Peter Mansbridge says news media's biggest threat is a lack of public trust
CBC Radio | Posted: October 1, 2021 9:58 PM | Last Updated: October 5, 2021
CBC's former chief correspondent reflects on his career in new autobiography
With the journalism industry in Canada facing a host of challenges — declining revenues, disappearing jobs, a lack of newsroom diversity — former CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge says its biggest threat today is a lack of trust.
"You only have to look at the ratings that come out every few months in different parts of the world on trust, in terms of different professions, and for journalism, it's gone down," Mansbridge told The Sunday Magazine host Piya Chattopadhyay.
"It's not as low as politicians, but it's low, and yeah, we can't afford it to be low," he said.
According to a recent Ipsos survey, Canadians' public trust in news media has declined from 72 per cent in 2019 to 66 per cent in 2021, particularly for traditional sources like broadcast television and print newspapers.
In another report by communications firm Edelman, 49 per cent of the Canadians surveyed agreed that "journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.
"If we don't have the trust of our audience — you know, viewers, listeners, readers. If we don't have that trust, we got nothing," Mansbridge said. "Journalism is built on credibility. Credibility is built on trust and the truth. And we're facing a challenge on the trust factor."
Despite stepping down from The National's anchor chair in 2017, Manbridge has continued to work, from guest hosting CBC special events and election coverage to hosting his own current affairs podcast The Bridge.
He's now publishing an autobiography called Off the Record, to be released Oct. 5, sharing stories from his 50-year career in journalism.
"Simon and Schuster wanted to call it a memoir. And I said, 'No, no, that sounds like a kind of near-death experience,'" he said. "I don't want that. I just want anecdotes, you know, and I'm not done yet."
Among his memorable moments are interviewing legendary musician and personal friend Gord Downie, as well as a prickly interview with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
But he says that if he were starting out today, his career would look very different.
"Well, I'd be looking at a life of baggage handling," said Mansbridge, referring to the story of how he was discovered while working at the airport in Churchill, Man., in 1968. Local CBC station manager Gaston Charpentier offered him a job hosting an overnight radio show after he heard his voice on the loudspeaker.
Mansbridge acknowledges that since then, the field has become highly competitive, especially following the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, which enticed more people into the profession.
"If that job was open today, there'd be 200 people lined up wanting that job. Then, there was nobody," he said. "So my life would have been very different."
He says that young journalists trying to make it today should "be determined."
"Pick a goal. Know what you want to do ... and don't give up," he said, recounting that he himself was turned down three times before eventually being offered a job as a reporter for The National.
As for the wider journalism industry, Mansbridge says that it's vital to work on gaining the trust of the audience. He says that news media need to be "a lot more transparent" about how they make decisions.
"Whether it's how we decide what's news and what isn't news, why one item gets much more time than another, how we determine who's worthy of giving anonymity to in the sourcing," he said.
Written by Althea Manasan. Interview produced by Tracy Fuller.
Corrections:- A previous version of this story stated that Peter Mansbridge stepped down from The National in 2019. In fact, he stepped down in July 2017. October 5, 2021 8:02 PM