The replacement brooooooooadcast

Allow me to indulge my inner journalism junkie for a moment.

As reported by the CBC (appropriately enough), the Mothercorp is shuffling many of its correspondents.

Evan Solomon is moving to Ottawa, where he will replace Don Newman as the host of Politics (CBC's special episode of Politics dedicated to Don's retirement can be seen at the 'Friday' link on this page, and contains well-wishes from a who's who of CBC and political personalities. And Randy Bachman.) Terry Milewski is also coming to our nation's capital as Chief Political Correspondent - replacing Keith Boag, who moves to Los Angeles. Susan Bonner leaves Ottawa for Washington, while Paul Hunter - who has been back and forth between those two cities - is now permanently south of the border. Finally, David Common leaves CBC's Paris bureau for New York City.

Howard Bernstein, a former producer at the CBC and elsewhere, has started a blog where he gives frequent updates and analysis of behind-the-scenes goings-on in CBC headquarters.

One of his more interesting posts details a planned change for The National come September - an end to the long-form documentaries that often take up the latter half of one day's newscast (or more). Without cutting the show back to 30 minutes, it's obvious that CBC would need to do something to fill all that time - and evidently they've decided more American news is the ticket forward.

CBC now has three reporters in Washington (Hunter, Bonner, and Neil Macdonald), two in New York (Common and Alison Smith), and Boag in LA. Six reporters in the United States is unheard of for a Canadian network (CTV has three, two of them in Washington). To be honest, I find this a very weird decision - eliminate the one thing you're doing that nobody else is, and replace it with more coverage of stories that viewers could get on the American networks? Hopefully there's more to it (and even more hopefully it's NOT trying to penetrate the American market somehow).

Moving back to the original point, the appointments of Milewski and Solomon both look great on paper. Solomon is considered a rising star at CBC, and won't stand for the normal spin the parties will try to trot out on his show, while Milewski is excellent at being a thorn in the side of governments in the worst way possible - doing so on important matters, rather than the scandal du jour.

But put these moves in the context of everything else, and I'm far less enthused. CBC has gutted their Ottawa bureau to just Milewski and Rosemary Barton - nowhere near enough resources for Milewski to be his most effective, because he'll have to be jumping from story to story every day, rather than able to stay on the trail of whatever he finds most relevant. I'm all for reducing Ottawa coverage, and I'm all for Terry Milewski, but the two don't reconcile - you need another reporter there to let Milewski do what he does best.

Also, David Common moving stateside is worrying because no replacement was named - is the Radio-Canada guy going to start doing double duty the way Frederic Zalac does?

Finally, poor Keith Boag - going from being the top political reporter to Hollywood news? What bet did he lose?

I'm really hoping that this isn't the end of the moves, and there's more shoes to drop. I'm hoping Ottawa gets another reporter or two, somebody with good credentials is posted to Paris, and the sudden influx of American correspondents to more than regurgiate CNN's top stories.

Warren Kinsella, in his own brief thoughts on this matter, wonders what CTV will do to respond. I don't see them making any changes - Craig Oliver and Robert Fife will never leave Ottawa, Graham Richardson's still pretty new in town, and Rosemary Thompson hasn't been back for very long. That just leaves Roger Smith, and he frankly does too good a job to be given anything other than a promotion. Plus there's the small matter of me not being able to name a single CTV reporter who would be both a plausible and a welcome addition to their Ottawa bureau (maybe Scott Laurie, at a stretch). CTV has their own holes to fill - nobody in the India/Afghanistan bureau, still needing either a Halifax bureau chief, somebody else in Montreal, or both - but I'm not sure we'll be seeing any changes to their political coverage.

--Ryan