When I get up in the morning, usually around 0600, one of the things I do is turn on the TV to catch some planet-wide news. As the coffee brews I watch three or four channels: CNN, The Weather Network, City-TV and CBC NewsWorld, also known as WallyWorld. Over ten or fifteen minutes I get brought up to speed on the usual global nightmares as well as the local hidousness. The coffee finishes, I get into the shower and the day begins.
We’ll use this construct as a way to explain how the various media outlets cover things. Here’s the mythical story: India blows up. One big, smoking hole exists where 1 billion people used to live. No reason, it just went foom, overnight.
CNN, the Ted Network. News hors d’ourvres. Nothing too deep and everything with an American bent. There might be 30 seconds of coverage. “India is a smoking hole, one billion dead, but now, Miles O’Brien with live coverage of a man in Indiana with a cashew-shaped melanoma”.
City-TV is relentlessly local. If India blew up, they’d do a live shot from an Indian restaurant downtown and have an Indo-Canadian youth league hockey team on as guests. “How does it feel to take the ice as an Indo-Canadian kid knowing your whole country has been blown to bits?”
The Weather Network is what is called wheel programming tv. Every few seconds the wheel advances and they cover whatever nonsense is indicated on the wheel. “It is eight minutes after the hour and now we’ll show you the pollen forecast for Newfoundland and Nunavut. Next, India blows up, then your local golf forecast.”
FoxNews, unfortunately, we get up here: “Karl Rove is a free man after the liberal Democrats realized that he was completely innocent. Hear that Liberal Tax and Spend whiners? Completely Innocent! And a billion brown people blew up overseas somewhere. Next Ann Coulter and more of her brilliant insights into the real reason the Democrats want to force your daughter to have an abortion…”
BBC World Service would do a creditable job, with live shots from the edge of the smoking hole, world reaction from leaders everywhere, including some you never knew existed, like the Prime Minister of Madagascar. For the record, it is Jacques Sylla.
Local commercial TV, aside from City-TV would be along the lines of “On Oprah, Women Who Fake Orgasms, on Dr. Phil, Men Who Fake Bowel Movements. Then, Action News at Six with a fascinating story on the potential shortage of sari cloth and taxi drivers in the GTA since India blew up.”
My favourite, however, is CBC NewsWorld, or as it is known, WallyWorld. The original aim was to have a 24-hour news operation for Canada, along the lines of the BBC World Service. With budget cutbacks and the sheer lack of anything happening in Canada most of the time, WallyWorld is left to fill a 24 hour gaping news maw, fill being the operative word.
This morning, with the NHL playoffs winding down, WallyWorld took eleven minutes to interview the guy who runs the concessions in the RBC Center in Durham, North Carolina. Deeply probing questions flew like wheat stalks at harvest time: “Which of the wigs is the most popular among the fans? The red ones ma’am. They seem to really like the rainbow ones too. Do you sell many Edmonton Oilers’ shirts? Not really ma’am. May I please try on your most popular fan wig? Sure. Thank you. Now back to the studio…”
Some mornings I just want to watch radio.
Note for our American readers: RBC is the Royal Bank of Canada. TD-Waterhouse Center is the Toronto Dominion Bank. The other one you see down in the US are BMO and CIBC. BMO is Bank of Montreal. CIBC is the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. We own your arena names.
RoadDave 