One of the central points that has come up in this series – and that has been addressed in a number of the interviews - is that the crisis currently facing the CBC is really two-fold. Yes, it’s about funding, and the repeated budget cuts that have left the CBC short staffed, spread out, and unable to produce the same level of programming it once could. But more generally it’s also due to a loss of philosophy, the guiding sense of what at the end of the day, public broadcasting is all about.

This is true both within the confines of the CBC and for us as a country. Why does the CBC exist? What should its central role be? Is it to attract as many viewers and listeners as possible, or to examine the issues confronting us as citizens? Is it a mix? Whatever your stance, the idea of what the CBC is all about, has become rather muddled over the decades.  

This problem of purpose hasn’t just been occurring in the public sphere either. Take our newspapers and private broadcasters. What were once seen as businesses yes, but different types of businesses - ones which came with responsibilities of public interest - have now in almost every case become merely one part of much larger corporate conglomerates. And in the process, the sense of journalism and media as having greater social responsibilities has largely been lost to the dictates of profit. 

That all of this should happen in an era when arguably it is more important than ever that we have public forums to explore the major issues confronting us as a society -  from climate change and internet surveillance to growing economic inequality - makes the diminishing of these public forums all the more problematic. To paraphrase David Suzuki, how are we as Canadians supposed to deal with the issues we’re facing if we don’t have a forum through which we can explore them?

In this context, Jeffrey Dvorkin has an interesting vantage point from which to examine the problems facing the CBC and to think about the role of public broadcasting. He’s spent his life in broadcasting and has held senior positions at both the CBC and at National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States. For a number of years he was a Managing Editor and Chief Journalist for CBC Radio in Toronto before he moved to America to work for NPR, first as the Vice-President of News and Information, and then as NPR's Ombudsman.

Jeffrey Dvorkin now heads the journalism program at The University of Toronto Scarborough campus, and frequently comments on media issues.

As you’ll hear in our interview, he has some interesting suggestions based on his time with NPR, (and seeing how they dealt with similar challenges) of how the CBC could be potentially re-imagined, both in terms of its funding model, and in how it goes about serving the Canadian public.

Hope you enjoy it. He’s my conversation with Jeffrey Dvorkin. Listen below!

At some point in our lives, most of us have had the unpleasant experience of  having to awake at an excessively early hour of the morning, one that radically departs from our more comfortable routine. It might be to catch a flight, or during a busy time at work, or to go on that promised jog - but whatever the reason, when this groggy inducing torture is inflicted upon us we often can be heard complaining of it being an ungodly hour to be up. "It's uncivilized to be up this early!" we cry. "One simply isn't meant to be up at this time!"

And if this is true for those dreary eyed 5:30am wake up calls, then 3:30am might just be the most ungodliest hour of them all. It's an inconceivable hour to be waking up; a time that represents the very depths of night. An hour so perfectly wedged between being an extremely late night out, or unthinkably earnestly start, that even a city as bustling as Toronto can seem eerily quiet and calm in even its busiest corners. 

But each weekday morning,  3:30am is precisely the ungodly hour that Matt Galloway's alarm goes off. And not long after, once he's finished his short morning routine, he'll gentle close the door of his Toronto home, mount his bike, and ride off in quiet blackness of 4 am as the rest of the city sleeps soundly in their beds.

However, as many Toronto residents will know, the reason Galloway subjects himself to a routine that for most of us would constitute self-inflicted torture, is because of the unique and important role he plays (along with his fellow CBC producers) in the life of  Toronto. For when 5:30am rolls around, Matt Galloway will hit the airwaves across the GTA, as the host of CBC Toronto's morning drive program Metro Morning. And once that ON AIR light goes on, for the next 3 hours, in-between newscasts, traffic & weather updates, tens of thousands of Torontonians will wake up to the sound of his voice, and Metro Morning, in order to connect with the news, politics, events, culture, and debates of the day in Canada's biggest city.

It's an early morning mission I certainty appreciate. Because the reason I have such an earnest belief in the idea of the CBC, is that for me it's a primary way I've stayed in touch with, and have felt connected with the issues, culture, arts, and diverse people of this country. It's how I've learned of the debates facing us as a country, heard of new up & coming bands, been exposed to big ideas, and kept abreast of world events. And what the CBC does for Canada, Metro Morning does for Toronto. It is a microcosm of what makes public broadcasting such a priceless cultural and social resource for the fabric of a community, and the CBC for Canada as a country.

As they put it succinctly on their website, "Metro Morning is Toronto - its face, places, voices and stories." And to that end, each day Matt Galloway will speak to up to a dozen guests, from local politicians, and journalists, to artists, and bring Torontonians what they need to know about life in the city, that day, that week, and that year.

One morning a few months ago, after Metro Morning was off the air for the day, I peddled down to the CBC myself (at a decidedly more godly hour) to speak to Matt Galloway about his love for Toronto, how Metro Morning comes together each, day and what it's like to be the connecting point for life in Canada's biggest city.