Where the current media styles fail

Important morning routines!

People my age are avid consumers of news and information. I love visiting other bloggers to know what they are thinking and feeling.

We like our morning newspaper and coffee.
We don't have kids at home and can bury our heads in our newspaper.

We have time. We have disposable income. We care about politics, healthcare, and where our tax dollars are spent.

What has changed is the amount and type of information 'newspapers' (I use the term loosely) broadcast. Not only that, but news media likes to broadcast YouTube videos, and what is trending on Twitter. Is this news?!

I finally watched a good CTV news story lauding the life of a Lanark County senior:

Mr. Norman Gillies at Lanark Lodge

Where the current media performances fail:

1. I don't normally watch on-line newspaper videos. I read fairly well, and I don't want to sit and wait for the 30 second ad, dedicated to the 18 to 40-somethings, then watch a video about something I can read in a minute. I've checked with the kids. They don't normally watch newspaper videos on-line either!
2. Too many newspaper articles have veered from presenting information (who, what, where, when, why & so what) to waxing eloquently and telling me what I should think about said story.
3. Journalistic standards have deteriorated. Journalists lie, steal information from other media stories, fail to provide any new information, or do 'rip and read'. They don't actually interview the people involved in a story. They read a story to us. Which may be a good thing, that ignorant question, "How do you feel?" Better, what did you think?
4. I don't trust the media any more. Rumours, not information; opinions, not facts. 
5. Journalists with an IQ below the norm. Ignorance is no excuse.
6. Journalists who happily demonstrate their personal biases, by putting down other's choices. Our local CBO radio host, Robyn Bresnahan is the worst. She mocked Dan Hill's music awhile back, then proceeded, last week, to sing onstage with a professional musician in Perth. Shudder.
7. Social Media comments: not 'news'. Nor is guilt by association, unproven facts.
8. Twitter comments, in 140 characters or less, are not news. Why do I care what some smart-arse man-in-the-street managed to tweet succinctly, rudely, or tongue in cheek? I don't follow people whose identity I cannot establish. I want to trust what they write.
9. Why do I pay to 'read' the Globe on-line (we don't have delivery around here) and then I have to sit through the ubiquitous video ads?
10. Advertorials, or ads juxtaposed with a 'story' about a particular housing development, or new business.
11. Why do they allow anonymous comments in on-line articles? They wouldn't publish a letter to the editor without establishing who wrote it.
12. Shouldn't someone doing a book review have read the book? Just sayin'.

ARTS

And the reading is easy: Globe Books' top 5 summer books. 

Sure, click on the video and an ad pops up. But, then, hubby tells me, some dude speaks about a book we should read that he hasn't read.

Here is a good editorial on my topic:

Rob Ford, Charbonneau and the dark side of social media

Once upon a time – this was in another century, if not on another planet – serious news organizations did their best to prevent the spread of unsubstantiated rumours. This was also a time when judges and prosecutors strongly believed that the presumption of innocence should never be tampered with.