31 Jan Confined to ship – update

Nancy Waugh, executive producer of CBC News: Nova Scotia at 6 (And 5 and 530….) takes issue with the anonymous Contrarian source’s suggestion that CBC sent Rob Gordon Craig Paisley to Haiti without realizing their disaster zone training had expired:

What source said we discovered their lack of training after they’d departed? A source who didn’t bother to check to see if it was true? Jeepers creepers!

We knew their accreditation had lapsed and that they wouldn’t be allowed ashore. They signed documents to that effect before they left Halifax. Everyone knew the rules.

Craig and Rob did check (enroute) to see I their accreditation might be renewed on board, and the answer was no.

I’m quite worked up about the assertion that we’d play fast-and-loose about regulations that are there to protect them.

Because we knew they’d remain on the ship, we sent Rob and Craig with a bag full of flipcams and digital cameras that COULD go ashore with crewmembers.

I think we actually got something nobody else has managed in quite the same way: honest-to-God stories in the sailors’ own words, as seen through their eyes.

I think Andrew Cochrane already made it clear that CBC went into this curious arrangement with its eyes open, but Waugh nails the point. Besides, the Flip Cam ploy was brilliant.