Oct. 1 to 7 slipped quietly past this week without the fanfare that can accompany seven-day-awareness periods such as National Fire Prevention Week, Aboriginal Awareness Week, National Youth Violence Prevention Week or National WomenSA国际影视传媒檚 or MenSA国际影视传媒檚 Health Week.
Oct. 1 to 7 fits somewhere between Random Acts of Kindness Week and National Family Volunteer Week, yet perhaps there has never been a time when more attention should have been paid to National Newspaper Week than our present era of doom, gloom and despair over the newspaper industry.
I confess to feeling no guilt over the use of an idiom to note failing newspapers are to todaySA国际影视传媒檚 industry as cats and dogs are to rain SA国际影视传媒� much to the chagrin of almost every editor ISA国际影视传媒檝e survived during the past three decades SA国际影视传媒� since first noting the theme Newspapers Matter on numerous publisher-penned articles on the state of what was once the final bastion of freedom of speech.
Oh woe ye masters of the quill; doth such reliance on the familiar reflect the shallowness of thy own creative (ink) well?
Well, actually, yes it does.
Still being bandied about SA国际影视传媒� and rightly so SA国际影视传媒� are the results of a recent Ipsos-Reid poll showing no less than 63 per cent of Canadians are unable to tell the difference between real-news sites and fake news stories!
The first domino fell towards clarity becoming obsolete when an editor or publisher, somewhere now lost to time, decided a story would be well-served by a number of key points being placed next to it in bullet-point format.
As society became the click generation SA国际影视传媒� impatient for instant gratification SA国际影视传媒� headlines and bullet points became more-and-more sensationalized as SA国际影视传媒榬eadersSA国际影视传媒� scanned the now constantly manipulated formats for the gist of the story, receiving instead the distorted impression best serving the publication or chainSA国际影视传媒檚 agenda.
And, lurking in the shadows, learning their lessons well from advertising agencies, spin doctors and said agenda pushing, were the purveyors of fake news, now a gun-for-hire industry within the realm of opinion shaping, scandal creating and reputation destroying.
Oddly enough, 70 per cent of Canadian readers prefer their news from accredited journalists, yet only 20 per cent are willing to pay even a nominal fee for it.
Corporate advertisers SA国际影视传媒� those champions of capitalism, democracy and the Canadian way SA国际影视传媒� increasingly toss their budgets into the sketchy online domain, further doing their bit with about 70 per cent of their moola landing in the pockets of Facebook and Google.
And just to add a little salt to that gaping wound, we even allow them SA国际影视传媒� and protect them by law -- to boldly proclaim free shipping anywhere in Canada with your purchase -- which they further protect with free shipping on replacement or repair when you purchase their SA国际影视传媒榞lobalSA国际影视传媒� warranty -- then refuse to do so once they realize you live in Nunavut.
But, really, can you expect anything more when the federal government supports a national broadcaster to the tune of $1 billion a year, yet it and its provincial and territorial counterparts continue to move their advertising, calls for proposals, etc., away from print media and onto their own websites SA国际影视传媒� SA国际影视传媒榗ause, you know, people who spend the majority of their day on Facebook or surfing the web make the best hires.
In the end thereSA国际影视传媒檚 really no difference between what your local newspaper delivers and what you get exclusively in the digital domain, right?
I mean, can you be expected to believe Oct. 1 to 7 was, indeed, National Newspaper Week, and not fake news, for no reason other than you read it in your regional newspaper and not online?
Maybe there is something to these awareness weeks after all!
