Does the CBC Still Speak for Canada? | The Walrus

"In the fall of 1964, the producers of a national television newsmagazine called This Hour Has Seven Days started a revolution at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. According to the manifesto with which the program began its first broadcast, the new program would "probe hypocrisy," right "public wrongs," "grill . . . prominent guests," and, in the process, create "journalism of . . . such urgency that it will become mandatory viewing for a large segment of the nation." The CBC's top executives in Ottawa were immediately alarmed."

"Management, at the time, was mostly made up of radio veterans, who had come of age during the CBC's long struggle to establish an independent, "arms-length" relationship with the government. This relationship, in their view, was premised on the CBC's political neutrality, and they feared that the independence the CBC had won on this basis would be compromised by the activism of the young TV generation that was beginning to flex its muscles at Seven Days."

In fall 1964 producers launched the national television newsmagazine This Hour Has Seven Days at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The program's manifesto pledged to probe hypocrisy, right public wrongs, grill prominent guests, and create journalism of such urgency that it would become mandatory viewing for a large segment of the nation. CBC executives, largely radio veterans, feared the program's activism would compromise the broadcaster's arms-length political neutrality. CBC president Alphonse Ouimet insisted the CBC should serve public opinion rather than mould it and allow people to make up their own minds. After confrontations and a policy forbidding editorial positions, the show was cancelled in spring 1966, provoking public outcry.

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