Bright Sunshine

And dark, dark days

Today in Western Head is sunny, and warm, and feels full of hope. It’s the kind of day when you look out towards the Atlantic Ocean and think, “Yes, life is good.”

Then you read the headlines about the atrocities happening in Israel and Gaza. Even though the media has accepted the line that Hamas equal terrorists and Israelis equal victims, the sad truth is that both sides of this dispute have done horrid things, and neither is without sin.

It’s also a time when I remember, again, that things are fluid, and are horribly political, and that much of what you hear out of that area - babies with their throats cut being a prime example - may turn out to be fiction and propaganda.

There will be no shortage of atrocities on both sides, and I encourage people to hold back and wait for what can be confirmed by neutral outside bodies before believing what you read.

It is times like this that I am very sad at the state of media in our world today. There was a time when every town of any size had a daily newspaper, with a squad of live and trained reporters, and access to reliable and independent wire services. It was time when the people in charge of running newspapers were actually motivated by a sense of service; when the goal was to tell important stories to readers, not just to maximize profits.

Then came the Internet, and the fragmentation of all things information, and the ease with which anyone, of any political stripe, and of any level of honesty, could become a publisher and a pundit. Fifty years ago if you wanted people to read your insane, hair-brained opinions you had to also be willing to spend the money to get pamphlets printed, and then either mail them out or hand them out on street corners. The money and effort involved kept the dangerous and dishonest idiots at bay.

Now we have Facebook, and Twitter, and everywhere else jammed to the roof with outright lies, disinformation, and purely hateful propaganda.

The newspapers that once stood as a bulwark against such things have all but disappeared as multinationals and numbered companies have bought them out and stripped all value from them until they exist mostly as advertising platforms. And as the publishers removed the journalism and value of their publications, people became less and less likely to subscribe to them.

Ultimately now, one by one, newspapers in Canada are being closed down.

Unless you live in a town that no longer has local news media you cannot appreciate how dangerous and frustrating that is. Unless you have some kind of media presence you do not exist for the big publications, and certainly not for much of government.

Very quickly you become a place where people get “news” from Facebook and Reddit; where trained reporters and editorial standards no longer apply.

And if you’re in Canada Facebook blocks all established news media from their site anyhow.

When I look at the coverage of what’s happening in Israel and Gaza I can’t help but wonder what would happen if a similar battle happened here in Canada. (and yes, it can happen)

Especially if it happened outside of one of the major cities I can’t imagine how well something like this would be covered. Or how many newspapers or broadcasters would actually send reporters. Or how much care would be taken to sort fact from fiction.

In Israel newspaper readership is about 21 per 100 people.

In Canada that number is closer to 40 per 100. Which surprises me.

The overall question though is where do people get their daily news? Is it somewhere trustworthy? And how would they know?

And do people even consider these factors when reading about Ottawa, or New York, or Gaza?