...not. Got your attention though didn't I? This week our news editor, Brodie Fenlon, sent around a plaintive request with his daily morning editorial notes:
"Wanted: News of any kind."
The old saying "No news is good news" was never said by a journalist. No news = no customers. We feel like bored salespeople constantly re-arranging the goods in the front window.
This isn't to say we wish ill or disaster upon the world (not openly anyway). But is it too much to wish for more than, say, the Tony Clement/Ezra Levant/Norman Bethune controversy? (You can read our contributor Gerry Nicholl's take on it here.) And then there was the horrific chuckwagon race accident at which three horses were killed at the Calgary Stampede. It is about as Canadian as an animal story gets, short of polar bears spotted going through the garbage of Churchill residents. For this our Prime Minister declares Calgary our "best" city? (Note to our Preem: You are the nation's Dad. You must never declare favorites. All the other children get jealous and resentful, as blogger Yoni Goldstein illustrates here, in his defense of Toronto as best child.)
Perhaps -- as contributor David Frum has suggested -- Canada is suffering a news deficit and we may have to start importing the majority of our news:
OTTAWA -- Hot weather in Central Canada and early departures for the cottage pushed Canada into a significant news deficit in the second half of June, Statistics Canada reported Friday.All told, Canada exported only on major news story in the second half of June: the UN Human Rights Council's citation of Canada for its handling of Quebec student protests.
By contrast, Canada was a net importer of news from the Eurozone, the United States, and -- for the 55th consecutive year -- from the Middle East.
So long as we are not importing our news from underpaid child laborers in China, I think we can be okay with that.
In Blog Town, we have been doing our best to cope with the ongoing news deficit. Uber-blogger Conrad Black has been a one-man power plant. He not only digressed from his usually worldy take on international affairs to regale our readers with the etymological origins of the colloquialism "shit-faced," he also cheerfully agreed to debate blogger Andrew Mitrovica over whether journalists should support him in his defamation suit against Random House.
(As an aside, our Blog Squad keeps track of what we call great Conrad-isms. In his "shit-faced" blog, Lord Black was at the top of his game. FWIW here is my favorite:
All experienced people are familiar with the condition [of being shit-faced], personally or as observers, but it tweaked my curiosity to find what had caused a state of intoxication to be generally put in terms so radically sociopathic that they implied an excretionary countenance. Somewhat similar references are made to those accused of such extreme sycophancy that they, (at least figuratively), make contact with the fecal eggressive orifice, or even to those who emerge felicitously, or at least humorously, from a tumble into accumulated ordure. But how even a black-out drunk could be described as shit-faced long escaped my comprehension.
One day, and maybe soon -- given the continuing news drought -- I might challenge our readers to a Conrad Black writing contest, in the same spirit of the now-famous Hemingway writing contest. Prize suggestions welcome.)
In other home news, HuffPost Canada was proud to announce the launch of "Adopt a HuffPet".
In partnership with C4P Animal Rescue -- run by a one person power plant herself, Michelle Nadon -- we will weekly feature adorable pets eager for an adoring home (and yes to commenters: birds count). These adoptable pets will vary by region, but we will make sure they are represented nationally. Become one of our first adopters!
Blog Town was also pleased to publish an exclusive excerpt from the 10th anniversary edition of homegrown star Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class" in which he reveals Canada's top creative cities. (Note to Harper: Calgary is sixth.)
That's it, folks. I'm right now typing this in the northern woods of Ontario, having just come off vacation in the sultry southern reaches of Italy.
Come to think of it, I don't really want real news.
Follow Danielle Crittenden on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcrittenden1
1) War in Syria
2) International financial scandals & crises (LIBOR, Greece & the EU)
3) American politics
4) . . . and somewhere way down the page, a landslide and some dead horses in Canada.
Things are pretty great in this country overall when we can complain of a news shortage. Count your blessings, Ms. Crittenden.
Don't worry everyone, corporations and the rich have your best interests at heart. Nothing to see here. Just another uneventful day.
Throw in a lighthearted reference to the cruelty that is the Stampede.Boast about Canada being a great news importer --mention the middle east (meaning Israel), talk about how everyone is fleeing to the cottage except herself--who vacationed in Italy, donchaknow. Not that there is anything wrong with that. ;-)
I'm so bored I bought some glass straws today...I drink a lot of smoothies.
Any other way of looking at the world is considered lightweight and those who think as I do are given condescendingly short shrift by the journalism establishment.
How depressing to realize that they seem to miss the point that there are a thousand miles of good stories between telling us about "face-painting" at a children's picnic and a rape and mutilation article.
However, any criticism by mere readers is treated as "ignorance of what really matters" by what seems to me to be, a very defensive profession that only listens to itself.