Longing for Fuddle-Duddle.

Recently, Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided to sit down for what is clearly a political move to reach out to the youth (imagine the sarcasm dripping). You all know this clear political stunt as the interview broadcast on YouTube.

Now, to be honest, I didn’t watch the whole thing. That’s the point though; I couldn’t. Though political theatre is never likely to win a Tony award it can usually peak my interest and keep me entertained. Mishaps like Peter Mackay’s hilarious comment directed at Belinda Stronach  and (though before my time) Trudeau’s legendary coining of ‘fuddle-duddle’ usually keep me entertained.  I even watched the throne speech.  Yeah, how many of you can say that and paid attention throughout? That’s what I thought.

But I digress. This interview with YouTube was clearly an attempt to reach out to youthful voters who are connected with the series of tubes (i.e. internet). It failed. Miserably. The one thing that Stephen Harper forgot is that us youthful voters like to be entertained, That’s what YouTube is for; entertainment.  The internet has great potential to connect people and be a great medium for political discussion, but for Christ Sake Stephen (may I call you that?),  take some caffeine pills or something, forget to comb your hair,  have a drink (it is St. Patrick’s after all), but for my sake and the rest of my generations sake, entertain us. It really is the only thing we want.

Gordon Lightfoot was dead?

24-hours of breaking news

Usually, little ol’ bloggers like myself would think that taking on someone with many more advanced degrees and status in the real world would be a bad idea. I, on the other hand, have no qualms about doing just that.

Recently,  the news that Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot was dead went viral. Thankfully it turned out to be a hoax. A hoax perpetrated by the social media and news outlets that we all have grown accustomed to. Abby Goodrum, the Velma Rogers Graham Research Chair in News, Media and Technology at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, argued in an article published in The Mark News said this,

“The Lightfoot example has less to do with the old media’s inability to harness new media and social networking technology than it has to do with the old media’s failure to do what we expect them to do: check facts; seek multiple sources for verification; filter through the noise and misinformation; get to the bottom of a story and get it right, no matter what a phone prankster posing as an authority and the mob on Twitter say.”

I fundamentally disagree with her.  For anyone who watched Global News Toronto that night at 11pm would have heard from Leslie Roberts that Global in fact did check with multiple sources, all of which confirmed the news that Gordon Lightfoot had passed.  The sources themselves turned out to be wrong. Therefore, Global News, did what they are expected to; check sources and reported what they knew. They also admitted that they had made a mistake and corrected the information when they learned, from checking sources, that they had been incorrect.

Now this isn’t to say that old media did everything right. Of course they didn’t, if they had, they would have known that Gordon Lightfoot was in fact alive and well. The problem though, is not the internet and the fact that bad news travels quickly, but the problem is that the audience is expecting information quickly and old media has given into that expectation by presenting news expediently rather than accurately.

Not only has old media, i.e. television, given into the expectation of presenting news quickly; they created the expectation. The onset of the 24-hour news channel provided viewers with news whenever they wanted it. The side effect of this was that watching television still had to be entertaining.  Therefore the news had to have something important (and thus entertaining) to report, whatever it happens to be. News has transformed from being important facts affecting everyone (politics, business, etc) to how to lose weight, dress better, or be happier. News has simply become a story told to fill time; the details of the story are expendable.

Aside: As usual, The Onion New Network has perfectly presented the absurdity of the 24-hour news channel.

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

It is not the mob mentality of new media forcing journalists to make mistakes. It is 21^st century, television journalism that is begrudging standards and chipping away at professionalism.

~James

“Acutal Theatre” National Post creates new word.

Spelling mistake in National Post commercial

Caught this while watching television. It’s part of a National Post commercial. Maybe the National Post should do more proofreading.

“Security theatre, not acutal theatre.”