During Ramadan, a time for focus and introspection, Michelle Bachmann and her posse are testing me. Big time. She believes that members of the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated the U.S. government -- and she's calling them out in public. In today's ballooning and increasingly influential social media landscape, sure sticks and stones can break bones, but a correctly phrased Google search can be even more devastating.
Where do we go for the truth... the whole truth and nothing but the truth? In essence, new media is most amazing because people are beginning to doubt what they read, hear and see. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's probably one of the best thing that has happened to the news since it was created.
...not. Got your attention though didn't I? 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 wrong to wish for more than, say, the Tony Clement/Ezra Levant/Norman Bethune controversy?
Seems that when you spend an hour watching Canadian TV news stories about politics, you get only about 15 minutes of real information. These scary numbers come from the highly respected charitable Samara Institute today. Samara has spent months doing all the research, the number crunching, and the drawing of conclusions. Will the newsrooms listen? Probably not.
"Canada is competing against a whole planet filled with mayhem and misery. Political stability, economic growth, and a chronically declining crime rate simply do not provide the basis for a strong news industry. I think we have face the fact that Canadians may just lack what it takes to be a major news export power," explained a spokesperson for Statistics Canada. Meanwhile, Canada's historical demand for imported news continues strong. Emerging products like the pending Islamist takeover in Egypt have supplemented traditional suppliers like the U.S. political cycle and the British royal family.
Doctors witness the impact of bad public policy on the health of individual patients and their families. When physicians, health workers and community members take a stand on June 18, we stand in solidarity with those affected and fighting for the right to health for all refugees and refugee claimants. This is about some of the most vulnerable people in our society becoming even more so.
These are my very own, real leaked documents about the fact that traditional, general-interest journalism is the crucial cornerstone of democracy and that social media threatens to destroy that cornerstone. They're written by students studying journalism. If you have any interest in Canadian journalism in our Canadian democracy you should read them.