Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Allergy Free:


Soft and fluffy. No, not the family pet but the news coverage here in Canada. Is it wrong? A small sociological study could be scripted on how the delivery and non inflammatory nature of how information and news is disseminated ala no glitz, no glamour just a happy face spin on the world doom and gloom. Civility and grace. No scary breathing from the talking head who can't raise an eyebrow due to all that botox. Small wonder HD tv has done wonders for the cosmetic giant corporate king pin Allergan and it's stock price. Canadian news lacks the glam and the glitz and botox so it's all good.

As a news junkie, this is a new and delicious find for me. I had sworn off the talking heads of the state side news machine corporate conglomerate (sorry for the redundancy) spewing a seamless thread of doom followed with a dash of gloom. Even the packaging: split screen stories separated by rapid-fire teletype cutting stories and news smut not given video into a Mondrian print sans the color. Catering to the knat like attention span/ADHD in all. . I gave up watching this drivel after CNN, FOX, and even CNBC began sporting the same copycat look. BBC Canada and OMNI news have added the scrolling teletype to the bottom of the screen but I will cut them a bit of slack because I love the BBC. Strong words yes, but the correct adverb for this instance.

So how does Canadian Media do it? Keeping the glitz and ambulance chasing stories to a minimum is a strong start. The station CTV has only a slight nervous twitch detected in it's voice when discussing H1N1. Currency reports are even optimistically delivered with a wide-eyed woo-hoo of a full one cent gain for the Canadian currency. These stories would not be a big deal stateside, not even late night worthy on Bloomberg. So maybe it's the simple ending to the news snippet that makes it all palatable and civil: "Thank you for welcoming us into your homes today and hope you will join us again" the closing salvo to today's news cast how can I not return tomorrow? Artificial sunshine has never felt soo good. All star baseball anyone?