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I scuttled into National Post headquarters Wednesday night to liberate some things from my desk before Postmedia’s meatspace newsrooms officially locked their doors “until further notice.” (I and my housebound colleagues remain at your service in the meantime.) Among my correspondence was a copy of David Taras’ and Christopher Waddell’s new book, “The End of the CBC?” It argues that Canada’s public broadcaster must rapidly and quite savagely reinvent itself or risk “oblivion.” And it is nothing if not timely reading.

On Wednesday, in a moment history may well note as Mother Corp’ rock bottom, CBC announced it was scuppering all its local television newscasts. Instead it would feed us all Canadians a mixture of national and local news from the same Toronto-based spigot.

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Basically, CBC ended itself. It almost beggars belief.

Brodie Fenlon, editor-in-chief of CBC News, took to his blog to explain the decision — but didn’t, really. He talked of “staffing challenges” stemming from employees self-isolating and working from home. “Television is especially resource-intensive, and many jobs are difficult to do at home,” Fenlon wrote. “Our systems are overtaxed.”