Worst. Newscast. EVER.

Wow.

As a former TV journo I've watched a lot of newscasts over the years. I've seen some great shows. I've seen very good shows, and employees who did the best they could with the limited resources available to them. I've watched newscasts from independent stations and from network stations. I've watched shows done by newsrooms of sixty people and others done by newsrooms of ten. I've reported, produced, hosted, directed, edited, even done studio camera and audio. I like to think I know a tiny bit about the TV news biz.

Last night I recorded Canoe Live, the, um, "news" program that's being foisted on viewers by Toronto's Sun TV. Today I pinned myself into my recliner and forced myself, Clockwork Orange-style, to sit through the whole wretched thing.

How much did I hate this craptacular waste of an hour? Let me count the ways:

1. A television news show done out of a newspaper's newsroom. Whatever happened to editorial independence?

2. Who does a newscast these days without a teleprompter? Let's see now: cheap college stations; major stations who suffer a breakdown in the middle of a newscast (at least until the next break, when hopefully a technician or engineer can get the thing working again); and cheap-ass TV stations that operate in Canada's largest single market, are owned by major media conglomerates and for some reason still think it's a good thing to look cheap. Maybe it's meant to be "edgy" - a favorite word of managers who can't think of anything new to do. In any case, it's distracting and just makes viewers think that the anchor can't possibly be as bright as the anchors on all those other stations.

3. Why in the name of everything that's holy would a Toronto station that wants to connect with Toronto viewers, hire a host from Fort Wayne, IN who's never lived in Canada before, let alone Toronto? I'm sure Janette Luu is a lovely person and I have no doubt that her parents love her very much. I still have no idea, though, what the hell she's doing hosting a show mere weeks after a number of other very talented, very hard-working and very Canadian hosts got laid off in March.

4. Why, on a television news program, am I being forced to watch and listen to columnists and reporters from the (freakin' awful) Toronto Sun? And why on God's green Earth is there no original reportage? Call me old-fashioned, but when I tune into a program that purports to be news and/or current affairs, I expect to see some reporting and perhaps a bit of informed commentary. All we get on Canoe Live is commentary wallpapered with the most generic visuals I think I've ever seen. If I wanted to hear what the high foreheads at the Sun think, I'd read their paper. Well... you're right...I wouldn't. Maybe it's because Sun TV laid off all their journalists and all but one of their ENG (that's Electronic News Gathering for those of you who came late to the party) camera operators.

5. Do I really have to tune to one of my HD channels - for which I pay real money - to see a standard-definition program that then goes on to show me a photo of today's Sunshine Girl? (For those of you unfamiliar with the Sunshine Girl, surf to http://www.torontosun.ca/SUNshineGirl/home.html for a sample) If I wanted boilage I'd pick up a copy of the Sun. Well... you're right... I wouldn't do that either.

6. If I'm even remotely interested in getting some modicum of information about what's going on in Toronto, why the hell does Sun TV presume I'd be even remotely interested in photos of viewers' pets?!? I kid you not; there were pics of a flippin' Jack Russell terrier up on screen as long, or perhaps longer, as images of Stephen Harper when they did their exhaustive coverage of Stephen Harper's latest imbroglio with the Parliamentary Press Gallery. And to whom did the lovely Janette talk for in-depth analysis of the issue? Maybe the president of the PPG? Nope. Perhaps Sun TV's intrepid national political reporter? Don't be silly; they don't have one of those. Who else? A Toronto Sun reporter! The mind boggles.

7. News organizations around the world, including the venerable BBC, have already figured out that so-called citizen journalism is anything but reliable; the BBC in fact hired a number of producers for the purpose of vetting the incoming videos and e-mails, in order to avoid the embarrassment of showing or posting material that is inaccurate, defamatory or just plain false. So far Canoe Live is only posting comments - and what educated and pithy comments they are - from unsolicited e-mails that mysteriously appear on the screen mere seconds after the lovely Janette reads the topic. (does anyone else think that's a little dodgy?) I'm severely tempted - and I mean severely tempted - to mount an elaborate hoax, shoot it with my trusty citizen-reporting cellphone/camera/whatsit and fire it off to the executive producer of Canoe Live, just to see how much of it ends up on Canoe Live *and* reported breathlessly as an exclusive by the Toronto Sun. Hmmm... my Scorpio side is already feverishly dreaming up the scenario.

Great googly-moogly! If I get any crankier about this particular hour of my life that I'll never get back, I think I'll give myself a stroke. My fingers were a veritable blur on the remote as I rushed to purge this steaming load of crap off my digital video recorder. I still get the jibblies just thinking about it.

I'm willing to give the show another look-see... someday. The show is supposedly in beta mode while they work out the kinks. Please, for the love of Pete, work out the !^@%$ kinks already! You might want to start by a) giving your audience credit for some intelligence; b) doing what news shows are supposed to do: report the damn news! c) getting yourself a real core of real journalists, as opposed to columnists planted in the Sun's newsroom; d) going out and actually talking to real people, if you're absolutely bound and determined to claim to be a news-ish program.

[wiping foam from corners of mouth]

Thanks, I needed that. Sometimes you just gotta vent, you know?

Back home

It's been a while since my last rant.

I went to Calgary last weekend for my nephew's wedding and shot about three hundred (!) digital photos. Much to my chagrin, the fact that I'm not a pro photog is still painfully evident. I won't blame my gear (notwithstanding the fact that I still don't have the swishy flash diffuser I mentioned in my previous post "Sizes"); nor will I blame the bloody awful lighting (a large high-ceilinged, darkish room with HUGE picture windows facing south and west... at sunset!). After all, it's a poor workman who blames his tools. Well, I had good tools and I still suck. The upside of shooting three hundred digital pics, though, is that I can get rid of the chaff and still have a reasonable number of pics that look good. Hopefully said nephew and his lovely new bride will be happy with my work.

I started thinking - I mean really thinking - about my summer holidays today. Frankly I should have been concentrating on something else, like perhaps work, but hey, that's life in the big city. I'm hoping to take three weeks off in July. And I mean off; In the past I've taken my laptop or *gasp* my BlackBerry wth me on holiday, and I usually wind up spending half my so-called time off, well, on. Last year I took five days (can you believe it? five whole days!) off without an electronic leash of any kind. It was glorious, although admittedly it came as a bit of a shock to discover that the world actually continued to turn without me being at my desk. Talk about an epiphany...