And the TVNewsJammer Award goes to...

I watched two good uses of the media today on Global TV noon news.
(And as the last three words of that sentence are all things I rarely experience on a personal basis, this might be a bit rough.)

The top stories were the sinking of BC ferry "Queen of the North" and the rescue of the three hostages in Iraq. As none of the main players in either story were available for questioning at airtime, Global interviewers were reduced to asking their "and so how did you feel when you heard…" questions of whoever they could get.

On the hostage rescue. In what appeared to be a TV studio interview, a Christian Peacemaker Team co-worker and fellow peace activist of freed Canadian hostage James Loney used his several minutes of fame to lambaste the invasion and occupation of Iraq as criminal and illegal. Wearing a t-shirt that had something written on it in Arabic, he listened carefully to whatever question was put to him, nodded quietly to indicate his understanding of the question, and then firmly continued on with his own message. He said his buddy the freed hostage might have to be dissuaded from going right back to work.
It was fucking great.

There followed what I first took to be a short TV documentary on the fragility of life, but it turned out to be a very long commercial for a private medical insurance company instead. Good product placement though.

On the sinking of the "Queen of the North". In my scramble to locate the mute button before I heard the above-mentioned brand name for the 28th time, I missed the name of the local and possibly native guy who was interviewed near the spot where the ferry sank. And how did he feel?
Paraphrase : “These ferry captains have 15 years experience negotiating this difficult waterway on a regular basis so if anyone imagines that opening up the inland passage to heavy commercial gas or oil freighter traffic wouldn’t result in a much worse disaster, they’re fooling themselves.”

Kudos to both of them.
This is Alison reporting from Creekside - a truly crapulous comfy chair report with the most relevant information either missing or oversimplified, much like the original broadcast in question, but at least I haven’t asked you how you feel.