Four chatty experts deliver news analysis
The show: The National, Nov. 6 The moment: The experts, chatting
Co-anchor Ian Hanomansing leads a long segment about Sunday’s massacre in a Texas church. Via a split screen, Hanomansing talks to field reporter Paul Hunter.
“Did anyone raise the issue of guns?” Hanomansing asks.
“Not a single person,” Hunter says, shaking his head.
“I was at Newtown,” Hunter continues, referring to the mass execution of children in Connecticut in 2012. “It was beyond the pale horrific. I cried . . . You look at all the shootings and it’s hard not to be a cynic.”
The debut of this revamped, fouranchor news hour landed on a big news day: besides Texas, a police officer was killed in Abbotsford, B.C. (co-anchor Andrew Chang led that one); the British press released the Paradise Papers (co-anchor Rose- mary Barton); and co-anchor Adrienne Arsenault did an in-depth field report from the ruins of Raqqa. Four complicated stories, in four different countries, all with impact in Canada.
With each, however, my takeaway was the same: the revamp gives us the minimum amount of news we need, to deliver us into news analysis. “We know Abbotsford,” Chang said to his field reporter, setting the tone of “experts talkin’ to ya.”
Covering Valérie Plante’s upset election win as Montreal mayor, Barton opined, “I think people were a little fed up with Denis Coderre.”
“You know the news,” the Ceeb seems to be saying. “But we’re the experts. Not the stentorian expertson-high the way we used to be; we’re chatty experts. Your four friends who always make you go, ‘Huh.’ ”
We’ll see how that plays out in the days to come. The National airs weeknights at 10 p.m. on CBC. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on popculture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.