Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Newsunworthy


It's hardly news that the news media can be quite pitiful in terms of story selection, foregrounding titillating non-news ahead of actual, important developments. Any written complaint about this deserves to be filed in the "tell me something I don't know" bin. Still, some days are more ridiculous than others.

Today, for example. There are of course the numerous recaps of Michael Jackson's funeral, which news organizations broadcast live yesterday as though Jackson was a head-of-state. And on the domestic front, all three newspapers have seen fit to weigh in on the "controversy" about whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper ate the communion wafer he was offered at the funeral of former Governor-General Romeo Leblanc or pocketed it (Harper's a Protestant but Leblanc, the funeral and the communion ceremony are all Catholic - gives new meaning to the notion of being damned if you do, damned if you don't).

The Toronto Star's Wafergate headline seems like it was ripped from the web pages of The Onion. Thankfully, on slow news days we can look to The Onion itself for amusement. This is one of their best of all time, I dare say. 

Who needs news when you can read about things you wish were news.

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