Dry Humour on the Wet Coast

Take a look at this Georgia Straight paper box on the sidewalk along Pacific near Drake St.

Notice something different about it? Well, besides that fact that Kid Rock is on the cover for some reason, there is a bright pink sticker on the glass. What do you think it might say?

Upon closer inspection, the offending tag was a notice of protest, probably placed there by some disenfranchised dissident hoping to spark some discourse over the role of the media in contemporary society.

Reading: “The Media aims to merely fascinate not inform”

this scathing critic echoes the sentiments I hear from a lot of people these days when talking about the role of the 5th estate in democracy. The popular opinion seems to be to say that the “Media” is nothing more than a bullhorn from the ruling class to maintain the status quo and to distract the masses with sensational tabliod reporting and yellow journalism.

Now, I admit that there has been server erosion on the foundations of Journalism, what with convergence and corporate cost cutting, but to lump all “Media” together as though the whole community of news channels, radio stations, and papers are some sort of Monolithic Entity with one massive hive-mind guiding the new agenda in one uniform direction is completely absurd, and not to mention childish in it’s naivety and ignorance.

Now in Vancouver, this paper conglomerisation is more self evident than it is in other major urban centres across Canada. The two main dailies, The Province (the ‘working-class’ friendly tabloid) and the Sun (the ‘intellectual’ broadsheet’), are owned by the same company, CanWest, and even share a building near Gas Town from which they operate. So there isn’t really a lot of room for differing opinions when the two “competing papers” run the sames stories, and in some cases, verbatim.

Even the Vancouver Courier is owned in full by the national media outlet.

But still, there are other papers in the lower mainland that offer a differing point of view. Black Press, an independent chain of community papers, has no ties to CanWest or it’s subsidiaries, and has free editorial range to take to task any issue it sees fit.

And in the forefront, fighting the good fight, is the Georgia Straight. It’s the only true independent in the area that consistently critiques and covers the stories that CanWest refuses to cover.

So in the end, it’s pretty ironic that someone would put that sticker on the box of the only paper still striving to be an objective watchdog in a kennel of company cronies.

The “Media” is what you make it. In a healthy democracy, it’s an unforgiving mirror used to show us the inequalities and foibles of society. It should be an outlet to properly inform the voting populace of the actions of their goverment, in order for them to make a sound descition when voting.

It should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

But to write it all off as merely a diversion, is not only cynical, but irresponsible.

If it weren’t for the few brave soles in the media trying to inform, where would we be left?

If everyone chooses to ignore the media, how will they get their news? Little pink stickers?