City
Morning Brew: February 13th, 2009
Photo: "On The Platform" by anotherfaceinthecrowd, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
Thoughts go out to the friends and families of loved ones lost in last night's tragic plane crash near Buffalo, NY. 49 people died including all 44 passengers, 2 pilots, 2 flight crew, and (miraculously) 1 person on the ground. The plane was built by Bombardier, here in Toronto, and while they don't go as far as saying "it could happen here", CityNews does have a standalone news piece reminding us that Porter operates the same model out of the island airport.
Toronto has been experiencing extreme and unusual weather events in recent years (snow records, floods, heat waves, storms), and some believe that climate change is something we need to study and prepare for. But given our current fiscal trouble, should the city be allocating $250,000 to study the weather now?
We can't very well blame the recession for lower than expected revenues from red light traffic cameras, or can we (perhaps drivers are more conscious of the cost of driving)? The city is stalling plans to install a bunch of new red light runner camera setups because revenue from existing installations fell short of expectation. Each one costs $100,000 and needs to pull in a lot of violations resulting in paid fines to be profitable.
--
Anyone married to Oliver Killeen is urged to come forward to police. Yes, all of you. An elderly British man was arrested in Toronto for, believe it or not, bigamy. He has wives here in Ontario, in England, and Ireland, (and maybe in the US too) and he brags about how easy it is to con women. The way he talks makes me think he's an International version of Toronto's infamous Dimitri the Lover.
With a surge in the numbers of students seeking university degrees, is it time that Toronto look to create a new "no-frills university"? A report suggests that we consider an all-undergraduate, arts and science focused school, with a major online learning component.
Discussion
23 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
I'm flying to New York with the girlfriend on one of those planes in 4 days (Newark actually, the same aiport that the crashed plane took off from). Thanks to Citynews, I'll have to make sure she doesn't see their website or their station for the next week.
Now, because of their fear mongering, the trip I've had planned for 4 months now is in jeopardy. Thanks citynews!
Cue the CommunityScare fearmongering letter to the editor in 3, 2, 1,...
Seriously though, so what if it's the same aircraft? Guess what - Air Canada flies a lot of A320s. An A320 recently crashed in the Hudson. OMG - IT COULD HAPPEN HERE!!!!
I don't think you mean miraculously, but maybe incredibly, unbelieveably etc
Re: No Frills University... they're called colleges, hell, you can get a uni degree through college correspondence too.
But if they want to build a university in the GTA, may I suggest in Brampton where the province is using a great, giant piece of land for a youth jail.
The Living Receiver has been destroyed by the Artifact, closing the Tangent Universe. We're all saved.
If you like to know about a Toronto "shrine" please read:
www.friendsofmapleleafgardens.ca
Hopefully enough attention can be generated to revive this piece of Canadian(not just Toronto) history.
Dear Citynews staff,
Preventing my girlfriend from reading citynews.ca or watching CityTV didn't help to shield her from the completely necessary fear mongering that seems to be far too common of an occurrence on your station recently. I couldn't of course control family members and acquaintances of hers from reading it, nor could I stop them from saying anything to her. I now have 2 days to convince her (who was already scared of flying prior) it is safe to travel on planes with otherwise impeccable safety records or we'll be taking the greyhound and lose a full day out of our already brief trip.
I bet you're reading this and thinking "So a bunch of her friends and family all saw the Citynews article and are telling other people about it? Wow, would you look at our reach!" Because that seems to be the only damn thing you guys care about these days. Your constant lack of journalistic integrity has potentially ruined the vacation I've been saving up for and planning for 4 months.
I saw the coverage too, and they also had experts - from Bombardier and the head of Porter - talking about the extremely safe track record of the Q400. This is the first time one has ever crashed and the plane is known for its safety, fuel efficiency and de-icing system. (No, I don't work for Bombardier either, but my boyfriend does - he likely built parts of the plane which crashed.)
What happened near Buffalo could have happened anywhere with any type of plane, as is often the case with most plane crashes.
Trying to lure people into reading the article or watching the evening news by using fear mongering tactics is completely without integrity.
Even today, we have "What To Do If You're Pushed Onto TTC Tracks" in addition to the regular coverage of the incident. They treat it like it's a goddamn common occurrence! Was this article necessary? Absolutely fucking not. They put these sensationalist articles up because it gets a lot of readers. Period.
It's the job of the media to report on facts. It's a fact that Porter uses the same plane which was in the crash, and it's related to the story. The media is just doing its job.
It is NOT the responsibility of media outlets to withhold stories simply because they may or may not make some people who are already fearful and paranoid, more afraid and even more paranoid.
It's the responsibility of consumers to be critical thinkers and realize that each news article or two-minute broadcast is only a piece of the puzzle, and there's more information out there which could provide a wider context for the story at hand.
What type of stories should the media report on, if not these? I also think you're ignoring the fact that media outlets report on thousands of different stories each day.
If you don't like it, don't watch/read it. But the media is not going to roll over and change overnight because people like you aren't reasonable enough to know what the role of the media is in our society.
I guess that is just where we disagree. I believe it to be completely unrelated to the story and completely unnecessary to report.
You have to understand that there is a difference between simply reporting on a plane crash in New York state and reporting on the plane crash and trying to scare people into clicking on the links by adding unnecessary information. Citynews has been particularly bad at this in the last year or two. Not nearly as bad as Fox, mind you, but certainly worse than any other Canadian news source (they even make the SUN look good on occasion).
There's a difference between reporting on some kids being pushed onto the subway tracks and reporting the kids being pushed onto the tracks, plus trying to lure people into clicking on it.
There is actually a term for it: "Yellow Journalism".
Which includes using sensationalism in headlines
"What To Do If You're Pushed Onto TTC Tracks (Tara Weber's story)" (CHECK)
Reporting on minor or obscure news because it happens to be entertaining
"Valentine's Day: A Time For Flowers, Chocolates And...Tequila?" (CHECK)
"Is Dating Someone From Work A Recipe For Disaster?" (This was in the MONEY section. To hell with the stock market, office romance is more entertaining. This article also links to a magazine owned also owned by Rogers)
And while, yes it is important for people to view news subjectively, you'd have to be kidding yourself if you'd think it doesn't have an affect on at least SOME people. In my experience, I'd say 'some' is actually 'most'. I'm always having to correct people who get sucked in by these sensationlist news articles. It gets really tiring.
The role of the news media is to inform. Not entertain.
Also, service journalism has been around forever and if producers and editors think a topic will be of interest to its audience then they are perfectly within the realm of reasonable journalism to publish or broadcast something, including "What to do if..." and more entertaining (human interest) stories.
I think there are much more important ethical issues surrounding journalism these days, such as bias and political favouritism.
As I said before, it's not the responsibility of media organizations to withhold reports or broadcasts because they may or may not affect a few people who are too stupid or lazy to think critically about the topic at hand.
If it was their responsibility, governments and politicians would not be held accountable for their actions. Corporations which put public safety and the environment at risk would never be exposed. Corrupt individuals would never be identified and made an example of.