“If that’s the case, that is not good. It is not what we want to see,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good promotion of sport values. If they celebrate in the changing room, that’s one thing, but not in public.”

Now, some people are a bit confused, wondering what the big deal is. So, I’ve compiled a helpful guide to clearly illustrate why this is such a problem.

GOOD:Time-honoured sports tradition:

BAD: Irresponsible degenerates ruining sport forever:

See, the women’s team forgot two vital things when it comes to surviving the wrath of the IOC and the dedicated finger-waggling sectors of the media.

Number one: Don’t act like men. If you feel the need to celebrate, please do so by drinking wine coolers. Or knitting. Or, how about walking five paces behind the men’s team with your gaze on the ground? ALWAYS ON THE GROUND.

Number two: Don’t act like “normal people.” Don’t you know that you’re athletes, and so everything you do must be squeaky clean. If you’re a college student superstar swimmer, don’t do what college kids do. If you’re a Canadian hockey player, don’t do what other Canadian hockey players do.

Yes, yes…I know that Marie-Philip Poulin, the 18-year-old forward who scored both of Canada’s goals (and seems to deserve a bit of celebration) was one month shy of being legal in B.C. So I admit that the beer that she had on the ice there probably corrupted her for life (far more than any that she might of consumed previously in Quebec, where she’s been above the drinking age for 11 months.)

Therefore, in fairness, I say we punish Poulin in the traditional Canadian manner for drinking underage: we give her a stern talking to about not getting caught next time.

Note: The National Post has some pretty good photos of the celebration. Check them out and weep for the children.

The internet is killing print journalism, I’m told. Dying right along with it are the old-school ideas of a “final proof-read” and “paying attention to what the hell I’m doing.”

For your consideration:

For those who don’t have the joy of dealing with wire copy every day, “EMBARGO” isn’t supposed to be a headline – it’s a quick line to tell the media outlet not to run the story before a certain day. You’re supposed to, you know, take it out.

Not the first time Canada.com has done it this month. They don’t seem big on changing it either.

Google Street car in Edmonton (via iNews880.com)

As we all slowly crushed under the weight of 6 billion articles about the coming Swine Flumaggedon, let’s all take some time to stop and thank the Ottawa Citizen for forging their own path.

See, while most media organizations are losing their heads over the swine flu, Citizen’s Robert Sibley has latched on to a more grave threat: a car with a CAMERA on it (c/o mathewi)

“We may once have thought we were under God’s surveillance. Now Google watches over us.”

Sibley’s piece asks whether the expansion of Google’s Street View is an invasion of privacy, a question that has been asked again and again the world over. What kind of expectation of privacy (root word: private) does one have in a public place? That’s the whole definition of the word public: it pretty much means “not private.”

One of the concerns, according to Sibley, is that Google is capturing things ”most would prefer be kept from public view…”

“When Street View debuted in the United States in 2007, bloggers posted pictures of people being arrested, urinating in public and sunbathing in their bikinis.

Wired magazine found images of police attending a fatality, a possible drug deal and a man climbing into an apartment (a possible burglary?)…”

Here’s a pretty surefire way of making sure thing you don’t want in “public view” showing up on Google Maps – don’t do these things in view of the public.

Also, kudos for the concern over Street View taking pictures of fatality investigations, arrests and dudes climbing on the outsides of buildings. These are, of course, not the type of things that the Ottawa Citizen might report on and take pictures of at the scene, right? (I even hear some newspaper websites are putting such photos on the Internet. That’s categorically different than what Google is doing…probably…somehow.)

I’m not saying that I’d be ecstatic to be shown on Street View doing something embarrassing. There’s a way I avoid it – by keeping my most embarrassing activities confined to the privacy of my home as much as I can.

Until Google starts snaking a camera under your front door and snaps some pictures, columnists should probably keep the “invasion of privacy” talk down to a minimum.

I mean, don’t we have more important things to blow way out of proportion?

But, in essence, the job of the journalist is to record and relay an event to his or her readers/listeners/ viewers. That’s what we strive to do – immerse our audience in the experience and give them an accurate account of what is going on in the world around them. It does not matter if these events take place in university laboratory, on a foreign battlefield, or on a city street just a few blocks away.

But can we do it too well?

Some listeners of National Public Radio’s Morning Show have argued so. On April 7th, the public broadcaster reported on the story of a young Pakistani girl being flogged by the Taliban. The public punishment was handed out to the girl because she committed the grave sin of not being in the presence of her husband while out.

