The CBC & Me

This weekend was a mix of work and play. There’s no question that the highlight was attending the CBC open house on Oct. 1.

I started the morning off with breakfast at the new Stella’s Café downtown. It’s a beautiful location and the food, as always, was delicious.

(I recommend the Veggie Breakfast Sandwich: two fried eggs, sautéed spinach & mushrooms with tomato, mayo & cheddar cheese on toasted rye. Is your mouth watering yet?)

As nice as it was to sit and enjoy breakfast, I was anxious to head back to the CBC building (just up the street) because I had been warned that last year the lineup for the open house was so long it wrapped around the side of the building.

So, I showed up early and was first in line, so excited that standing in the cold wind didn’t faze me.

I should explain that I’m an avid radio listener and felt like a kid at Disney World at the prospect of getting to see the inner workings of a newsroom.

CBC newsroom.

During my childhood, the radio was a staple in the kitchen. It was always on and always tuned to CBC. This was partly because of the quality programming and partly because my mom cannot stand radio ads.

(I should add that now that I've had to write a few radio ads, I can say a lot goes into those 30-second spots...)

And so I grew up listening to the voices of Peter Gzowski, Barabara Budd and Vicki Gabereau. To this day my mom always has the kitchen radio on and set to CBC.

My dad, on the other hand, is definitely more of a CJOB man but has to do his listening in the truck or on his own radio somewhere else in the house (poor dad). I should mention that I also really enjoy CJOB (I grew up also listening to and loving Peter Warren). 

Image from http://goo.gl/Ehvh6

When I lived in Iceland I always had the radio playing on my computer in the kitchen. Back in 2009 I even wrote one of my weekly Iceland Review Online articles about it. 

I've always been interested in working in a newsroom. In journalism class we’ve talked about the link between journalism and serving the public, as well as having the work benefit citizens. Being a journalist is noble and important work, and I’m realizing more and more that I want to be a part of that.

Am I a little naive? Maybe. But that doesn’t change how I feel, at least not at the moment. And based on the conversations I had with the people who work at CBC, I got the impression that they are just as excited about what’s going on around them as I am. Everyone was curious and energized about the thought of learning more. It was easy to see they loved their jobs.

Needless to say, the tour was great. I definitely got a lot more out of it because of what we’ve covered in our radio, TV and journalism classes so far.

So, that was my Saturday: devoted to the news. Interestingly enough, I ended up on it that day. Check out http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Canada/Manitoba/1304130959/ID=16338395 (around the 3:30 mark).