Read Online Oliver's Twist by Craig Oliver - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Craig Oliver
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Canada finally adopted its own flag, and Prairie grain farmers faced an income crisis. The CBC News department was overwhelmed by demands for coverage at home and abroad.
The head of the news department in Toronto was Joe Schlesinger, later to become one of the nationâs most-admired foreign correspondents. He came to Winnipeg for a meeting that ended with an offer to make me the first national television reporter in Saskatchewan. I had to agree to go on the cheap: There would be no crew of my own, just local hires. I was also expected to report for national radio. But what an opportunity! Still in my twenties, I was working full-time for the nationâs largest and most influential news operation. Mom would be able to see me in Rupert, where TV had finally come to town. It was back to Saskatchewan and my old nemesis, Premier Ross Thatcher.
Perhaps because I was always inclined to play a story for all it was worth, maybe even to overplay it, I seemed to attract trouble to myself and to Mother Corp. At a massive antiâVietnam War demonstration in Saskatoon, a group of protesters asked me for a match. To my surprise, they used it to set fire to a large American flag. The footage made great viewing on that nightâs television news, but the Mounties had seen me hand over the match and accused me of staging the event. More criticism from CBC executives followed, and Thatcher sent a letter of regret to the U.S. ambassador.
I came to grief on another occasion when Otto Lang, minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, was to make a major grain sales announcement. I planned to film a group of farmers as they watched the announcement and then reacted to it. A few members of the Farmersâ Union were duly invited to gather in a spacious beer parlour at Indian Head, Saskatchewan. They were willing but insisted that, as non-drinkers, they did not want to be associated in the item with the demon rum. I agreed without hesitation. It was a hectic night of editing, and I did not have time to screen the whole piece before it was fed to Toronto and played to a national audience of millions. Unfortunately, the editor needed âcutawaysâ to cover so-called âjump-cutsâ between comments by various farmers. As a result, the item was full of close-up shots of well-filled beer glasses being hoisted from the tables.
The Farmersâ Union organized a protest in front of the CBC building, complete with placards bearing my picture. I was attacked for distorting reality, for making teetotalling farmers look like beer-swilling boozers. Poor Knowlton Nash, then the head of CBC News, spent weeks fending off complaints fromoutraged farm organizations and Members of Parliament. I had unwittingly broken my word.
I was on the road a lot and became friendly with a circuit judge. He phoned me one night with the details of a horrendous murder-suicide involving six people in the tiny native community of Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan. This honest man wanted Canadians to know the terrible conditions in which natives were living. He told me where and when the bodies would arrive. When the RCMP pulled in to the dark garage of the funeral home in Prince Albert, they were blinded by an explosion of television lights. The lights exposed the bodies stacked in the back of a truck like so much cordwood. This time the new CBC News boss, Joe Schlesinger, had to come to my defence. He did so, citing the value in exposing viewers first-hand to the failure of federal Indian policy and the disregard for Aboriginal lives.
I wish I had been as daring when covering the next royal tour, the 1970 visit to the Arctic by four members of the royal family. The Americans were challenging Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, so the Trudeau government decided to use the high profile of the royals to remind the world that the Royal Navy had mapped the Arctic and claimed it for Britain. It was part of Canadaâs heritage as a former colony.
I doubt that
The head of the news department in Toronto was Joe Schlesinger, later to become one of the nationâs most-admired foreign correspondents. He came to Winnipeg for a meeting that ended with an offer to make me the first national television reporter in Saskatchewan. I had to agree to go on the cheap: There would be no crew of my own, just local hires. I was also expected to report for national radio. But what an opportunity! Still in my twenties, I was working full-time for the nationâs largest and most influential news operation. Mom would be able to see me in Rupert, where TV had finally come to town. It was back to Saskatchewan and my old nemesis, Premier Ross Thatcher.
Perhaps because I was always inclined to play a story for all it was worth, maybe even to overplay it, I seemed to attract trouble to myself and to Mother Corp. At a massive antiâVietnam War demonstration in Saskatoon, a group of protesters asked me for a match. To my surprise, they used it to set fire to a large American flag. The footage made great viewing on that nightâs television news, but the Mounties had seen me hand over the match and accused me of staging the event. More criticism from CBC executives followed, and Thatcher sent a letter of regret to the U.S. ambassador.
I came to grief on another occasion when Otto Lang, minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, was to make a major grain sales announcement. I planned to film a group of farmers as they watched the announcement and then reacted to it. A few members of the Farmersâ Union were duly invited to gather in a spacious beer parlour at Indian Head, Saskatchewan. They were willing but insisted that, as non-drinkers, they did not want to be associated in the item with the demon rum. I agreed without hesitation. It was a hectic night of editing, and I did not have time to screen the whole piece before it was fed to Toronto and played to a national audience of millions. Unfortunately, the editor needed âcutawaysâ to cover so-called âjump-cutsâ between comments by various farmers. As a result, the item was full of close-up shots of well-filled beer glasses being hoisted from the tables.
The Farmersâ Union organized a protest in front of the CBC building, complete with placards bearing my picture. I was attacked for distorting reality, for making teetotalling farmers look like beer-swilling boozers. Poor Knowlton Nash, then the head of CBC News, spent weeks fending off complaints fromoutraged farm organizations and Members of Parliament. I had unwittingly broken my word.
I was on the road a lot and became friendly with a circuit judge. He phoned me one night with the details of a horrendous murder-suicide involving six people in the tiny native community of Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan. This honest man wanted Canadians to know the terrible conditions in which natives were living. He told me where and when the bodies would arrive. When the RCMP pulled in to the dark garage of the funeral home in Prince Albert, they were blinded by an explosion of television lights. The lights exposed the bodies stacked in the back of a truck like so much cordwood. This time the new CBC News boss, Joe Schlesinger, had to come to my defence. He did so, citing the value in exposing viewers first-hand to the failure of federal Indian policy and the disregard for Aboriginal lives.
I wish I had been as daring when covering the next royal tour, the 1970 visit to the Arctic by four members of the royal family. The Americans were challenging Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, so the Trudeau government decided to use the high profile of the royals to remind the world that the Royal Navy had mapped the Arctic and claimed it for Britain. It was part of Canadaâs heritage as a former colony.
I doubt that
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