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BC Thanks Cecilia Walters As She Retires From CBC’s Early Edition

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After 33 years working with CBC Vancouver, and almost two decades getting up every morning at 3:45 to prepare news for The Early Edition, Vancouver’s most popular morning radio show, Cecilia Walters said a tearful goodbye this week.

“Thank you to everybody — all my colleagues. You have been teaching me every day … something, I don’t know what,” Walters said live on the now-televised morning radio show, while crying and laughing. Walters said a few words in thanks directed at each of The Early Edition regulars, Fred Lee, Amy Bell and Rick Cluff.

The Hamilton, Ontario-born Walters’ early work with CBC in the 1980s was co-anchoring the 6 p.m. CBC Evening News with Bill Good. She began working in radio with CBC Radio One’s B.C. Almanac in the early 1990s, and joined The Early Edition in 1997.

Walters’ journalism won her many awards during her over three decades of news service.

After the announcement, Vancouverites poured in thanks and well-wishes for the journalist on social media.

By Andy Stern

Peter Mansbridge Inducted Into Canadian News Hall Of Fame

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CBC News Chief Correspondent Peter Mansbridge was inducted into the Canadian News Hall of Fame this week. The news veteran delivered a speech as his induction Tuesday thanking the journalists he has worked with during his career as well as sharing his thoughts on the future of CBC journalism.

Mansbridge said he didn’t want to dwell on the “golden years” of the CBC or the “struggle” to succeed among an increasingly large field of news competition. Instead, he sees these things as a challenge and a chance to set CBC apart.

The two things that remain always in news, Mansbridge said, were facts and great storytelling, noting that CBC was rating among the best in the world in these areas.

Mansbridge highlighted the continuing importance of public broadcasting with five points:

– It’s clear of outside influences. This is critical and must be protected.
– Its mandate is to reflect the country and those living in it – all those who live in it.
– Our country is changing: how it looks; how it feels; what it believes.
– Our job is to find those common threads and expose them.
– It’s not about being popular; it’s about being relevant.

He said that CBC should focus on doing news that matters — that has an impact — rather than just what gets shared on social media.

Mansbridge also mentioned — more than once — his faith in the young journalists now entering the corporation, where he sees “the future of this incredible country.”

H noted CBC’s recent funding cuts, staffing cuts, and criticism, and said the CBC had to be prepared to take risks:

“I have faith that Canadians will continue to believe, as the surveys show they do today, in a national public broadcaster. They believe that the future for the CBC can be even better than its illustrious past and its award-winning present.

“And so do I.”

To read CBC’s reproduction of Mansbridge’s full speech, visit CBC. 

By Andy Stern