Last Updated on: 28th June 2016, 07:26 pm
We’ve got Canadian tourists being murdered by professional hitmen in Mexico. We’ve got buildings falling down and killing people. We’ve got what could be the largest bank robbery in British history. We’ve got earthquakes, shootings and city-wide strikes that are shutting down important services in some places. We’ve got lots of things that I’m sure many of you would agree could and should be lead stories on any newscast in any city in any part of the world.
But even with all of this important stuff going on, what, Since Wednesday, has been the dominant headline whenever you turn on the TV news here in Canada? Not a shooting or the economy or the fact that we’re getting more heavily involved in the war on terror than we probably should since we’ve got almost no military to speak of. Not the new government here or anywhere else for that matter or even the fact that Paul Bernardo is confessing to a shitload of things that nobody had any idea he was a part of. No, none of the things I just mentioned seem to be all that important right now, not when compared to the big story of the moment, that being that our Olympic hockey team sucked this year.
Now before anybody gets all upset that I’m slagging hockey coverage, I’ll say this much. The Olympics are a little more than your average sporting event and I understand that people want to know what’s going on, myself included. but that being said, there’s a time and a place to let everybody know how we’re doing, and that place is the sports report. Ok, so maybe a brief mention of somebody winning a medal for the country near the beginning of the newscast isn’t so bad, but keep in mind the word brief, because the media seems to have forgotten it. And if you think I’m wrong about that, consider these questions. Is it really necessary to spend the first 10 minutes of a 30-minute national news broadcast that’s supposed to keep people up to date on the important events of the day discussing and debating over and over again why it is that other people will be playing for medals on the weekend and we won’t? I don’t think so. And do we really need to bring experts on to these same broadcasts to let us know that our team got out-scored? That would be no. You don’t even have to watch the games to figure that much out. We lost, therefore we most certainly got out-scored.
I’m not saying never analyze the situation, I’m just saying analyze it where and when it needs to be analyzed, and let the news do what it’s supposed to do, keep tabs on things that will have a more direct impact on my life and the lives of others than some millionaire losing a game.