Herb CollingHerb Colling
I didn’t get cut. I was eligible for early retirement, and opted for the voluntary program. I was going to retire within a couple of years anyway, so it just accelerated my plans a bit. I’ve had a good run with CBC. It’s been a good employer to me, and I was lucky for the most part.

I started my CBC career as a summer relief technician in radio in Toronto in 1972, while still studying the Radio and Television Arts degree program at Ryerson. Continued the following two summers at CBC, alternating TV, then radio again. When I graduated, I went to Carleton, in Ottawa, for the one year degree in Journalism. Started freelancing at CBC, Ottawa. Then, in ’76, I was hired as an agricultural commentator on Radio Noon. Continued on contract until “79 when I became a staff ag commentator at CBC Windsor. I planned that as a two year stint, but it turned into a thirty year run, doing agriculture for the first ten years, and then general hosting and announcing when CBC turned its back on the farm community. During the 90’s, I wrote three books on local history: Pioneering the Auto Age; 99 Days, about the Ford strike in Windsor in 1945; and Turning Points, a Windsor perspective on the Detroit riot of 1967. I wrote travel articles for The Windsor Star, and The London Free Press, as well as regular articles for two monthly magazines: Waterline, and Fit. In my latter years, I served as secretary treasurer of the local CMG. One of my most important functions, during that time, was handing out cheques to members during the lock-out. In deciding to retire, I realized that I didn’t want to be part of the new reality: the lean, mean machine that the CBC is becoming. I don’t see myself as a TV reporter, doing radio, and web camming on the side, linked to the desk by a Blackberry through which I was expected to file from the field. I didn’t want to become a hamster on a treadmill, churning out news on the fly. I think radio will suffer without content reporters who are devoted to the genre. Radio news will be a regurgitation of TV content, whether it is relevant or not, and with its questionable (at times) audio. I believe that local coverage will only suffer. I’m already seeing this in my last few weeks of employment. CBC radio could well lose the local packs, streeters, and sound pieces that were its claim to local fame.

I also realized that, if I retire, I could save some of the worthy young blood that we have at the station, and I am gratified to know that has actually happened. Very few of our young local reporters will actually lose their jobs. Their positions have changed, but their jobs seem secure at this point. In that regard, I wish them well, and all success in the future; especially recognizing that CBC isn’t out of the dark financial woods even now. I’ll be watching with trepidation to determine what the fiscal report holds in 2010. I hope it will bode well, and that the hemorrhaging will cease.

Thanks to all of my colleagues, who provided the sunshine in my life, even in the darkest days; to my listeners that I tried to serve to the best of my ability, and for whom I was really working; and to the friends that I have made, who are all friends of the CBC, in part (I like to think), because I was there. I am entering a new chapter of my life, and am looking forward to it. Relaxing, travelling, sailing, doing stain glass, possibly freelance writing and editing, and teaching English to foreign students and immigrants.

Contact him at: acolling@wincom.net