her, McGuire says, with an exhausted laugh, is the preoccupation critics have had with anchors delivering the news behind podium-like tables. The National 's Peter Mansbridge, like the anchors on various CBC News Network shows, now stands at a table à la Wolf Blitzer on CNN's The Situation Room . (One difference news junkies will notice is that CBC anchors are allowed to litter their on-set tables with loose papers, coffee mugs and pens, thus conveying a more lived-in, on-the-go, busy-at-work look. A small CBC touch.)

"We're moving away from a static, behind-the-desk experience to a news environment that is much more adaptable for us, for all the kinds of coverage that we do," says McGuire, who has kept her sense of humour amid the sometimes less-than-favourable reviews: On a tour of the new newsroom, she points out a row of black stools outside the set of The National that stand ready for use whenever needed. "This proves," she says, "we have chairs."

Mansbridge, standing in his well-appointed office in a corner of the newsroom, treats criticism of the changes with a shrug. He has been through at least five overhauls of The National over his long career, he notes. "At the core, it's still the news," he says. "If anybody did a serious content analysis, we're still dealing with the important news stories of the day. … The set is more about the look than anything else."

Others aren't as convinced. Dvorkin, currently a visiting professor of journalism at Ryerson University, concedes that some of his students told him they find the new design bold and "visually hot."

The scuttlebutt he's hearing from the network floor, however, isn't quite as enthusiastic. "The mood," he says, "alternates between panic and depression." One senior reporter, for instance, told Dvorkin this week that he and his colleagues were being told to focus on filing many quick hits rather than full reports, and that reporters are now sometimes referred to as "hitters."

For instance, an early report of the death of folk singer Taylor Mitchell, who on Tuesday had been attacked by coyotes on Cape Breton's Skyline Trail, raised more questions than it answered. On-air host Heather Hiscox, in an apparent attempt to extend the segment for a few more minutes, asked the reporter, "You have calls out on this story?"

Reporters have traditionally been posed such questions by editors and producers behind the scenes. Faced with Hiscox's queries, the CBC reporter had to tell her and viewers that he did in fact have more calls out - how could he not? - and then went into detail about which questions still needed answers.

With the News Network overhaul, more than 1,000 CBC employees have seen their job duties change. Also rearranged is the physical organization of the newsroom, and not just in front of the cameras. Assignments now originate from a central hub at which producers give stories to TV and radio reporters and to the CBC.ca news desk. The main CBC News Network set sits as a bright, shiny appendage to this central hub.

As for the name change itself, it's part of an effort to emphasize the new all-news focus of the network, which is jettisoning, among other shows, The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos (it will still air on the main CBC network) and Antiques Roadshow.

"There's a really good reason behind the name change. There's so much value and awareness of CBC News as a brand. And it speaks to who we are and what we deliver," McGuire says. "When we did the research around Newsworld, we found out there really wasn't a great awareness for the specialty channel that's been around for 20 years. And even the core audience didn't really care if we changed the name or not."

A truly successful rebranding, however, may prove difficult for the CBC, says Lisa Bednarski, head of Canadian consumer marketing at the international consulting firm, Weber Shandwick in Toronto. "Rebranding is more than just changing a logo or developing new packaging. It's really about having a strong identity that's consistently communicated. The challenge for the CBC is that part of its mandate is to be all things to all people."

Convincing the harshest critics will be an especially steep uphill battle. For Dvorkin, for one, says those busier on-screen graphics make him want to "pass the Dramamine." These are the kind of comments that make Mansbridge shrug again. It's par for the course with these kinds of stylistic changes in a medium that's not just about content - but style. "I get it," he says. "It's television."