OH SAY CAN YOU SEE

I have relatives who live in Detroit, and like many Americans, are discontented. Like a few other Americans, they watch and listen to the CBC. Detroit is right across the river.

They listen for what they describe as a more balanced, informed view of the world, untainted by the chronic American need to propagandize. That may be an overstatement, because there is much in U.S. media that is informed and balanced.

I, along with millions of Canadians, religiously watch CBC 60 Minutes. It is an outstanding piece of newsmagazine work. There are times when I prefer The Fifth Estate, but generally 60 Minutes is entertaining and sometimes informative.

I also watch a lot of MSNBC simply for the almost un-American left-leaning bias. And biased they are, sometimes even shrill. They have cashed in on the popularity of President Obama, even as they see his popularity slipping away in the never-ending swamp of American politics and ideology-based “truth.”

I have a new favourite: Power and Politics on the CBC Newsworld’s re-invented format. It is a favourite because of the quality of the host: Evan Solomon. I have always believed that Solomon is the best interviewer on the network, and miles ahead of most American interviewers, even Charlie Rose.

Nowhere was it more evident than in his penetrating and human interview with Canadian journalist-filmmaker Maziar Bahari, only recently released from prison in Iran.

I saw him interviewed on 60 Minutes by Bob Simon, a capable interviewer but no Evan Solomon. 60 Minutes leans toward entertainment, drama, and some politics – often choosing style over substance. Simon did give us a glimpse at the near-death terror inflicted on Bahari but the interview leaned heavily toward political bias. Fundamental to U.S. politics is the obligation to demonize Iran, especially president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Khomeini. It is all part of America’s declared war on Islamist terror. It is “required” in American television news coverage. That in itself, is not evil or devious. It is America.

It is a trap I have not seen Evan Solomon fall into. In his interview with Bahari he leaned toward the human side of the ordeal of a man, who after 14 years in Iran, was thrown into prison and regularly subjected to threats of execution. It fell to the Solomon interview to have Bahari tell us something we already should knew, that Ahmadinejad has very little power. Because of his preposterous statements he has become a convenient target for anti-Iran politicking. (I do not minimize in any way the threat Iran could pose to the rest of the world.) But Solomon, as he wove his way cleverly through the ordeal, evoked far more real information than Simon on 60 Minutes. The real enemy iS the Revolutonary Guard who have a stranglehold on the Iranian people and negate any possibility of democracy, replacing hope with terror.

60 Minutes entertains. They aleady have one Canadian, Morley Safer, who was drafted many years ago from This Hour Has Seven Days. CBS sent him to Viet Nam, at least partly because with a Canadian passport he would have access to places Americans did not.

Will Evan Solomon with his piercing, trenchant, communicative interviews, be the next recruit?

If you have not seen him, first on his Sunday night gig, and now on Power and Politics, go to Newsworld between 5 and 7 and be delighted with what Canadian TV can do if it wants to.