Dear CBC,
I noticed the addition of the “Life” section to your website which posts articles such as, “The 7 at-home products for spa quality facial results” and “The most popular dog names of 2016“. I was a bit confused, as normally such riveting content can only be found on the likes of Buzzfeed and ebaumsworld.
Actually I’m ashamed for you. Ashamed that things have gotten so bad at CBC Digital it now needs to whore itself out like this.
I expect I will soon start seeing clickbait like “The top 10 things the Liberal Government doesn’t want you to know about!” and “Sophie Trudeau – Dermatologists hate her! She’s 51 but looks 25. Find out how!“.
Why do you hate journalism and news so much? There was a time when the CBC employed actual journalists. Reporters who went out and investigated stories and brought us the News. Now you have “partners” who write advertorial content, and pass it off as journalism. You have recent college grads who rewrite stories that come off the wire so they sound original. In addition to this, you bury the headlines at the bottom of the page, or relegate it to the right rail.
Do you think people will continue to take the CBC seriously if you continue posting nonsense articles on the homepage?
Do you think people come to the website to read about the latest episode of the TV show they didn’t watch.
You can’t fool me, I set up your website analytics and I’ve seen your TV ratings. I know where your traffic is going and you’re forcing people wade through shit to get to the actual news. Take a look at the traffic to news and compare it to everything else on the website. In fact, you can even add everything else together and it is still a fraction of news’ traffic.
Now the redesigned website mixes that shit all together with what little news you have forcing people to wade through that effluent just to get to the actual headlines.
Be very, very careful. For many people, myself included, the CBC is still a trusted news source. Fuck that up and many of your supporters will no longer have a use for you.