Media obsession over young voters’ apathy reflect neediness and self-absorption that make teenagers such exhausting company
Why do media obsess whether young Canada votes? Because young Canadians are the kind of people who spend $150 on shoes. Low turnout by others–aboriginals, for instance–is simply ignored. As affluent spendthrifts, young people are targeted to boost audience numbers that determine rates charged to advertisers. It is why Maclean’s headlines features like “Inside The […]
2005: Too odd for fiction, the year in newspaper headlines
It was too odd for fiction, 2005. New catchphrases entered the vocabulary–“small-town cheap” and “I’m entitled to my entitlements.” It was the year of Belinda, and gas line-ups, and federal contractors trying to out-leg reporters down the courthouse steps. It was the year Germany banned smiles on passport photos, and a cardboard box was inducted […]
Grating sameness of election media coverage and the pick-a-winner phenomenon starting to get to me
There is a grating sameness to the performances in these recurring elections–no, not by candidates, by media. Not many journalists enjoy covering elections. They bring deadlines that drive reporters to exhaustion. Few volunteer for the assignment. But nobody ever says no, either, and some media persuade themselves that lively, provocative reporting will bring them glory. […]
Aging politicians like to prove they’re youthful with exaggerated stunts, eh?
Paul Martin, in a youthful impulse, once said he’d serve at least two terms as Prime Minister. He is 67 years old. Should Martin win a majority and be as good as his word, he could still be in office at 71. Most 71-year-olds cannot run, let alone run a G-8 country. Yet the prospect […]
Pollsters say they’re scientists, but most are primarily salesmen who sell polls
Do you want to go to work tomorrow? Do you want to keep up the car payments? Do you want a winter election? No, me neither. We could complain but it wouldn’t do any good. Yet one of these pointless gripes has been elevated to the status of profound insight worthy of directing the nation’s […]
Last week’s media reaction to Finance Minister Goodale’s tax cuts reminds me of the story of the tavern peanuts
Media reaction to Ralph Goodale’s tax cuts reminds me of the story of the tavern peanuts. There was a barroom in Toronto that used to give patrons free peanuts by the sack. Newsroom staff attended weekly. You could eat all you liked and toss the shells on the floor. Journalists are no fools; we knew […]
Ottawa media like former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s schtick
He seemed wistful his last days in office. On Sept. 18, 2003, Jean Chrétien stood outside Ottawa’s Laurier House museum, former home of Canada’s seventh Prime Minister. He was lost in thought. “History won’t remember me well,” Chrétien sighed to a reporter. It was a rare, unscripted moment. Historians will someday examine Jean Chrétien’s more […]
Welcome to ‘bullshit theatre,’ as John Turner called it, or, the entertaining daily 45-minute Question Period
It is the best part of Ottawa. Everyone ought to see it in person. It is brash and often ridiculous, but it’s all that we, the people, have got. It’s Question Period. And for all its vitality and raucous tradition, it is unloved. Journalists call it a “circus” (Maclean’s) and an “eyesore” (National Post). Sun […]
Journalists love a good stunt, an eye-catching novelty
Journalists love a good stunt. They’ve invented a few of their own. But a stunt, by definition, must be an eye-catching novelty. There is nothing novel in being the second person to eat 30 hot dogs at a sitting or fly solo across the Atlantic. It is with deep feeling we mourn the passing of […]
Some journalists treat the Gomery Report like a game of tag
Did nothing profound come out of Adscam? Poets think deep thoughts, so I asked the Parliamentary Poet Laureate, Pauline Michel, if she planned to compose any verse about the sponsorship scandal. No, she replied. She was overwhelmed with requests, Michel explained–“I wish I could write all the poems people ask me to write”–and besides, “This […]