What elevated this story from your all-too-common inhuman treatment of women under fanatical rule was the fact that the flogging was caught on video. And NPR used the audio of the woman’s tortured screams in their piece. (You can hear NPR’s piece here. Fair warning: it’s, not surprisingly, not pleasant to listen to.)

Commenters on NPR’s website weren’t exactly kind. They called the inclusion of the sound clip “cheap,” below the standards of NPR. They were accused of sensationalizing and told 7 AM is not the time to air “adult content.”

The question is: exactly what time is appropriate for a public flogging? Surely not before noon, yes?

This isn’t the first time this kind of debate has been held. There’s no question that we’re getting more and more familiar with graphic images being displayed in the media. Videos of a airliner slamming into the World Trade Center. Bodies floating in the water-logged streets of New Orleans. Afghani civilians being rushed to hospital after bombs go off.

And every time, someone crows about how journalists sensationalize the news – that publishing such images is somehow disrespectful to the high ideals journalists are supposed to strive for.

But to sensationalize something is to puff it up, give it the illusion of importance far beyond what actually exists. That’s not what NPR is doing here: it’s not a disservice to their listeners. In fact, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. Of course the audio is heart-wrenching and disturbing; that’s because the story it comes from is the same.

I’m not arguing that for evening newscasts and front pages smeared with blood and brain matter. That would be inappropriate and vile. At the same time, it would be just as vile to descend into self-censorship in hopes of keeping our pages sterile and unsullied.
Gone are the days of stoic, emotionless newscasters with deep, unwavering voices. Journalists must always attempt to be accurate and fair, and not to chase ratings and readership with bold, sensational headlines. But at the same time, we should never feel the need to separate events from emotion. Sometimes, bad things happen. Horrific, tragic, terrible things. And we are do a disservice to the audience if we don’t try and convey those feelings in our reporting.

The point of news is to inform and capture the audience’s attention, not to comfort and sooth. An infuriating story should boil the blood. A tragic event should inspire a sick feeling of hollowness and ache.

A news story is not a headline and a collection of sentences. It is a real event, that happens to real people, and causes real impact.

Treating it as anything less is the true disservice.

Also: (Via NPR’s Ombud is going about this the right way. She’s defending the station’s use of the audio, as well as the way it was presented.

Right, everyone as seen it by now, but it’s always nice to have a refresher.

Anyway, what has me so perplexed is the fact that, unlike seemingly everyone else north of the 49^th, I really wasn’t all that outraged. BlogWorld was on fire. It was all anyone on Twitter could talk about. Even after watching the video a few times, I couldn’t get my finely-tuned sense of indignation to fire. I was Outrage Impotent – a serious and embarrassing condition.

I simply couldn’t bring myself to care too much. Disturbing, because I’m usually the first one out there with the pitchfork when I pick up on a slight, real or perceived. But here…not so much.

Sure, it was ignorant. Sure, it was cheap. Sure, it was extraordinarily insensitive.

But, it’s just that it comes as absolutely no surprise. Red Eye plays on Fox News, after all. I don’t have a great opinion of most news organizations, especially in the US. But Fox is at the bottom of the barrel. Not only that, but Greg Gutfeld’s little comedy show plays at 3am. Three o’clock in the morning. How good can the guy be? They put him up against Law & Order re-runs and extended Snuggie infomercials.

So no, I wasn’t all that outraged. Gutfeld isn’t funny, he isn’t original. He’s got a show that plays like a fratboy trying to impress his friends – he has to try and be edgy. (What’s sad is that he thinks making fun of the Canadian military is ‘edgy.’ It’s not. We do it here all the time. It’s low-hanging fruit.)

Just like you can’t be outraged when an poorly-trained dog takes a shit on your front step, you can’t get mad when a second-rate funnyman tells hack-eyed jokes to get attention. It’s just his nature. We should all be proud of Greg Gutfeld for having the restraint not to have a diaper on his head when he said his little Gregalogue. (Case in point – he actually calls it that. It’s not even a pun, it’s just….hard to say.)

No. I wasn’t mad at Greg Gutfeld before. But then this happened.

“The March 17th episode of Red Eye included a segment discussing Canada’s plan for a ’synchronized break,’ which was in no way an attempt to make light of troop efforts,” host Greg Gutfeld said in a statement issued Monday.

