For years now, I’ve been calling CBC’s Peter Mansbridge “Pastor Mansbridge” in my columns. It isn’t just a joke. The job of a national news anchor is to be a pastor-like figure, a reassuring presence, calmly delivering news of the world’s changes and calamities every evening.
Canadians really like their reassuring news-delivery people. In this we are either weirdly retro or charmingly loyal. Go figure. You see, in Canada, we follow Canadian sports, read Canadians newspapers and buy books by Canadian authors. We are much less inclined to watch Canadian TV shows. However, we sure do watch a lot of Canadian TV news. We are more than news junkies, actually, we are news-obsessives
Such is our delight in news that a good portion of Canadian TV is devoted entirely to lovingly mocking TV news. This Hour Has 22 Minutes has been going for years and it’s essentially a send-up of a nightly news program. Rick Mercer draws even more viewers than 22 Minutes by relying entirely on Canadian news for comedy. Both The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, parodies of news shows, have a larger viewership in Canada, proportionally, than they do in the United States.
We like our real news (served with great sobriety) and we like our fake news, because we are news connoisseurs. That makes the job of national news anchor one of the last great jobs in journalism. All you need is a bit of a thick skin.
Lisa LaFlamme knows this. Lloyd Robertson certainly knew it and Peter Mansbridge, who has never complained about being called “Pastor” sure knows it. Anyone can mock him, but Mansbridge is, apart from being very famous and well-paid, the chancellor of Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. That kind of gig comes with the territory when your job title is “Anchor and Chief Correspondent” for a TV network.
Peter Mansbridge, anchor, CBC's The National
At noon on Tuesday, somebody else will find out what it’s like to have that great job. CanWest Global (such as it is these days) will announce the new anchor of Global National, its flagship news program. The lucky person will instantly become one of the most famous people in the country.
These are extraordinary days in the Canadian TV racket. There are, really, only three Canadian broadcasters: CBC, CTV and Global. Each has a critically important news component (most of the rest of what they do is comprised of frivolous entertainment, imported or homemade) to establish a meaningful connection with viewers. It’s the news division that brands the network with a kind of authenticity unreachable in any other way. And the news anchors are the all-important face of that crucial branding exercise. They are carefully chosen and there aren’t a lot of openings for the job. In recent years, it’s all been very stable. Lloyd Robertson at CTV, Peter Mansbridge at CBC and Kevin Newman at Gobal. In the space of five days, two of the three names will have changed.
Why? There’s no profound reason. If anyone in the political punditry racket in Ottawa thinks it has something to do with the looming threat of the right-wing SUN TV News, they’re delusional. Robertson has simply outlasted and bested all the others. A ratings champ, he will go out a successful man in his seventies, a winner to the end. Kevin Newman, a vigorous newsman and affable chap, wanted a change. And anyone who believed Newman was lined up to replace Robertson was foolish. CTV News has thrived by creating its own internal culture, nurturing its own talent and declining faddish changes and makeovers.
You wouldn’t catch Lloyd Robertson standing on the CTV News set, with some reporter he’s about to debrief, face-to-face like two people about to play hacky sack. Which brings us to CBC’s The National. CBC News has turned itself in knots trying to reinvent The National and CBC News Network. The catchphrase was “New look. New attitude” last fall when everything was relaunched. (The phrase appeared on the screen on CBC NN a lot, which was farcical.) If there’s a potential loser in the current eruption of change, it’s CBC. Even after a revamp and much marketing, The National is a ratings loser when compared with CTV’s nightly newscast. And Global National, which airs nationally at suppertime, has been doing just fine, easily outdrawing CBC’s The National.
Global’s new anchor will, like LaFlamme and Mansbridge, instantly have gravitas attached to them. That’s why being a news anchor is the last great job in journalism. While others have to write more, report more often and in faster fashion, plus blog and tweet and attempt to connect on multiple platforms, the news anchor is just there, like the pastor or the parish priest, calm and reassuring.
In Canada, a national news anchor is above all the hurly-burly of daily journalism and any hand-wringing about the future of traditional media. And, in a news-obsessed nation, the anchor is that very rare thing – a true Canadian star. Iconic. Famous and well-paid. Mocked but esteemed. Say hello to the reverend LaFlamme. Tomorrow, meet the revered somebody-or-other at Global.
