War was easier to digest when we didn’t have any
War has gone and spoiled Remembrance Day. The anniversary of the armistice used to be the media’s cue to broadcast patriotic retrospectives or talk-radio rants about the petty injustices suffered by non-combatants at Royal Canadian Legion beer lounges. The war came along and ruined everything. Instead of old newsreel heroes, Canadians think of young legless […]
Daylight saving time = Canadians, mad as damp owls
If Canada lasts for 1,000 years they will still say, “Boy, those people had their troubles with daylight saving time.” We were the last industrialized country on earth to introduce the measure, in 1918, and have resented it bitterly ever since. As The Hamilton Spectator once moaned, “What is the next piece of freak legislation […]
This just in: we’re winning the war in Afghanistan, at least in TV land
It is a Canadian first in wartime. Despite new evidence Afghanistan is more lawless and violent than a year ago, a handful of media have simply polled their way to victory. Journalists often defer to opinion surveys as newsworthy, but rarely when the stakes were so high. I refer to an Afghanistan survey paid for […]
Look at that Prime Minister Harper go, eh?
Stephen Harper is the most darkly compelling leader in politics. No one is the subject of more media psychoanalysis. He has the “angry-man syndrome,” as The Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin put it. Only Harper parades his distaste for political arts like smiling, bantering with reporters or telling amusing anecdotes to put colleagues at […]
Media typically have not questioned how far Gov.-Gen. Jean might go
It is barely a whisper: just one of those Ottawa rumours, surely. Is Governor General Michaëlle Jean preparing to seize her moment in the sun? No, it couldn’t be. Yet, the she does enjoy making an impact. She has often said so: “I am also part of history,” (Canadian Press, Sept. 24, 2006); “I like […]
Some media too quick to dismiss NDP’s documents on Karzai speech
Reporters stand ready to defend their work. That’s why they put their names to every story they write. Yet when a Member of Parliament suggested war coverage was manipulated, journalists’ reaction was so prickly it was uncomfortable to watch. New Democrat defence critic Dawn Black (New Westminster-Coquitlam, B.C.) recently released censored documents detailing steps taken […]
Proportional representation is a consolation prize for losers
Canadian voters have a sharp eye for weeding out peculiar characters who skulk on the fringes of political thought: Social Creditors, flat-taxers, and petitioners who claim fluoridation is mind control. Yet, of all exhibitors in the Political House of Oddities, none are more tireless than advocates of proportional representation. Ontario next week votes on PR […]
This just in…less than five per cent of gay Canadians wed since 2005
For all the hype and histrionics, new data show gay Canadians are just mild about marriage. Ironic, yes? The Commons, courts, and churches were spurred into years-long debate over the issue in the belief it was vital or at least relevant to the gay community. Yet recent federal figures show less than five per cent […]
StatsCan counted over one million children as ‘unmarried’ in report
Statistics Canada counted more than one million children as “unmarried” in a report chronicling the single lives of Canadians, according to data requested by The Hill Times. A Sept. 12 census document widely reported by media claimed for the first time in Canada’s history “more than one half of the adult population was unmarried.” The […]
Dion gets journalism’s kiss of death, some condescending dismissiveness
OTTAWA–After a long summer Stéphane Dion is now welcomed back to Parliament with journalism’s kiss of death. I know of no party leader to recover from it. Audrey McLaughlin was the last victim. Electioneering in British Columbia in 1993, the NDP leader was cornered by a Nanaimo radio reporter who politely posed a series of […]