“However, I realize that my words may have been misunderstood. It was not my intent to disrespect the brave men, women and families of the Canadian military, and for that I apologize. (emphasis mine)

Fuck you, Greg Gutfeld.

Comedy is about taking down sacred cows, by making people think by poking and prodding at convention and common sense. Comedy does it better than any other form of art.

That’s the one thing you had going for you – you weren’t funny, but at least you gave it a shot. But now you come back with this non-apology. Your “words may have been misunderstood”? Bullshit. You meant every single on of those words. When you did, maybe you thought that clips from your waste of airtime wouldn’t get back to us up here. Or maybe you didn’t think that the backlash would be as strong as it was. (Either way, you were dead wrong.) But you meant to say what you did, and now you’re too much of a coward to stand behind your own words.

That’s what outrages me – public figures that think an insincere statement is enough to fix any situation. “I’m sorry if some were offended…”, “If anyone took my words to mean…”, “I was misunderstood…” We hear it all the time from politicians, from the media, and from washed-up comedians. Those are not apologies, they are conditional statements. A real apology admits error.

A real apology comes with actual regret. A real apology doesn’t just happen to quell outrage.

A real apology isn’t followed by this:

So, Greg Gutfeld, I wasn’t outraged when you poked fun at Canada. Sometimes, I think we’re a bit to sensitive about criticism from the States, so I would welcome more of it. (Although if you could try and make your comedy monologue funny next time, extra points!)

But I’m insulted by your insincere attempts to wiggle out of things, to try and be the provocateur one night and the misunderstood everyman the next. I was okay with you when you were the loud, obnoxious, perfectly-ignorable late-night host. I’m much less down with the cowardly insult to satire.

Of course, guess there is a reason you’re on at 3am, isn’t there?

Actress Natasha Richardson is dead.

Obviously, that’s a tragedy. She was a wife, mother and had an amazing talent.

But even so, there is absolutely no excuse for the Richardson Media Deathwatch that we’ve seen going on for the last week

I’m not naive – the media, in general, loves a story like this. Famous person, photogenic, unusual circumstance – you even can get a little bit of fear-mongering in there. “Should helmets be mandatory on ski hills? Should you go to a neurologist every time you bump your head?” It’s like hitting the rating sweet spot.

But still, things got a little ridiculous. So much of the stuff coming out of the media over the past week has been nothing but rumour and I disgustingly voyeuristic look at a family’s devastating loss.

Not to say I haven’t been part of this. I was on the desk when word of the accident first came through, and Richardson was taken to hospital after the fall. I was also editing when the news came yesterday that her cause of death had been pinned down by the New York Medical Examiner. I ran those stories – I thought that they were fair, and they were newsworthy. But throughout the week, I tried to stay away from running much on Richardson, just because there wasn’t anything new. Even though no one had anything of substance to say, Richardson Deathwatch 2009 continued.

Is she braindead? Are they pulling the plug? Could she have been saved if she went to the doctor right away?

It wasn’t reporting. It was rumour-mongering. Pictures were taken as Richardson’s family was entering the hospital. Sensational reports about a private tragedy were splashed on magazines and sprayed all over the six-o’clock news. Vultures with tape recorders and press passes perched outside her hospital bed, eager to clean the bones before the others got to it first.

I hope that these “journalists” are ashamed. I know that I am. And it’s not the media layoffs and or the worsening economic situation that most makes me question if I even want to do this job – it’s the fear that I’m going to end up like them.

(Up next – Why I hate my profession, pt. 2: Mickey Kaus – Wrong, even when he’s (sort of) right.)

Just got back from the a delicious Breakfast War with Brittney, Adam, Kendrick and a newcomer – Chris LaBossiere, who was quite nice and fun to talk to, even if he did decide to stay neutral in our morning warfare.

Good times had by all. But, unfortunately, there was a dark cloud out in the horizon. It came in the form of this article in the Globe and Mail:

“Canada’s science minister, the man at the centre of the controversy over federal funding cuts to researchers, won’t say if he believes in evolution.”

Oh my.

Canada’s man in charge of public funding for scientific research won’t say if he believes in one of the most important theories of the modern age. Well, I’m sure he has a rational explanation for his…oh no, wait. Here it is.

