> News show reaches out to younger demographic

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

 

or 30 years, Peter Mansbridge hosted

The National, telling the news from
a Canadian perspective. However, on
September 4, 2016, he announced that
he would be leaving the show. Some of
the names that were thrown around as
potential replacements for him were
Wendy Mesley, Paul Hunter and Margaret
Evans. During CBC Open House last
year, people were talking about Adrienne
Arsenault, lan Hanomansing and even
Terry Milewski possibly hosting The
National. When Mansbridge left the
show, it held auditions for his position
and some of the people that hosted
it during that time were Arsenault,
Hanomansing, Andrew Chang, and
Rosemary Barton. Last month, CBC

formally announced that they will all
be the next hosts of The National.
Some of the hosts of the show
were likely candidates and some were
unexpected. The new version of The
National is an experiment, as the new
hosts might be shortlisted for the show
and when the audience decides who
they like, that person will host it. Many
people thought that Arsenault would
host the show because she goes in the
field and explains facts by the numbers.
Hanomansing put a lot of innovation
in the primetime editions of CBC
News Now on CBC News Network with
Steadicam shots of the newsroom and
doing serious and fun interviews with
a lot of famous public figures, and he
will likely use that style when he hosts
the show. Chang has a small role in
The National doing breaking news and

Rosemary Barton, Andrew Chang, Adrienne Arsenault and lan Hanomansing via CBC

when he hosts CBC News: Vancouver,
he talks about top stories in depth.

Barton will do the panels in the
show, a position she’s well comfortable
with as shown on her show Power and
Politics, which airs on CBC’s cable
news channel CBC News Network.
Compared to Mansbridge when he
hosted his trademark segment in the
show At Issue—where he lets the
journalists in the panel give their
opinions on politics—Barton seems
more likely to put the pressure on.

The National will be restructured to
try to appeal to a younger demographic.
Some of these changes include more
special reports on top stories and web-
exclusive material on the show’s website
because they know a lot of people
find news on the internet and mobile
devices. However, this might cause older

viewers to stop watching, because it
is their only way to watch the news.
Also, a lot of reshuffling is happening
at CBC News because of Hanomansing,
Chang, and Barton leaving their
respective shows. It is likely that Sarah
Galashan will host the primetime editions
of CBC News Now, Dan Buritt will host
CBC News: Vancouver, and Evan Dyer
will host Power and Politics. Arsenault
and Hanomansing being the main hosts
of The National is great because it is
like in Japan where the main newscasts
in the country have two hosts. If this
experiment works, this might cause CTV
to put Power Play host Don Martin as
host of CTV News at 11 with Laflamme.
All of this could set a new standard
in Canadian news. The new National
begins November 6 at 10:00 p.m. on CBC
and 6:00 p.m. on CBC News Network.

Is any utopia fundamentally flawed?

> Iain M. Banks explores perfection in his ‘The Culture’ series

Greg Waldock
Staff Writer

We is the end goal of Western
civilization? That’s one hell of

a question, but it is one that needs to

be asked if we want to claim to have
ideals and values. It is a question Iain M.
Banks asks in his landmark The Culture
series, which shows a civilization that
has reached its end goal. The Culture

is a stateless, totally egalitarian, hyper-
advanced society with no money, racism,
sexism, sexual taboos, hierarchy of
power, scarcity, or nationalism. It has
no flag or government, no religion, no
laws. Humanity has spread across and
beyond the galaxy, and simply chose

to be better through technology. This

is presented as the end-point of our

 

ily:
Camedia

process obsessed society: Ultimate
peace, near immortality, and the
extinction of all forms of prejudice.
So much of fiction examines our
struggle to improve according to our
ideals. In his books, Banks takes a
completely different approach and
instead asks, what happens when we
win? What are humans when we make
the perfect society, without struggle
or hate or crime? We focus on our
fight to improve the world so much
that we can lose sight of what we're
fighting for. Banks aims to show a
universe where the fight ends. And I
think it says something important that
most of us legitimately do not think
humans can create a perfect world.
Banks’ harshest criticism of The
Culture, and by metaphor Western
civilization, comes from its arrogance
and condescension. The many alien

races of his universe see The Culture as
insufferably perfect, having every answer
to every problem and acting purely
according to their own powerful sense
of morality, leading them to meddle in
places they shouldn't be. This reflects a
deeply uncomfortable aspect of the west
and its technological progress: The dark
side of that progress is “The White Man’s
Burden,” the unthinkably condescending
belief that we know best and everyone
else is wrong, and it’s our tragic duty
to drag them out of savagery. The
Culture makes first contact with many
planets, absorbing those new races into
its fold. It is less forceful than our own
history of colonization but it is no less
reflective of a scary self-centeredness.
Despite being about a utopia, The
Culture series is not optimistic. Humans
built computers smart enough to be
self-aware, and humans were caring

 

enough to grant all sentient machines
and aliens full citizenship into their
society. But The Culture always, always
encourages problems outside its borders
and sees any moral failing as physically
impossible. Despite being open and
tolerant internally, they meddle
externally, engaging in almost accidental
and indirect wars, or refusing to
acknowledge the violence they commit.
The Culture, despite being the end-point
of all scarcity and disease, is still human.
Ultimately, lain M. Banks leaves
the morality of The Culture—and
the west—up to the reader to decide.
Does having limited resources keep us
grounded, and aware of our crimes?
Does inequality make us unique? Are
all the problems in humanity necessary
parts of our society? It is depressing,
but important, to think about.

‘The Prologue and the Promise’ by Robert McCall