This Hour Has Seven Days

Hosts and contributors This Hour Has Seven Days was initially hosted by John Drainie, Laurier LaPierre, and Carole Simpson (not to be confused with the now-retired ABC weekend news anchor of the same name); Simpson was soon replaced by Dinah Christie, and Watson himself replaced Drainie in the show's second season when Drainie (who died in 1966) was too ill to continue with the series. It had a production staff of as many as 40 people, with a roster of producers responsible for separate segments. Contributing personalities—known at various times as story editors, writers, directors, and producers—included Charles Backhouse, Donald Brittain, Cecily Burwash, Jim Carney, Roy Faibish, Beryl Fox, Allan King, Eric Koch, Heinz Kornagel, Sam Levene, Brian Nolan, Charles Oberdorf, Peter Pearson, Alexander Ross, Warner Troyer, Jack Webster, and Larry Zolf. The show used a one-hour news format which combined satirical songs (performed by Simpson or Christie) and sketches with hard news interviews, reports, and documentaries. It also played a major role in bringing to public attention issues that had been suppressed or made taboo both in television and society as a whole. The show was also instrumental in news coverage of the Munsinger Affair, a 1966 sex scandal involving former federal Minister of Defence Pierre Sévigny. When Zolf showed up on Sévigny's doorstep in pursuit of the story, Sévigny whacked Zolf on the head with his cane. Among other controversies inspired by the show, LaPierre was once shown wiping away tears on the air after a filmed interview pertaining to the Steven Truscott case, a report on the Miss Canada pageant was criticized as journalistic "poaching" because the rival CTV Television Network had exclusive coverage rights to the event, and an interview with members of the Ku Klux Klan was deliberately engineered to provoke an on-air reaction when a black civil rights activist was brought in, unannounced, to join the interview partway through. == History ==

Created by Patrick Watson and Douglas Leiterman, This Hour Has Seven Days debuted on October 4, 1964, with a studio audience, unheard of for a news show at the time. The debut episode featured music by Dinah Christie, who sang original tunes based on the news of the week, and an interview with Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee Harvey Oswald. Following two weeks of mediation, Keate said it was clear that there had been "mistakes made on both sides" and recommended that the CBC board of directors do a better job of explaining to the public its decision to fire Watson and LaPierre. CBC directors immediately reaffirmed the firing of Watson and LaPierre, while admitting that the way they were fired had been a mistake. The dispute heated up again in July, leading producer Douglas Leiterman to halt work on a new season of programs. Leiterman said he was told by CBC that his contract for the show would only be renewed if he signed a pledge to behave himself, and that he believed that Bud Walker—the CBC vice-president who had fired Watson and LaPierre—had been given a promotion to oversee all CBC English programming. ==Legacy==

Seven Days set new standards of broadcast journalism in Canada and the United States. Shortly after it ended, the rival CTV Television Network launched a similar program called W5, which continues to air to this day (Watson contributed to this series on occasion). 60 Minutes and The Fifth Estate were two others shows that debuted within fewer than 10 years of Seven Days' cancellation. In 2014, the October 24, 1965 episode of the series was screened at the Canadian International Television Festival in Toronto. This episode featured the Ku Klux Klan segment noted above, as well as an invitation to political party leaders to appear on the show as part of the 1965 election campaign, a report on the shooting death of a policeman in Sudbury, an election "poll" of homeless men, interviews with Bob Guccione and Orson Welles, a feature profile on boxer George Chuvalo, and a comedic sketch mocking Prime Minister Lester Pearson and British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's negotiations to have the Canadian government purchase military aircraft from the United Kingdom. ==References==