No TV is fine, but what’s the price of milk?

It was amusing last week to watch the broadcast media jump all over Stephen Harper’s admission that he doesn’t watch Canadian news. They’ll gloss over stories such as mixed-messages on our post Afghanistan military presence or the government’s penchant for secrecy, but suggest that the PM doesn’t idolize Peter Mansbridge and Lloyd Robertson and they’re on it like a dog with a bone.

The fact is, and I rarely say this, but I’m actually with Harper on this one. I don’t watch Canadian news that much either. Rarely will I tune in to CBC’s The National, and I’ve never really watched CTV’s flagship broadcast. Every once and awhile I’ll flip on the local supper-hour news on CFTO, but usually it’s as background white noise as I do something else. And I’ve long since, with rare exception, foresworn the assorted political nerdfest shows (although for curiosity’s sake I’ll need to check out Evan Solomon’s new one). Party hacks shouting talking points (we’ll leave the irony unsaid) just doesn’t do it for me, being neither entertaining nor particularly informative.

That’s not to say I’m not informed on what’s going on in the land. I get a daily clippings package of stories of national and political interest, which I cull even further before reading. And with the Web, with Twitter and Facebook, I’m pointed to the stories that are of interest to me, saving me from having to sift through the stories I don’t want.

This is actually the news dissemination model of the future, and it’s a model mainstream media has had difficulty adjusting to: hyper-personal. People are still consuming news. But they’re consuming it differently, and through different sources. They’re getting it through aggregates and readers that just give them the news they’re interested in. The mainstream media is still the source, and that won’t change, but the way we access it has. Gone is the one-size fits all, here’s everything model. Media companies need to figure-out how to market that hyper-personal market to advertisers. The potential is there, and it is attractive for advertisers to be able to target specific groups, ie. political nerds, or Nascar fans. They just need to adjust their sales strategies.

Back to me and Harper, however. There is one rather serious drawback to this new model of news consumption that we’re engaging in (I’m assuming he is still getting Canadian news through some source or another, fingers crossed). By only getting the news we’re specifically interested in we’re missing out on quite a lot that, were we exposed to it, we would be interested in. We risk creation a generation of less informed, broadly-interested people.

Pick up the newspaper and skim the headlines and, while you won’t read it all, you’re bound to find a few stories that you wouldn’t have normally read but that you find enlightening and fascinating, exposing you to ideas and viewpoints you wouldn’t have otherwise considered. Flying back from New York last week, having already watched the three episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Air Canada’s video on demand system, I watched a compilation of documentary reports from CBC’s The National. One was a day in the life of the Chief of Defence Staff, the other a piece on diamond mining in Zimbabwe. Both were very interesting, and both wouldn’t have hit my radar normally.

So, there are drawbacks to the fact Harper and I don’t watch much Canadian news. And while for me its an interesting philosophical conundrum, I’m a bit more concerned about what it means for the Prime Minister of Canada. For someone who has made so much about the fact Michael Ignatieff spent much of his professional career overseas, I wonder what his viewing habits say about Harper’s connection to what’s happening out there in Canada. For a PM particularly, your exposure to everyday life is minimal. The PMO is another bubble within the Ottawa bubble. You need to make a conscious effort to peer outside it.

So while the Canadian news is tedious, maybe giving a little time to Mansbridge every now and again would be a good idea for both of us. Perhaps the broadcast media could meet us half-way, and try to focus less on superficiality and pap. And no, making Peter deliver the news standing doesn’t help.

On a side note, it was disturbing that Harper said he watches American news instead. That seems to indicate his issue isn’t necessarily with broadcast news, but with the news of Canada. Hardly an encouraging attitude for a Prime Minister and it doesn’t speak well to his perspective and view of the country.

However, it may explain his unending focus on crime policy. If I watched no news but that out of Buffalo, I’d be scared for my life as well.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers