When journalists go gaga over celebrities
My first boss used to bark at the rookie reporters, “There are no slow news days, only slow newsmen.” He later quit journalism to become a ballpark announcer, thus proving the point. I was reminded of the slow-news theory by media treatment of Bill Clinton’s appearance at a Toronto bookstore to sell his memoirs. A […]
Are we becoming safer as a nation?
There are great journalists and great detectives. But when journalists play detective the results are, well, not great. Media coverage of the latest national crime report left the public understandably confused. CBC’s The National reported “Crime Is Up!” while CTV’s National News maintained “Violent Crime Is Stable.” The Victoria Times Colonist told readers that “Crime […]
PMO speechwriters can’t resist casting Prime Minister Paul Martin in role of a copycat Kennedy visionary
It’s the secret of persuasion as revealed by the world’s greatest salesman, William Durant, a door-to-door peddler who created General Motors. Durant was so smooth he once sold 1,524 Buicks in a week. The secret? “Do not talk too much,” Durant said. “Give the customer time to think.” Sermonizing only makes people question the product, […]
No one has a constitutional right to a radio licence
When Québec City radio CHOI-FM was ordered shut down by regulators for broadcasting obscenities about boobs and minorities recently, media whipped themselves into a tempest of indignation. “Censorship,” they roared; “freedom of expression.” CHOI-FM invoking freedom of expression is like a drunk driver invoking freedom of mobility. It’s a half-clever legal ploy that obscures embarrassing […]
‘Western alienation’ biggest media hoax since cold fusion
It is the biggest media hoax since cold fusion and Y2K, yet journalists would sooner sustain it than expose it. The hoax is “Western alienation,” the cliché that paints an entire region as home to 9.6 million cranks boiling mad over the Senate, or gun control, or Esperanto, or, you name it. “Western alienation” hints […]
Journalists should read more books
They buried Alvin Hamilton last week. He was a war hero and one of the great Cabinet ministers of all time. If you read the Ottawa Citizen you might have missed the story; news of Hamilton’s death appeared as filler on page F7, next to the discount furniture ads. The obituary ran six pages back […]
Campaign 2004’s liveliest moments of media coverage
Campaign 2004 soon will be reduced to harrowing flashbacks of campaign buses and stale doughnuts. While the wounds are still fresh, let’s preserve the liveliest moments of media coverage this political season: Most Ominous Campaign Development: New Brunswick Conservative Bob McVicar was waving at rush-hour drivers in Saint John when a five-vehicle pileup snarled traffic. […]
Smiling Jack
Campaign 2004 made Jack Layton the first media subject in Canadian political history who smiled too much for his own good. It was the unnerving grin that finally prompted media suspicions there is less to Layton than meets the eye. It’s the mirthless, Stepford smile Layton wears for hours at a time, the love-me smile […]
Media are no more adept at picking a winner
Raw and spontaneous, an election debate gives Canadians a rare and useful glimpse of how party leaders perform under pressure. Just as revealing, it offers a useful glimpse of how journalists work under pressure. Very often — and this may come as a shock — media miss the story. “The next-day analysis of these things […]
PM Martin’s gloomy coverage
Facing uncertain re-election and his first taste of hostile media, Louis St. Laurent slumped in the back seat of his Cadillac in the final days of his disastrous 1957 campaign and groaned to an aide: “I’m finished. They don’t want anything more to do with me.” It is an unforgettable experience in a politician’s career […]
