by Sean Orr | U.S. embassy cable: Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Don’t get too excited, as it’s a blandly written foreshadow of Douglas Haddow’s findings of the Games in The Guardian.
Meanwhile 16.55% of respondents say “Olympics: Canadian men win hockey gold” is the top story of 2010. Here are some other results which may or may not be a scathing self-indictment of the media through the reflective lens of consumer spectacle vis à vis the monopoly of information.
Marc Emery heads to U.S. for prison sentence 0%
Inquiry called into Pickton police investigation 0%
Basi and Virk found guilty in B.C. Rail deal scandal 6.2%
Teen raped at Pitt Meadows rave 2.76%
Internet Things That Made the World a (Slightly) Better Place in 2010. Oh, you mean things like 350.org, Wikileaks, and the campaign for Net Neutrality? Nope. Instead its a poor black man reacting to a crime (hide yo wife…), some Superbowl ads, and a double rainbow. At least they included the It Gets Better project.
Actual CKNW headline: Daddy faces porn charges.
Canadians targeted on radical Islamic website. Quick, somebody call the Copts! (joke credit: Jonathan Orr)
Explosion on film set in Golden Ears Park sends 6 to hospital. So, an Uwe Boll movie bombs before it hits theaters?
Beyond Robson’s top 5 songs by Vancouver bands in 2010.
Christmas Shoppers on Hastings. 1913. I’m guessing Blunt Brothers wasn’t there yet.
I bought one. $10,000 in raffle prizes.
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I thought Douglas Haddow’s article in Adbusters, on the decline of western civilization, was very good too.
I don’t always agree with you Sean but the critical stance you take over the biggest news story I certainly do. Any of the other stories are far more important than a hockey team winning gold, even sticking within the realm of the olympic gold there were stories that were just as important if not more so than the men winning gold (it’s Canada’s game they should have won, them losing would have been a bigger story), what about the women (I guess we’re just sexist when it comes to our hockey), or the record number of golds canada got in total (but then who cares about the athletes that don’t get paid millions of dollars a year to play games) or Joannie Rochette winning bronze after her mothers passing ( Right, not hockey).
I guess the trend isn’t confined to our local news either, look at time and it’s choice for person of the year. Mark Zucherberg. What the fuck did he do in 2010 that was so important, he was characterized in a movie, but was it more important than the news that surrounded Julian Assange and wikileaks(government wants this all buried and forgotten), or the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Liu Xiaobo, creating far more controversy around the prize than it’s seen in years, by recognizing a lifelong struggle against oppression.
More examples of what was severely under-reported this past year can be found over on the project censored website. It’s not so much the monopolization of the information, it’s all out there, it’s the monopolization of the delivery methods of that information, it’s a system that everyone is fine with, the media conglomerates make their money, the average audience is happy with the content provided, after all according to the media the information that exists on the internet is unreliable, unbalanced, highly opinionated drivel, provided by crack-pot bloggers and wikipedia.
Sorry about the rant.