CBC and National Post to team up for Olympic coverage

After announcing a sports and business news content-sharing agreement in October, the National Post and CBC have now announced plans to collaborate on coverage for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

According to a CBC press release “the cornerstone of the initiative will be a co-branded Olympic Winter Games website featuring non-stop coverage from a joint team of digital, print and broadcast journalists from CBC Sports and the National Post.“

Douglas Kelly, editor-in-chief of the National Post said in a story on the Post’s website:

“We are very excited to be working with the CBC on this project.”

And Jonathan Harris, the National Post‘s vice-president of digital media said:

“Together, as partners, you can expect the National Post and CBC to provide Canadians with comprehensive Olympic Winter Games coverage in 2010. It’s about two respected media companies working together to deliver a unique Olympic experience to the country.”

Montreal freelance journalist and copy editor at The Gazette in Montreal, Steve Faguy, commented on his blog Fagstein about the Post/CBC collaboration. He wrote:

“The CBC used to be king for Olympics coverage, but then it lost the rights to CTV, so it will for the first time since 1994 be covering an Olympics it doesn’t have rights to. And considering how television rights crippled CTV so much it had to show still images instead of video, expect CBC to face similar obstacles in February.

“Similarly, the Post‘s competitor The Globe and Mail is the official national newspaper of the Games. That won’t mean exclusive rights and it’s not clear if there are any editorial implications of this designation, but it puts the Post one step behind, at least psychologically.

“But … the CBC and National Post hate each other. Or, at least, that’s what they want us to think.”