Good Night & Good Luck & Good Decisions

I saw "Good Night and Good Luck" about two weeks ago, at an afternoon screening at a dingy old theatre in Toronto's tony Yorkville neighbourhood. I say dingy with affection, because this theatre is one of the few places left in the city where you can see a movie and not have it seem like you've just stepped inside a game of HALO.

I'm glad to see that this fine film (and even finer allegory for current events) is getting the critical attention it deserves. There's nothing groundbreaking or ultimately envelope pushing about it. It's the kind of intelligent, well-drawn, nuanced and serious film that Hollywood used to have a place for, before they enjoyed one gorging too many at the summer gigaplex buffet.

At its root, Good Night and Good Luck is about a decision. And the most intriguing decision made in the film is not what David Straithairn's Murrow does, or what George Clooney's Fred Friendly does. It's the decision made by William Paley.

Paley, played in the movie by Frank Langella (right,) has to decide whether to go along when Murrow and Friendly decide to take on Senator Joseph McCarthy. Paley has plenty of reasons not to: he's losing sponsors, people are nervous, and there is a genuine fear in the country over the "communist threat." Yet, he stands by his newsmen. He makes the right decision to support them, knowing it may bring trouble for CBS.

Others have observed that it's not even really a question how that would go today. We've seen so many examples of corporate interest trumping truth or journalism that it's hardly worth being cynical about it anymore. Today, we get to hear about a fictional "War on Christmas" while the very real abandonment of New Orleans is under way. It's all par for the course and grist for the mill.

Last year, I think, there was a plan to run a movie on CBS about The Reagans. It dealt with all the silly Reagan gossip: the disconnected leader, the astrology, the "Mommy" figure, Nancy, lording things over the dottering old President.
Les Moonves, the President at CBS at the time, gave into pressure from Reagan hagiographers, and pulled the movie. It eventually went to Showtime. Again, at the time, there were howls about self censorship and how CBS wasn't bold to take a stand. But in the end it was a crappy TV movie, fueled with a tabloid sensibility. I'm not sure if I was in Moonves' place, that I'd want to take a stand on that, either. Even the great Paley had to eventually give in to realpolitik: the end of Good Night and Good Luck shows the great CBS leader cutting Murrow's weekly news hit to occasional specials. The market demanded it.

I say all this as preamble, to try and point out that I do understand that Network people have to weigh different factors when making their decisions. Which brings us, as it has a lot lately, to CBC.

A few weeks ago, when the election in Canada was called (Canadians go to the polls Jan. 23) the CBC responded by pulling a high-profile, two night drama about Tommy Douglas. Tommy Douglas was voted "The Greatest Canadian" last year in a series of TV specials. He's a politician, (also, he's Kiefer Sutherland's Grandfather!) the guy who's basically responsible for introducing Canada's medicare system. They said they didn't want to air programs with the appearance of bias during an election campaign.

When the CBC made its decision, I wrote about it here. Well, since then, things have gotten stupid. This election, even though it's Christmas and nobody really cares, is turning into a bit of a bruiser. There's a lot of talk on the campaign trail about how Canada differs from the USA. Some of it is to score points, and some of it is passion of a different order. One of the things that Canadians are passionate about is their health care system. It's a little broken right now, and there are legitimate debates about introducing private elements into it. But the system still works infinitely better than the ridiculous, embarrassing, wasteful goliath that is the US health care system. Health Care is always an issue in Canada, but now it seems that the US is paying attention a little bit. In the news over the last few days we've seen images of the US ambassador to Canada wagging his fingers at Canada's PM for criticizing the US on the campaign trail. Guess who the ambassador's close personal friend is?

Anyway, NeoCons in the USA would love for the Conservative leader to get into power here, since he's far more in line with GW than the Liberal government of Paul Martin.

Now, remember the whole health care thing? And how CBC didn't want to take sides? Well, twice in the last week, they aired a documentary called Medicare Schmedicare. This is a doc that's a polemic against Canada's current health care system. And guess who it takes lots of shots at? Tommy Douglas. That's right, kids. You can't take sides for the thing that most Canadians think is the finest hour in their last few decades: the creation of a workable and easy Public Health Care System. But the nationally funded broadcaster can air a doc that trashes it.

The worst part is, unlike CBS, past or present, there is no one person to look at and say, "there's who made the decision." That's not how CBC works. They hide behind committees and "official spokespeople." It's a joke. And unlike the decision to pull a dumb movie about calling Nancy "mommy," this decision actually stifles and hurts the public discourse.

It's one more bankrupt decision to issue forth from the unaccountable halls of the CBC. The entire top executive should resign, or be fired--for cause If you're a Canadian viewer, you should call or write the CBC immediately and tell them to air the damn movie in its original slot. Then you should show up at some campaign event and ask the candidate in your riding how they feel about the CBC summarily deciding that anti-health care docs are okay during a campaign, but historical movies showing how the system came to be are not.

Shouldn't you have the chance to see a movie about a man actually standing up and making a decision? Especially a decision with such great implications for Canadians -- then, and now.

The only thing I'm sure of, in all this -- there's sure as hell no William Paley anywhere inside the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.