“I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding here, Mr. Goodyear. When someone asks you: “Hey, evolution, yay or nay?” they are not asking you about your religious beliefs. They are asking you about your scientific ones. And seeing as you are the top guy when it comes to science and technology in our government, it’s it absolutely appropriate. It’s like asking Peter McKay if he believes in the battlefield usefulness of our shiny new helicopters, or is Bev Oda believes in the effectiveness of international trust exercises. (I have to assume that’s what takes up most of the time for the Minister for International Cooperation.)

The only thing that is inappropriate, Mr. Goodyear, is that you refuse to answer a simple question that directly speaks to your ability to do this important job that we’re paying you to do.

I really don’t care in your religious beliefs. Honestly, I’m not asking that we have an atheist as the Minister of Science and Tech. (Hell, atheism is as unscientific an approach as blind faith, in my books.)

All I want is for the guy holding the purse strings to actually believe in something that the overwhelming scientific community treats as fact. If you can’t do that, you’re not the right person for the job.

Instead, you hide behind religion, acting as if a belief in the scientific method and belief in a higher power are mutually-exclusive. Your faith doesn’t exempt you from having to be qualified for your job. Shame on you.

I was starting to be a little optimistic after the news that perhaps you were getting on track with this whole science thing, especially after your previous missteps. Perhaps I jumped the gun on that.

Update: Ross Prusakowski (@rprus) is a fellow who I don’t often agree with but always enjoy debating with. He brings a fair point to the table: there is no evidence that Goodyear’s beliefs have any impact on the funding choices he makes as minister. That’s true, we can’t say for sure that they have.

But even he is able to keep his personal ideas and his professional conduct completely compartmentalized in a way most people could only dream of, that only leaves us with only one adds another grim option: that Goodyear is allocating funding to research that he has does not think is without merit. If he doesn’t believe in evolution, and yet is still funding it, that’s also a problem. It means that he’s not governing based on good science, or even personal ideology – what else is there but a desire to prevent public outcry. And that’s a bad way of doing things.

So, even if you’re right Ross, I still think that means Goodyear is the wrong selection.

Update II: Wordpress seems to want to eat up all of my line breaks, making me re-enter the HTML every time I edit. Going to try and fix that – if anyone has had this problem before and knows how to fix it, let me know.

A lot of ink has been spilled as of late about the Victims Restitution and Compensation Payment Act

thatcame in to effect in January. Long/short of it: The government can seize property used in a crime, and sell it off. The money is to go into a fund that will be used to compensate victims. The rub: the government can sell things off without having to get one of them fancy convictions.

I’ll repeat that: Alberta can arrest you, accuse you of, say, selling dope out of your car, sell said car…all without having to prove that you were, in fact, breaking the law.

Of course, I expect something like this from the Tories – actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if this idea was brought forward by any of the political parties. It’s just the kind of ill-thought out “let’s look tough on crime” idea that most politicians love. It looks nice in the headlines, and any time someone sane objects to it, you can fire back with the specter of gang violence and complain about the difficulties of getting a drug conviction.

Not to sound like an Angry Internet Libertarian (I proudly fall in with the nanny-state liberals, thank you), but it’s really shameful that this got through without at least some citizen outrage.

No, sorry. That’s not the shameful thing. The shameful thing is, while the Journal and the Sun have at least mentioned the controversy surrounding the idea, Metro is gushing over the Act like a grandma over a grade-schooler’s macaroni art:

“Alberta Justice says it will continue to rip a page from Robin Hood by taking money from gangs in order to compensate victims of crime.“

Thanks, Metro. Good job on the lack of restraint there. Also, the thing about Robin Hood: wasn’t real. Because in the real world, we have a name for a guy with an weapon holding up travellers: armed robbers.

If they redistribute the wealth? Socialist armed robbers.

There’s more:

“But the province’s new Victims Restitution and Compensation Payment Act allows for the seizure of cash and property used in crime and then compensates victims and communities affected by criminal activity. “

Not exactly – the Act allows for more than just seizure of property used in a crime because you don’t have a crime without a conviction. Legally, it can’t exist. Like an family reunion without the drunk uncle showing up: it’s a necessary condition. You can be accused of a crime without being convicted, but that’s it.

But Metro doesn’t have time to worry about using words correctly. They barely have the time to point out the fact that the Act can sell off stuff without a conviction. In fact, the only mention of it is half a line in a quote from the dude that’s in charge of selling off the seized goods.

Congratulations, Metro News. While others were are still stuck in the “accurate and balanced reporting” rut, you were forging a new path through the wilds of journalism. A lazy, shameful and ill thought-out path.

Fitting, given the subject matter.