There is no ‘we’ in ‘Tea Makers’

(UPDATED) Did you know the Tea Makers has been quite amusing recently? It has – thanks to contributrix PoonGirl, who later endured a now-customary hazing and had to leave the site for a while. Every contributor goes through that phase, but we all stage at least one comeback. Even Alphonse Ouimet, who seems to think he stands on some kind of moral high ground.

Acting like it were a Gizmodo 4G iPhone scoop manqué, Ouimet released a samizdat survey of CBC Radio producers and reporters that showed immense dissatisfaction with the state of CBC Radio News. The obvious intent of the survey was to give voice to such dissatisfaction. It asked numerous loaded questions, like this one:

Compared to a year ago, morale in the national news service is:

• ☐ higher than ever during my career [...]
• ☐ lower than ever during my career

The authors of the survey and its methodology were not released, though the authors were named in a separate unattributed report. (I have asked them for a confirmation or denial; there was one response. It’s disturbing that CBC reporters still work in such a climate of fear.)

The survey had another obvious intent: To be “leaked” to the public in order to exert pressure on CBC management. It strains credulity to imagine this survey was meant to be kept in-house, or that its authors had any reason to believe it would stay in-house even if that’s what they wanted. Of course this thing was meant for the cold light of day.

But why would anyone bother leaking it to the Tea Makers? This isn’t 2005; the CBC strike is long gone and the last ten incarnations of the Tea Makers have no relation to Tea Makers Classic. (I should know.) That blog is in no respect the obvious or only place to locate, let alone situate, CBC gossip.

Isn’t it plain as the nose on Jian’s face that this report should have been released on its own site (on a pop-up blog, say), even if anonymously? (Plus on the Facebook, on the Twitter, etc.) That way it could have been bookended with explanations from the survey creators, who could have used such explanations to own the story. Instead it just got lobbed out there like the juicy morsel of industrial espionage it actually was not.

So that was a tactical mistake on the part of the authors. It’s hardly upsetting or offensive. For that, we turn to Alphonse Ouimet, who had the gall to write the following:

• What [CBC nabobs] are trying to [do] is make me feel guilty for telling people what’s going on. They’re also blaming their journalists for telling the truth. And they’re trying to make you feel guilty for reading it. They think we should keep these things in the family, you see. Keep them all behind closed doors. [...]

  I’m stunned that the people running Canada’s public broadcaster would prefer to keep discussions concerning the public’s interest – not to mention money – locked away in a boardroom in Toronto. And who’s allowed to dial in? Me? You? Who decides who?

  I can speak knowledgeably here as someone not in the employ of CBC who “dialled in” to various conference calls and presentations and liveblogged them. I’m proof you don’t have to be in the family to accomplish that.

  Tea Makers contributors are generally not in the family, including the most prolific ones – and Alphonse Ouimet, who hasn’t lived in Canada for years, hasn’t worked for the CBC for even longer, and who will soon have dual citizenship. (There was a point at which he volunteered to me he had never even seen Being Erica. How could he have?)

  Alphonse Ouimet hasn’t been a CBC insider in all that time. The difference is I never pretended to be.

• We leaked these documents because we thought it would spark a discussion worth having. We leaked these documents because we thought people should read them, and because we wanted to hear what you thought about them. And we wanted [CBC nabobs] to hear what you thought, too.

  We leaked these documents because going down the same paths with [will] lead us straight to the same places. And we leaked these documents because we love the CBC and we believe in it.

  Stripped of disingenuousness and viewed through the lens of actual journalism, which admittedly Alphonse Ouimet has never pretended to practise, the survey should have been “leaked” (actually just “reported”) for only one reason: Because it has news value.

  That only underscores why the authors of the survey should have handled the release all by themselves: They could have owned the narrative. Now it’s all about how principled and responsible Alphonse Ouimet is, two qualities I know are absent. At least Nick Denton doesn’t tie himself into knots of self-rationalization.

• The general idea on this Web site is that discussion is good. So let’s talk.

  Actually, there is no “general idea” to the Tea Makers, which was set up in a panic five years ago and has devolved into a playground for tyranny anarchy and defamation that is overseen, at great remove, by a disinterested, amoral figurehead.

Update

(2010.04.23) Dave Seglins responded to the fact-checking query I sent (in the absence of one from the original report):

I did not “spearhead” the survey. However, on learning of it, having already had some very constructive meetings and discussions with our senior editorial leaders, I sought a similar meeting on behalf of all reporters. I served as moderator in a bid to discuss the survey, the changes CBC News has undertaken, and the ways forward to improving CBC News.