Tough guy Stursberg drops the gloves in CBC memoir

Enlarge Image

Richard Stursberg (CP)

Book review

The Tower of Babble

• Sins, Secrets and Successes Inside the CBC
• By Richard Stursberg
• Douglas & McIntyre, 341 pages, $33

Enlarge Image

Battle of the Blades (POSTMEDIA)

Enlarge Image

Can't Canada's public broadcaster get a little love?

The federal government is chopping 10 per cent of its approximately $1-billion annual contribution to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., down-market Sun Media is firing daily broadsides, and other competitors are licking their chops at the prospect of outbidding CBC for lucrative hockey broadcast rights.

Now comes a dose of tough love from an insider and self-proclaimed tough guy.

Richard Stursberg's The Tower of Babble, a self-serving but entertaining memoir-cum-polemic, is certain to infuriate the CBC's strongest adherents.

Its proclamations, though, deserve attention, strident though they may be. Not only is this the leading account of a tumultuous time within the institution -- history written by a partial victor -- but some elements of its prescription may help restore the public broadcaster to health.

In particular, Stursberg's analysis of the "intimidating frenemies" on the international media landscape merits attention.

As head of CBC's English-language services -- television, radio and online -- Stursberg was for six years one of the most powerful broadcast executives in Canada.

His arrival in 2004 from a background in television, film and government roiled the Mother Corp, his six-year push to popularize its programming exasperated staffers, outside supporters and his political masters, and his firing in 2010 did nothing to settle the waters.

From these ingredients Stursberg cooks up a book that will raise the blood pressure of his former employees and their many and well-spoken supporters across Canada.

Not that Stursberg cares.

Like a poor person's Conrad Black, he lashes woolly thinkers and savours his fearsome reputation.

He credits the divisive 2005 lockout for clearing the road to cost-cutting and flexibility, but notes that staffers remained bitter. "They would look at me as though confronted by the Great Satan himself. The stench of sulphur and charred flesh seemed to follow me everywhere."

The book's biblical title reflects the warring languages spoken by the author and his detractors.

Stursberg denounces "the CBC's Constituency ... the mandarins of Ottawa, the editors of The Globe and Mail and the chattering classes more generally. They felt a proprietary interest in the CBC."

Among these pointy heads Stursberg numbers his bosses, the corporation's politically appointed board of directors.

He targets the CBC's news department for his harshest attacks, branding it Fort News for its "shameless and brazen entitlement" to corporate resources and its defence of traditional journalistic standards, especially under its "pugnacious, brittle and clever" department head Tony Burman.

"It was clear that any attempt to change the news department was fraught with peril. I was afraid that if I made any efforts to halt, let alone reverse, its slide into irrelevance, I would be attacked. It would be like attempting to enter a decrepit house whose sullen residents would prefer to have the house collapse upon them than have it repaired. I was afraid, very afraid."

Burman did not survive the Stursberg regime. "He was a notorious hot head. So was I."

Stursberg himself favours the language of marketing, of product placement in televised dramas. The bigger the audience, the better: Battle of the Blades, Dragon's Den and Jeopardy!, not Da Vinci's City Hall, Opening Night and Wonderland.

He trumpets increases in CBC audiences and in public trust as his personal achievement.

Also like Black, Stursberg reveals himself as hypersensitive to criticism, particularly in print.

He repeatedly quotes even mildly adverse coverage in the Globe and the Toronto Star and names his attackers. Perhaps in a bid to be fair and balanced, he also boasts of the attention of unnamed publications that liked Battle of the Blades, which was created during his term but which his successors have put on hold.

Certainly, Stursberg has a right to respond to his critics as energetically as he wishes. Some of his arguments, though, do not inspire confidence.

He frequently employs quotations without even pretending that they come from real people -- for example, in a passage about histrionic hockey host Don Cherry's support of gay rights.

"Don's apparent conversion to political correctness seemed to shock some of his more traditional enthusiasts. 'First,' they muttered, 'he's for the gays. Before you know it, he'll be coming out for the French. Yikes.' "

Such notional quotations do nothing to strengthen readers' confidence in passages attributed by name.

Stursberg concludes his account of these culture wars with a shot at CBC's traditional supporters: "Enough with all the drivel of 'mandates' and 'quality' and 'higher purposes.' "

Then he proclaims himself the true friend of the embattled public broadcaster, having spent six years "loving the great undisciplined beast."

Recounting his firing, Stursberg says, "I was damned if I would go gently."

Lovers of a good battle story will be glad that he didn't.

Duncan McMonagle finds the CBC Music classical channel the perfect accompaniment for marking students' journalism assignments. Follow him on Twitter @dmcmonagle.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 28, 2012 J4