The country's first major current-affairs information program was carried by the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Com­ mission's (CRBC) predecessor, the Canadian National Railways network. Gratton O'Leary, editor of the Ottawa Journal, broadcast a 15-minute weekly program called Canada Today, in which he discussed major issues that had been reported the previous week in his newspaper. In spite of his ties to the federal Conservative Party, O'Leary promised to be impartial on the air. However, O'Leary never kept his promise. When the United States began turning up the heat to get Germany, France, and Italy to pay their war debts and reparation payments, O'Leary claimed that loans made to the United States for southern reconstruction after the Civil War by several European states had never been repaid. The American consul in Montreal, Wesley Frost, called for O'Leary to.be forced to desist. In spite of the pressure, the program was not canceled.

Early Canadian radio broadcasters had developed an uneasy relationship with the country's largest news- and sports-gathering organization, the Canadian Press, by the early 1930s. In the 1920s, few if any stations carried significant news and sports programming. Reluctantly, the Canadian Press offered to allow radio stations access to its wire services free of charge on the provision that the stations would not sell newscasts to advertisers. The wire service itself had been constituted as a nonprofit cooperative with the precise mandate to serve Canadian newspapers with national and international news and sports. When the CRBC, Canada's first public broadcaster, took to the airwaves in 1933, it announced that it would sell newscasts to prospective advertisers. Much to the chagrin of the Canadian Press, private stations soon followed suit. In spite of the ongoing battles between broadcasters and the Canadian Press, the emergence of the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) did much to advance information programming on radio, mainly in the area of what we now call current affairs. During the late 1930s, the CBC launched farm programs, women's programs, political broadcasts, and extensive coverage of major events such as the 1939 royal tour of Canada by King George VI and his wife Elizabeth just before the outbreak of World War II. That same year Leonard Brockington, chairman of the CBC, asked the Board of Governors to approve a policy of nonpartisanship for what the CBC deemed controversial programming. This fairness doctrine still guides CBC news and current affairs to this day. However, spot news and sports coverage as a regular feature lagged well behind. That would change with the outbreak of World War II.

The Canadian Press realized that its battle with broadcasters seemed to be endless. As a consequence, the agency established Press News in 1941 for broadcasters. Young journalists such as Scott Young (father of singer Neil Young) and Jim Coleman (later an icon in the sports reporting community) were hired to reduce the Canadian Press' wordy newspaper copy to broadcast format. Sam Ross, the first manager of Press News, was given a mandate to sell the service to any Canadian broadcaster willing to pay the fee. The days of free Canadian Press copy in the broadcast newsroom had ended. That same year, the CBC founded its first national news service by establishing five newsrooms across the country under the direction of Daniel McArthur. McArthur remained convinced throughout his career that reporting spot news and interpreting and analyzing current affairs, although related, were two separate activities. McArthur had a mandate to expand CBC news coverage, which in 1939 constituted only 9.4 percent of the national network's programming. By 1941 he managed to increase this amount to 20 percent. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was a turning point in news coverage in both Canada and the United States. The CBC broadcast its own bulletins adjacent to feeds it carried from the United States. In the week following the disaster, CBC Radio News broadcast bulletins every hour on the hour, establishing a pattern that would soon be copied by private radio.

     In an ironic turn of fate, the war proved to be a boon to the goings-on in CBC news. Two CBC newsmen accompanied the first Canadian contingent to Europe. They followed the soldiers and reported from battles throughout the course of the war. A CBC reporter was assigned to the British Broadcasting Corporation in London to help develop shortwave broadcasts to North America. The CBC bought a six-ton van, which it converted into a mobile war reporting studio. In the winter of 1940, more than 1,000 reports were recorded on soft-cut discs during the six-month period. As CBC historian Austin Weir reported, three half-hour war programs were sent back to Canada weekly featuring interviews with service personnel, rides in war planes and tanks, and numerous notes of human interest.

     The war coverage spawned other current-affairs shows at the CBC. The Talks Department produced several new programs covering a myriad of topics. By the end of the war, news and information were an essential part of radio programming on both public and private stations. In 1953 the Canadian Press severed its Press News service from the newspaper cooperative and launched Broadcast News. However, the publishers appointed one of their own, Roy Thomson, as the first president of the new entity. Gordon Love, a television executive from Calgary, was appointed vice president, and Charles Edwards was named manager. Edwards was well aware of the potential held by Broadcast News. Shortly after his appointment, he connected 27 Canadian stations with pre-recorded news items. The system was called Tapex News and eventually evolved into the voice service of Broadcast News.

     In spite of its bumpy start, information programming took on a life of its own at the CBC. Evening newscasts became a regular part of the schedule, and by the mid-1950s lively and sometimes controversial current-affairs programming began to appear on CBC stations. Most privately owned affiliates broadcast short local newscasts during the supper hour and in the late evening following the network national news. In Toronto, producer Ross McLean launched Close Up. The local station CBLT produced the somewhat racy Tabloid program. A quiz show based on the weekly newspaper headlines was launched named Front Page Challenge. The CBC had begun to establish its reputation as a reliable and consistent purveyor of information programming. It certainly was aided by the fact that the Corporation had a monopoly on national network programming. Until the all news service CKO (which no longer exists) came on the air in the mid 1970s, CBC had a monopoly on radio networks. It also had a monopoly on television networks from 1952 until 1960.

     In 1971 CBC Radio split its AM and FM services and revamped its program schedules. New shows such as This Country in the Morning, Later That Same Day, Radio Noon, Metro Morning, and As It Happens, all based on the delivery of news and information, became the mainstays of the AM network. As It Happens, which continues today, can also be heard on the shortwave service of the CBC Radio-Canada International and on selected National Public Radio stations in the United States. Its format of interview and call-out has been a leader in the international broadcast journalism field. It set a trend that more and more AM radio stations in Canada, faced with stiff competition with FM stations with superior sound quality, followed by turning to sports and information programming. However, the Canadian Radio and Television and Telecommunications Commission made one serious licensing mistake in the 1970s. It approved a coast-to-coast network of I 2 all-news and -sports radio stations called CKO All Canada News Radio. With the exception of its Montreal license, all stations broadcast on FM. The network never turned a profit and closed its doors in late 1989.

     CBC Radio provided an excellent model that was later used when television came to Canada. Initially the newsrooms, especially at the reporter level, tended to integrate television and radio personnel and facilities. As CBC budgets increased, so did the separation between the two media, but as finances declined in the mid 1980s, once again CBC reporters faced double duty.

     Today, the CBC continues to be the leader in news and information programming. It offers an evening one-hour news and current-affairs program at 10 P.M. on the national network, one hour earlier on NewsWorld. Its competitors, CTV and Global, also offer evening newscasts. The CBC broadcasts an investigative journalism program called The Fifth Estate, a business program called Venture, a consumer-oriented program called MarketPlace, and a documentary series entitled Witness. It operates a 24-hour all-news channel, CBC News­ World, and its French language affiliate, RDI. CTV operates a 24-hour news headline service, CTV News1, as well as CTV SportsNet. The network is also attempting a merger with TSN, the country's first all-sports television specialty channel. All­ news radio made a major comeback when CFTR Radio 680 in Toronto dropped its pop music format and opted for news and information. It was followed by Canada's largest English­ speaking private station, CFRB Toronto, with a mixed format of talk, news, and sports. Virtually every major city in the country now has access to broadcast news and information on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis.