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.

Things I think I will miss in my old age

These are thingsI thing will cease to exist by the time I am in my twilight years!

• Newspapers, sitting with my coffee, discussing politics with hubby, examining issues in local, regional, provincial, national and worldly realms. 
• CBC Radio - they continue to aim for talk radio, morning radio goofiness. I want serious, hard-hitting discussion, politics, education, healthcare. Not egg decorating competitions on Twitter, or 'worst Valentine Day ever' stories. (Can you spell radio, getting ready for the work day, wasting time on photos?) That's just me! I have to turn it off in the morning. I think budget cuts are going to have an impact.

• Books - hardcover you can prop on your bed, or lap, while sipping tea. I don't need another electronic device. I have them all, used them in the workplace, taught it to my students and colleagues. I want to low down, take my time. Can't stand basic news shows: the clutter on the screen!

• 

  How much clutter can you stand?
  I know it's CBC.
  I can't see the shoes that do not fit,
  as the model falls out of one!

  Cursive Writing  - it is only taught sporadically in grade 3 - 6. It is a form of symbol that kids ought to learn how to decode. It builds brian cells, and encourages fine muscle skills and patience! Teachers don't 'mark' it, and shouldn't evaluate it. It just is.
• Magazines - advertising is down, plus much trite information I've read before: how to lose weight, look beautiful, dress up, dress down, shop, cook...
• Respect - Don't criticize the coffee; you may be old and weak someday. I recall shopping, with kids. Sales staff would ignore me and speak to single, rich-looking women, not me. Now that I am older, they ignore me as well! Ageism rears its ugly head everywhere. The millennials, for the most part, are pretty ignorant and do not respect life experience and lessons learned!
• Newsletters - I love them, hard-copy, in the mail. You don't have to download tons of graphics. You don't have to waste precious printer cartridges to print them yourself. You can keep them on the wall. Read them during your down time.

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o(_")

Ten things we should remember when talking to a senior! 

Chuckle for the day!

I've been writing some serious posts lately, if you wish a more serious, healthcare-related read...

• This is an amazing physician: What is your physician's medical batting average?
• The history of Canadian healthcare in this era

Ontario Canadian healthcare is a passion of mine! I am the first interview on White Coat, Black Art, this Saturday. I am so proud to represent volunteer, and adult children caregivers on this Unpaid Caregivers show. 

Time for some fun. Yes, we still get the newspaper. We have a wood insert fireplace and need the kindling! Plus,I like to sit and read the paper with my coffee.

Our newspaper came yesterday. There were some issues.

This looks like CSIS shredded it!

Felix inspected it for me!

What is the opposite of redacting?

Ironic, 'the office saboteur'!
I was just interviewed by a CBC producer,
we spoke of my principal, student bullying work.

Back to the good old days

My spring bulbs grow, coffee at hand

I loved sitting in the morning and reading the newspaper. At least, that was the theory. Usually I was at school at 7 a.m., and home by 3, perhaps out having a workout to relieve stress. Maybe, in my clouded, out of focus rear mirror, it was in the evening I read it!

When we moved from Ottawa (Nepean) to Bala, Muskoka, we were out of luck. I mean no newspaper delivery. Not the Globe & Mail, not the National Post, not the Toronto Star, Toronto being a mere 2 hour drive south. None of them.

The local Metroland paper came in the mail, with many inserts, but not the closest major paper, The Toronto Star. We would buy it on Saturdays. But with an entire section devoted to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), it really didn't apply or interest us.

In Perth, just to the north of us, one of my clients gets the Globe delivered. I was excited. No luck. I decided to go for broke and have the Ottawa Citizen delivered. I cannot abide reading a newspaper online. Is it just me?

Snowy morning, traffic speeds to work

I like sitting there, discussing issues with my beloved, cutting out interesting pieces, researching it later. For example, the day before we had ordered the paper, an article was printed about the wild turkeys introduced to build up the extirpated species. I was shocked. I might not have spotted it, being labelled a 'science' issue, and buried in the subpages of the online edition. Now, I don't know about you, but I failed science. My daughter has her M.Sc., and so I don't feel too badly. She is my resources for things scientific. She mentioned this article as she knew we had had 28 turkeys on Christmas day.

Surprise - who was under the spruce tree

This morning, since hubby goes out to feed the deer, who are usually standing staring in at us, heads hung, with an empty feeder, I figured he might as well go down to the end of our drive and fetch the paper. Mind you, this was my gift to him. And it was a good gift. We can go back to the good old days when we discussed issues in the paper, debated politics, and drank that first cup of coffee in the day.

Oliver was not amused. He sat, slowly turning from black fur, to white snow waiting for that dastardly red squirrel, then went after the birds. All he caught was snow.

media in 2009

I am writing a post on media news, since we really are changing the amount and the type of information we see, read and hear. In this, the Information Age, and in the current economic crisis, advertisers are cutting back. Approximately 4/5 of newspapers are paid for through advertising. With advertisers cutting budgets, there are some newspapers folding. (This is true of magazines, and other media, as well. You may wonder why magazine subscriptions are so cheap these days - it is to keep up a subscription base to keep up advertising income!)

CBC's "Q" has begun the discourse:
"Venerable news institutions are facing extinction, and with them the kind of reporting that's key to any functioning democracy. Two economists boldly suggested in the New York Times that the answer is to subsidize the news."

Gian Gomeshi featured Salon.com and discussed this topic. Salon.com is a rather unsatisfying e-rag, in my opinion. The ads are enervating, to topics mystifying -more along the lines of the Enquirer! I don't think that using taxpayer dollars for this is the right way to go. The theory of ad-supported media has its issues but...

I bitterly resent advertising on my Internet, too. I have written about the preponderance of ads aimed at seniors, and aides for seniors, much like the products aimed at parents aiming to teach their child to read before they are 2, and become toilet-trained before they walk.

Back when newspapers were begun, at the turn of the century, they were pennies an issue, and you knew that each one had it's own bias and target audience. As they evolved and changed from 1/5 of revenue from ads, to the current 4/5, advertisers began to control the absence or presence of bias in reporting. How irritating it is to

We must ensure that we know is going on locally, regionally, provincially (state-wide!), federally, across the continents, and around the world. What happens in one part of the world can and does have an effect across the globe.

We have some delightful local papers, but they, too, are having a strong presence on-line. Even in Central and Northern Ontario, we are going high-tech. I say 'even', because with dial up in remote locations some people are hard-pressed to keep up on top of the news. Here, in Northern & Central Ontario, with a lower average annual income, many do not buy a newspaper on a regular basis.

We rely, too, on local and regional newspapers to get any coverage of municipal issues and politics. The Toronto Star is Toronto-centric, and the Globe & Mail more of a national paper, which totally ignores rural and suburban issues.

Then, as my blog-friend commented, "Am I just becoming a grumpy old woman?" She is fed up with magazines and the visual images they portray. This is true for me, too. We have a magazine in Canada, Zoomers, and they have a fairly basic and puerile web site, but the mag actually features people with life experiences, accomplishments and gray hair and wrinkles.

Real people want real information and real news they can trust. Perhaps this is part of the reason for the the slow down in media ads. People are relying on the Internet, yet how frustrating to keep reading comments from those who post. I just want the news story - unbiased information.