CBC staff across sports, news, arts, and radio describe working at Canada's public broadcaster. They highlight the freedom to take creative risks, experiment across platforms, and tell stories commercial networks won't touch. The culture welcomes people from unconventional backgrounds and values independent journalism that serves all Canadians.
Chapters
New voices, new prices. My voice!
Margaret Evans, CBC News, Islamabad.
Has won it! Katrina LeMay Doan of Canada!
Listen, you're ducking the issue here.
Welcome to Courts in Court, a national radio broadcast. This isn't just television. This is a national conversation. This is a dialogue.
We are allowed to basically tackle any issue at all. We look for ways to bring new voices and new experiences in our storytelling. It's the nation's broadcaster. It's done by Canadians, for Canadians, in the voice of Canadians.
And if you care about being a part of that national dialogue, then I think this is the place to be. My name is David Tilly. I'm Associate Director for CBC Sports. My name is James Dunn. I'm a video journalist with CBC Current Affairs.
My name is Ng Wong Ward, and I'm a producer here at CBC.
My name is Bernie Look. I'm the executive producer of Ideas and Tapestry.
My name is Terry Tu, and I'm an art director at CBC.ca.
My name is Andrew Craig. I'm the host of CBC Radio 2's In Performance.
We do drama, we do sports, we do kids' programming, We do sports programming. We do current affairs. And for me, those are all the things that I love to do. Those are the things I grew up watching.
On my show, on Quirks and Quarks, we do science. And the great thing about doing science on radio is that you can go places that are very difficult in television. We can travel in time and go back to the beginning of the universe and look at the Big Bang. We can go into a black hole. We can look at the dinosaurs. We can go into the future.
CBC.ca, I see it as the first draft of history. You know, it's history in 5 minutes. When a breaking news story happens around the world or across Canada, We can get it up on the site so quickly.
I think this is kind of this editorial group that does a lot of amazing content about independent music and culture in Canada. We're trying to always find new ways to get it out to people, and whether that is radio or the web or, you know, podcasting or television or whatever it is that we're doing, we're just very passionate about providing a different voice and a different point of view.
What's great about the Arts and Entertainment Department at CBC is that they do programming that no other Canadian broadcaster would ever do. It's a place where, as a producer, I can take risks, I can try things out, and I have people who support me in doing that.
Ultimately what we do, be it news or entertainment, is to tell a story. I'm there to use the camera as a tool, much like a writer uses his pen and his ideas. My job as an AD is what we call AD, it's basically putting features together, looking for the right music, Setting up interviews, setting up cameras.
What I love about editing is being able to take things, take all your tape, condense it down, and tell a nice, tight, emotional story or a dramatic story.
The work that we do is deadline-driven. The sun may stop shining, but there's got to be a show that's ready to go at 8 o'clock. What I like about my job is that I get to do a lot of creative work where it, you know, it comes down to real raw design skills, and then as well I get to play in programming languages and I get to play with technologies. One day I'm recording a radio play for somebody else, another day I'm writing a radio play, another day I'm editing it, another day I'm producing it, another day I'm directing it.
I decide lineup, I decide, pick music, I just direct the show as well as do all the technical operations.
When you're working in live news, it's fast and furious.
You never really know what's coming your way and it can happen at any time.
There's lots of fact-checking, there's lots of research. There's lots of decisions that have to be made.
You're on the go. Oh yeah, I got this, I got that. It's really high-paced, really fast. It's multitasking to the maximum. You can never just go home and say, "Today was boring." You always have something new and something different every day.
There's a lot more to the CBC than just what you see on CBLT or Channel 6. There's our web design people, there's the sales end of it, there's marketing.
You may not want to be in front of the camera. Lots of other places. We've got production, radio, dramas, and there's lots of support positions. There's something for everyone here at the CBC.
There's diversity in where you can work. You can work, you can move around to a lot of different places.
I started out as a chase producer, then I was a host for Street Sense for 4 years. Now I'm working as an associate producer at CBC News Sunday. We're not a corporate environment. We've never been a corporate environment. It's a place, I think, where people who are slightly eccentric, who are engaged in the world and interested and curious about a lot of things, I think those are the kind of people who are drawn here, and those are the kind of people typically who stay. It's not a place where you necessarily have to be an extrovert. It is a place that can really respect quiet thinkers who go about doing their jobs, and people don't always understand that about broadcasting. I think that's one of the great things about CBC is that we have so many different different kinds of people working here, that anyone with different personal experience, life experience, educational experience can bring something valuable.
I grew up in East Africa and I was born in Uganda and now I'm the Senior Producer for Hockey Night in Canada and let me tell you, we didn't have a lot of ice rinks in Uganda. You can go the traditional route of going to journalism school and for a lot of people that works or Another approach is to take sort of, you know, a zigzaggy route, and I think that enables you to, once you get here, to be able to draw upon a lot of different life experiences. When I was in high school, I had no idea that I would be working in broadcast television.
I'm actually a trained kinesiologist. I did my degree at UBC in exercise science. I quit human genetics and went to Carleton University to study journalism.
I studied painting for 5 years as a fine artist. I'm not as interested in your ability to actually do the story, because we can teach you how to make the story. I'm more interested in people who have good ideas. I always appreciate just getting a phone call from someone saying, "I have this idea, I'm thinking about it, I have something written down, how would you like to receive it?" You'll be surprised how open people are about giving advice, about telling you about opportunities that are there.
That is how I started. I contacted a CBC staffer and said, "Listen, I want to work in the Middle East. What can we do?" I like knowing that I'm part of an organization that has been trusted for over 50 years.
What's amazing about working at CBC for me is when you get out there and you meet people and realize that it means something to them.
I get paid to do what I enjoy doing—talking, meeting people, and telling stories and introducing people to each other. For me, this is home. Right? This is where I feel comfortable. This is where I can do the kind of journalism that I want to do and be the kind of journalist that I am.
So that's why I stick around this place. This facility has a huge intellectual capital here, a great gathering of minds and a great heritage and a long experience.
If people want to make an impact and make a difference and make things significantly better and do things that are really interesting, there's scope to do that.
I've given a lot and I've received a lot in return. It just wouldn't be the same working somewhere else.
I grew up in the CBC listening to it, watching it in rural British Columbia. I believe in it and I want to be a part of that team that makes it awesome.
