The temperatures have gotten up into the pluses since Tuesday. The snow was getting a good cutting until Thursday night and Friday morning, we had a good dump of heavy wet snow.
Quite the mess around town with standing water, running water, slush, it was quite hairy driving the 4 wheeler through it all.
Still the warmer temps are welcome by almost everybody.



Now back to the eulogy for Labrador Morning [LM].

LM served Labrador well over the years, I can remember when there was both radio and television programming produced in studios in HV-GB. The programs served the people of Labrador and reflected its unique cultures and geography both within and out to the larger audience in the province and Canada.
Sadly over the years both Liberal and Conservative governments in Ottawa have chipped and grinded away at funding for the CBC, this has led to some startling bad program changes by the minions in Toronto and St. John’s.
Non more so than the latest round of funding cuts, these cuts are looking more and more like CBC programming in the regions of this province will no longer be meeting the CBC mandate and most assuredly will no longer be relevant to the avid public broadcast fans like myself.

The minions have said that the staffing and program changes to Labrador Morning will be announced some time in the next couple of months.
Well this listener is not looking forward to this announcement one little bit, as a matter of fact I am fed up with the garbage that Labrador Morning is dishing up at the moment, and this is before any proposed cuts.

The garbage I reference goes a little like this: Labrador Morning is a 2 ½ hour long program. More and more stories that reflect the interest of Labradors people, i’s events, it’s happenings are aired less frequently.

At the moment at the top of the hour we get the National net work news. I have no problem with that.
Then we get the weather forecast, no problem.
Then we get the transport report. OK, stuff people need to know.
All the above has now taken up about 20 minutes.
Add a little small talk, then some interview taken from the network about some non sequential goings on in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia or some such does not leave much time for LABRADOR STORIES in that half hour.


Then at the bottom of the hour we get the provincial news. I’m OK with that.
Then the weather. Ok some people are just getting up.
Then the transport report. Ditto.
Then the sports report. That can be a little prolonged but I understand some people are interested.
More small talk.
Another 20 minutes taken up.
Maybe a story from Labrador, maybe more network irrelevance, maybe a comedy team skit

There are at least two reporters working out of HV-GB and one out of Labrador West at the moment. My question is why are there not more Labrador stories being sought? I would like to see 100% Labrador stories but would be happy if they could manage maybe 60 to 70 %.

I do not regard a reporter sitting in HV-GB and doing a story about one of the pilots of the Hi Jacked plane in Jamaica having a Labrador connection a Labrador story. I do not give a rat’s arse if he USED to fly for a Labrador based airline some 8 years ago.


And how about this dooly; a reporter sitting in HV-GB and interviewing an Inuk, who is from Iqaluit, and living in Newfoundland, and is on holiday in New Zealand, and is kicking up a stink about a NZ candy [lolly] that has been on the market for 50 years, and is called Eskimo.


There is also the Eskimo Pie and the Edmonton Eskimos, but the little lady from Iqaluit seems much uninformed as she claimed in the interview she had not heard of the Edmonton Eskimos until she arrived in New Zealand.
Where in the bloody hell is the relevance to Labrador and its issues in this story.

Meantime, on the south and north coasts a myriad of stories go unreported. Why even eastern and western Labrador are getting short shift with the ever increasing network stories being aired.

Maybe the 922 digits on the CBC phones are stuck. Or perhaps the 933 digits are missing. Or the 939 digits are on sabbatical.
What is so hard about phoning around and chasing up stories, I thought that’s what journalists are supposed to do and do best.

So if this crap continues I will have to look to other news sources and programs. Maybe even turn the radio off in the mornings and at noon [cuts are projected for Radio Noon too], maybe even the afternoon program will be foregone.

Worse comes to worse I may listen to VOCM on the Internet. Nothing on there about Labrador usually, but neither will there be anything of interest on Labrador morning when the cuts are announced.



Sad times.



Speaking of which. I heard from a Kanajugak that old brook trout has taken the right fork in the stream of life and ended up in the shark pool. Some may say [not me] that maybe even old brook trout has descended the rapids, and down the waterfall into the piranha pool.
I wonder what Kaleo thinks of that lot?