Global Winnipeg marks 50 years on the air – Winnipeg | USAEMALL.com

This month Global Winnipeg is marking 50 years on the air.

The station launched in September 1975, under its call letters CKND, founded by the late Manitoba politician, lawyer and businessman Izzy Asper under CanWest Broadcasting.

“That was an era when the Canadian government was licensing independent TV services across Canada to augment CBC and CTV. So he and two partners decided to try to get an independent television station for Winnipeg,” David Asper, Izzy Asper’s son and a former CKND employee, told Global News.

“They got the licence, and the way they figured out how to do it was to repatriate a TV station that was in North Dakota, then known as KCND, and bringing it and its transmitter across the border to Winnipeg and set up a TV station. And that’s what they did.”

The station launched with the 20-hour-long Jerry Lewis Telethon in support of muscular dystrophy.

“It made us be able to instantly connect with the community and it was a very important launching point for us,” Asper said.

The station was initially located on St. Mary’s Road before relocating to 201 Portage, on the corner of Portage and Main, in 2011. A lot has changed in the five decades on air: the ownership of the station, the personalities, the hairstyles, the music beds and the on-air presentation. The technology has evolved significantly as well.

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“First of all, when you’re working with film, you had to wait for it to be developed,” said Joe Pascucci, who worked at CKND/Global Winnipeg as a sports director, anchor and reporter from 1982 until 2014.

“You’d shoot it in the morning, you’d wait for it to be developed in the afternoon, and you’d get it around five o’clock. And that’s when you started editing.”

“There were no such things as cellphones,” Pascucci added. “When I got here in ’82, it was basically you were sent out to do a story and there was no way for the newsroom to get a hold of you. Then we got a couple of walkie-talkies.”

Changes, challenges facing TV news outlets and journalism

The technology and the styles aren’t the only things that have evolved over the decades. Today, the entire landscape of local television news looks different.

“I think there’s a threat to journalism, but there’s a threat to the public as well,” said veteran Winnipeg journalist Cecil Rosner, an investigative journalism adjunct professor at the University of Winnipeg who spent decades with the CBC.

“Because we’re awash in all kinds of misinformation these days, and journalists are the people that can help the public sort through what’s true, what isn’t true.”

Rosner says local media outlets have faced monumental challenges in recent years, including navigating a world of social media and misinformation, adapting advertising models, and shifting audience expectations.

“I think the biggest (threat) is probably the financial one, because that strikes right at the heart of, are you viable, can you even operate as a business? There have been massive numbers of closures of news outlets across Canada over the years, and fewer and fewer journalists are working as a result,” he said.

“A lot of the advertising dollars have been sucked out of the system by the big tech players — Google, Facebook — they’ve hoovered up the ad dollars.

“So as journalism declines, as the financial model of newspapers and broadcast outlets gets tougher for companies to operate, it’s harder and harder for the public to figure out what the real message is: how do we interpret what’s going on in the world?

“New models have to be found. We can’t depend on the old models that worked in the ’70s when CKND was founded, or the ’80s or ’90s. You have to look for new models, there’s got to be new funding models sought.”

Rosner says he believes there’s a role for government as well.

“If journalism is for the public good, then there should be a role in assisting journalism both financially and in other ways,” Rosner said. “And without that, we’re going to see the continual erosion of outlets and journalism jobs, which doesn’t serve the public very well.”

Heather Steele, the regional news director and station manager and a former journalist with Global Winnipeg, says as the station has adapted, one thing has remained the same.

“A lot has changed about the way we do things and we need to adapt, but at the centre of every decision we make, we focus on why we do what we do, and it always starts and ends with the viewer,” Steele said. “So we’ll keep telling stories that matter the most to our communities. Local news will always matter.”

That’s something Rosner and Asper agree with.

“I think in any society you need people who try to sort out truth from fiction, and I think it’s especially important today,” Rosner said.

“Local news does two things: number one, it provides an editorial lens on accuracy, on truth,” Asper added.

“Number two, it uncovers stories in your market, where you live, that are important to you. And if you’re a taxpayer, or if you’re impacted by what local government is doing or what your provincial government is doing, you need to know that.”

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