I was reading a letter to the editor in the Toronto Sun the other day. The writer was expressing his sense of frustration about the media coverage of the tsunami--day after day, page after page, over and over. And I found myself agreeing with him. I'm tired of this, I thought to myself. Is nothing else happening anywhere in the world? On the day I read this--I think it was Monday--the radio news was still leading with the tsunami and devoting fifteen minutes of its newscast to various tsunami issues. We get it, I thought. Okay, the point's been made. Enough already.
And then I read the editor's response to this letter that could have been my letter. It hit me like a slap--no, a punch--in the face.
"Behold, another class of tsunami victims: those who are tired of hearing about it. Oh, the humanity!"
Ouch.
Thus chastened, I tried to reclaim my initial shock and horror at the devastation and desolation, and moved on to the next issue. But damn it all, it seemed that no matter the topic, I had a bone to pick with the way the media covered it.
I truly have a love-hate relationship with the news. Eva is sometimes frustrated with me because I can't seem to get enough news: the morning radio cast, a paper any time I can find a dollar for it, Global over dinner, a subscription to Macleans, and it's still not enough for me!
She's wrong, though. I'll be the first to acknowledge I see too much news. What I don't get enough of--what I can't seem to get enough of--is thoughtful, intelligent analysis.
The articles I devour in newspapers are of the Sunday supplement kind, in-depth coverage of an issue. The radio programs I enjoy most are more of the same. I'd love to watch 60 Minutes, W-Five, and other shows like them, but if I did Eva would suffer from Total News Meltdown.
When I was younger, I wanted to be a reporter. Then I started to notice the kind of situations reporters are forced to cover and the inane questions they are forced to ask.
"How do you feel, Mrs. Smith, now that your son has been killed by a drunk driver?"
"Well, Mr. Action Seven, it feels a little like this...
[she hikes a steel-toed boot into his crotch]
...only a lot worse."
And then I read something that utterly killed my aspirations in reportage. "A good reporter", it said, "regards nothing as none of his business". I agree with that in several ways--as a taxpayer, any governmental misdeed I regard as my business--but I also feel that law-abiding people are entitled to a degree of privacy that the media rarely affords them, especially in the aftermath of a tragedy.
And tragedies are what sell papers and get the all-important ratings, right?
I also suffer from warped perceptions as to what is news and what is not. Several years ago, I was lamenting the unremittingly local emphasis in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. I have repeated the schtick I coined then many times: if nuclear holocaust ever consumed the world, and Kitchener and Waterloo were somehow spared, the front page of the Record the next day would have three headines:
Councillor Retires After 33 Years Illustrious Service
Pot-Bellied Pigs Make Perfect Pets
Ethel Bloodthwaite Gets New Screen Door
I wish I could say I made the second headline up. I really wish I could tell you I didn't see that headine on page A1 of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. But I didn't, and I did.
"Brad and Jen Are Splitting Up". Also not news. It'd be news if they celebrated their tenth anniversary.
Another bone of contention, of recent vintage, too: this whole BSE crisis. Every time a cow tests positive, it provokes a peppering of paranoia. Will the Americans keep their border closed? What does this mean for our beleaguered beef industry? OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!
If there's no danger to Canadians (and there isn't), this isn't news, let alone front page news. Know why? Because the fact cows are testing positive for BSE is a good thing. It means the system is working. How many cases of 'mad cow' used to go undetected? How much infected beef used to get into the food chain? By splashing this all over the media, all we're doing is giving Americans pause. How productive is that?
In journalism school, they teach you the five Ws: who, what, where, when, why. The fifth W is what's lacking from most reporting. Why did the parents of the Blackstock adoptees keep their boys in cages, and why did the Children's Aid not see through them? Why did Adscam happen? Why can I predict gasoline prices to three tenths of a cent with uncanny accuracy? Why are Liberals so enamoured of the gun registry? Why is it "disgusting" when Newfoundland uses the Canadian flag to make a political point, but it's perfectly acceptable when Quebec does so?
You can read a room full of newspapers without getting answers to these questions.
I'll keep searching for them, though. That's one of the things I do.
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