Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Another Letter to CTV Newsnet

I guess I'm on a roll folks. Here's another email I sent off to CTV Newsnet today. (I don't usually do this sort of thing, but I had to address the continuity of a theme.)

To CTV Newsnet:

I emailed you the other day upset that you showed footage of a Star of David covered by a swastika. You have made no apology, and since I imagine you consider it unbiased "reporting" I suppose I don't blame you, although you showed more discretion in your hesitancy to air cartoons of Mohammed.

Now, however, you are going out of your way to expose Mel Gibson's drunken remarks slighting Jews. Although offensive and completely uncalled for, it needs to be remembered that Gibson was only making his remarks to a few people on the street, not intending to broadcast them. It is the paperazzi and news media who are aggrandizing the offense.

Gibson not only apologized but declared his comments "despicable". I notice that you originally aired the latter retraction, but since have dropped that quote in favour of more prolonged exhibition of the scandal. Surely it is the paperazzi's job to scandalize "events" such as this, but if you are going to do the same, at least be consistent.

With all due respect,
Jon Coutts
Spruce Grove, Alberta

4 comments:

Tony Tanti said...

I haven't been able to stomach the news lately on any channel. There is an amazing lack of journalistic integrity and objectivity. I worry that "news" is driven more by what gets ratings than we care to admit and that many journalists are just plain lazy and it's easier to report on what everyone else is saying than do the work to get the facts or at leas the other versions of the BS story they're trying to pass off as news.

Good letters.

6:14 am
Heidi said...

Hi Jon. I found your blog from the Hansens (my hubby is Zartan),and I'm so glad I did. I like your writing. I think you have good things to say. I also just finished reading holy crap. I really like it. It makes me think. Thank you for putting yourselves and your ideas out there like that. I have some thoughts about that discussion regarding art/entertainment, and since the comments there are restricted I'm going to impose my thoughts on that on your blog here. Considering FOTF, some of the comments may have been a little harsh in my opinion. (Now, I'm not a die hard fan of Dobson, I don't read the magazine and only listen on the radio if I can't find anything else I want to listen to.) Their mandate is to focus on FAMILY, which includes young children. Therefore the standards they apply to movies etc would need to take into account what may be appropriate for young viewers as well. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that aspect. As a parent, does that change what sorts of entertainment we bring into our house? Should it? Do you let your kids watch the Simpsons? If not will you ever? At what age? Etc, etc...
Thanks again.
:)

6:19 am
Jon Coutts said...

thanks for reading, and for the encouragement. nice to meet you. i don't mind the spill over comments here. good idea.
first of all, i haven't actually looked at holy crap all weekend (been on holidays) but i know some of the members are more into FotF than other. i'm fairly impressed with Dobson most of the time, and appreciate the focus on the family (wow, how obvious can a name be) and agree with you about their ratings standards needing to be high. (in fact I made a similar point on the blog. I'm "fear" by the way.) I also am INCREDIBLY impressed by FotF's conferences regarding homosexuality. Well, at least the one I was at anyway.
Most of my problems with Dobson are when he imposes his version family values on the entirety of culture, and I've heard a few fairly ignorant comments when he's tried to help the Church sort out a few things (ie the whole hymn/chorus debate a while back) and didn't end up helping all that much. i'm also not entirely sure i agree with his views on male/female roles and all that, but I'm not crystal clear on his view, nor mine for that matter.

So that's my two cents on Dobber, as I like to call him.

As for where being a parent fits into things, i agree with you. it makes a difference. i just realized that at present i'm the only parent on holy crap and so i may need to try to represent that view point.

my kids aren't old enough to watch the simpsons so i haven't had to deal with that. i really only have ideals at this point. so i'll share a couple ideals with you and you can trust that i intend to sort it out in reality as i go.

1) i don't want to shelter my kids, i want to "sharpen" them to meet the world with God's love and truth. obviously the amount of exposure to the world that they get has to come in stages, and i think my wife and i will try to discern that as we go. when a child is ready for the simpsons i don't know, but i'll probably let them watch it at some point, if that's still something they'd be interested in. i don't watch it anymore really though.
2) i don't want to talk down to my kids, decieve my kids, avoid the big issues because they are awkward, or make them robotic clones of their parents. i hope they have a loving and happy time as children and that somehow i can teach them about God in a way they can experience for themselves, rather than just trying to duplicate my experience for them.

that's all i got right now. there are other things i could say, but that probably touches on what you are getting at.

so, yes, i think being a parent affects everything, and what i'd watch and listen to when the kids are in bed is going to differ from what we watch together, at least for now. and to be fair, holy crap is really about the adult stuff, but i'll try to remember i'm a parent when i write on there too.

thanks again, keep commenting if you wish.

10:42 pm
Jon Coutts said...

regarding the news, david: here's a prime example of why reporting is no longer reporting. all they give us is scenes of people upset about the delays getting out of lebanon. scenes of protest. and then the odd political comment on the conservatives sucking at their job followed by a comment saying they are doing well. no reporter i ever saw on any station actually investigated or asked WHY exactly it took as long as it did and WHO was working on it and WHAT went into such a task. you saw people bring that up in vague terms on their own, but after all the press coverage we are as ignorant after the fact as we were before about what actually went on over there.

this is typical of most reporting, far as i can tell.

10:52 pm

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Blogroll

Show All