this is where I pretend to be a CBC Radio News host

I’ve been on training the past 2 days at an internal CBC course called “CBC Radio 101” – it’s intended for those people who need to support CBC Radio staff in their daily jobs, so that we can get a better idea of their day-to-day workflow and process. It was a really interesting course and I really would love it if other IT folks were able to attend – seeing in-person how shows are put together gives a new meaning to the words “deadline” or “urgent”.

As I said to my co-workers, I think that too often folks throw around these terms with the misguided view that work will get done faster. Even in broadcast media, however, the usual project management triangle applies: since the time to finish something is fixed, and there’s no more money forthcoming, the scope must change. Thus, in radio, if things are getting down to the wire, or a show starts to go off the rails, the crew will just start adding or dropping news items or features on the fly to get it back on track. They do it with such professionalism and calm that I think those of us who aren’t really in a deadline-driven environment could learn something about keeping your cool under fire. Say what you will about the web, call it the “future” if you must, but is there really anything that just cannot wait an extra five minutes? We have all the time in the world on the Internet compared to radio or TV.

Anyway, as part of the course, we all recorded our own 4’30” phony newscasts, made up of pre-written stories of the day. Here’s my attempt at being a CBC hourly news host:

I guess I’ll just stick with my day job…