Alex Reid

“Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young” was the title of a column piece in the Chicago Tribune written by Mary Schmich in 1997.

In 1999, the essay became the basis of the 1999 hit music single “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”, by Baz Luhrmann.

I encourage you to give it a listen/watch here.

A good TED talk about being suspicious of stories we hear or read.

What stories don’t people have an incentive to tell?

It was 40 years ago that Gil Scott-Heron stated that the revolution would not be televised.

He was partially right.
The revolution will not be televised for the first three weeks.

Coming from a family of journalists, I’ve been disappointed, perhaps even angry, that the Canadian mainstream media was quick to jump on protests in the Middle East yet ignored the same closer to home for weeks. I’m specifically referring to the likes of the CBC, The Globe and Mail and Global TV.

I expected this sort of pandering from The National Post, so they didn’t disappoint.

The Globe and Mail only had this to say about it - that it was Adbusters (a Canadian publication) who encouraged it with other groups, two days ago. Global repeated what the Globe storied a day later.

The CBC just picked up on it earlier this afternoon; three weeks late.

CTV looks like a winner here, having reported on it a week later (two weeks ago) though for the most part they’ve been obsessed about the police presence and arrests.

No matter what happens during or after the #occupywallstreet protests, many of my friends wondered on Twitter and Facebook why they weren’t seeing this or hearing it reported on the mainstream news, and have to come to the same realization I have, that mainstream news is outdating itself.

I have little faith in the CBC for sure. It’s clear now that the CBC only covers natural disasters and when the Prime Minster passes stool, for fear of cutbacks.

MSNBC, in the states, gets kudos for being perhaps the only American mainstream media to report the protests as well as boldly criticizing the people who were causing the most trouble.

WikiLeaks has a pretty sweet Mastercard Parody video going around these days, soliciting funds for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s personal legal and security costs.

France’s broadcast regulator has prohibited the use of the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” from being mentioned on radio and television, unless that social network is the central part of a news story. So a newscaster can no longer say ‘follow us on Twitter’ or ‘give us your feedback on Facebook’ but could run a story about a politician who used Twitter to send pictures of his private parts.

The thinking is that mentioning these household brands is a form of “clandestine advertising”. The regulator, Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA), cites a 1992 statute governing the relationship between journalists and advertising, sponsorship, and “teleshopping”.

Now if this was enacted in Canada, the CBC would lose half of their news content.

(source)