News Reader and Programs Gender

[ExFlyer]

Is it me or is it that news is more and more hosted, reading and commented on by women?

I just finished watching Question Period and Vessy whats her name spoke with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and other politicians yet never put him on the spot or made him answer questions. It seems women in the news are always being nice, not putting pressure on.

Whether it is CTV Question Period or CNN Upfront and The Bulletin or Fox's Fox and Friends or Outnumbered or CBS Face the Nation or PBS News and Frontline so many seem to be hosted by women.

Is it because women have empathy?

Is it because men are more "to the point" and that is no longer tolerated?

Is it because women discuss and men talk?

I miss the hard hitting, direct questioning, take no prisoners questions and news casting.

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by ExFlyer

[I am Groot]

Women are more likely to be progressive. You can't get hired if you're not progressive. So right there that would give them a big edge. 

[ExFlyer]

1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

Women are more likely to be progressive. You can't get hired if you're not progressive. So right there that would give them a big edge. 

Progressive and hard news are not in the same ballpark.

Women used to do the fluff stuff and now promoted to making fluff news.

[Michael Hardner]

What shocks me is that people are not paying attention to the decline in journalism in general.

That we got any of the stories on Doug Ford, Justin Trudeau that we did is amazing to me.  

[eyeball]

I'm not that shocked given how ubiquitous mistrust in journalists is along with the sense that the media is just another jbranch of government.

It's probably gotten so bad there are fewer people even entering the field.

Yup, figured as much...

6 journalism programs in the country have shut down or paused admissions in last 12 months

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/journalism-schools-low-enrolment-1.7029160

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

I'm not that shocked given how ubiquitous mistrust in journalists is along with the sense that the media is just another jbranch of government.

It's probably gotten so bad there are fewer people even entering the field.

Yup, figured as much...

6 journalism programs in the country have shut down or paused admissions in last 12 months

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/journalism-schools-low-enrolment-1.7029160

One thing I notice happening is that local Twitter feed, facebook groups and websites are filling the void, created by hard-working people who are named and known to the community.

 

They're starting the local press all over again, and that's a great thing.

[eyeball]

19 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

One thing I notice happening is that local Twitter feed, facebook groups and websites are filling the void, created by hard-working people who are named and known to the community.

 

They're starting the local press all over again, and that's a great thing.

Guerilla journalism?

This might be a role elders could fill.  Retired people who have the time to put into it.  Technology could play a role here too, miniaturized recording devices - tiny drones to penetrate closed door meetings.

I like it.

[Michael Hardner]

4 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Guerilla journalism?

This might be a role elders could fill.  Retired people who have the time to put into it.  Technology could play a role here too, miniaturized recording devices - tiny drones to penetrate closed door meetings.

I like it.

Then seek them out, promote them, and patronize them.  They're everywhere...

At one point, CBC had the brilliant idea of assigning resources to create local 'Digital' news bureaus.  Of course, that sounds immensely useful and forward-looking.   What I saw of it was fairly boring on the surface, because they just produced similar-looking pages on the larger CBC news site.

God help us if someone with some vision should ever be in charge there.

[eyeball]

10 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

They're everywhere...

...Sousveillance, something I've posted often.

The term, coined by Steve Mann,[15] stems from the contrasting French words sur, meaning "above", and sous, meaning "below", i.e. "surveillance" denotes the "eye-in-the-sky" watching from above, whereas "sousveillance" denotes bringing the means of observation down to human level, either physically (mounting cameras on people rather than on buildings) or hierarchically (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities or architectures)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance#:~:text=The term%2C coined by Steve,either physically (mounting cameras on

[Michael Hardner]

40 minutes ago, eyeball said:

...Sousveillance, something I've posted often.

The term, coined by Steve Mann,[15] stems from the contrasting French words sur, meaning "above", and sous, meaning "below", i.e. "surveillance" denotes the "eye-in-the-sky" watching from above, whereas "sousveillance" denotes bringing the means of observation down to human level, either physically (mounting cameras on people rather than on buildings) or hierarchically (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities or architectures)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance#:~:text=The term%2C coined by Steve,either physically (mounting cameras on

And this is why I'm hopeful about 'social' media.  It may be able to convey the existence of rootsy journalism and citizen initiatives at least until the algorithm becomes aware of the threat to the Zuckerboard mother ship.   

In the end, you can use corporate communication platforms to your advantage to counter the corporate neoliberal zeitgeist but you can't/musn't rely on it as though it were oxygen.  After all, your access can be turned off at a whim.

Even internet access, ie access to the network, is at the behest of the moneyed, faceless heirs of Mssrs. Rogers and Graham-Bell right ?

[ExFlyer]

38 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

And this is why I'm hopeful about 'social' media.  It may be able to convey the existence of rootsy journalism and citizen initiatives at least until the algorithm becomes aware of the threat to the Zuckerboard mother ship.   

In the end, you can use corporate communication platforms to your advantage to counter the corporate neoliberal zeitgeist but you can't/musn't rely on it as though it were oxygen.  After all, your access can be turned off at a whim.

Even internet access, ie access to the network, is at the behest of the moneyed, faceless heirs of Mssrs. Rogers and Graham-Bell right ?

But what if social media does not want to pay the federal government for allowing news posting?

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, ExFlyer said:

But what if social media does not want to pay the federal government for allowing news posting?

Well, that's a bugaboo for sure.  There's money on the table, though, so I feel a deal will happen.

[I am Groot]

On 12/10/2023 at 3:01 PM, Michael Hardner said:

What shocks me is that people are not paying attention to the decline in journalism in general.

I hardly even bother to watch the news anymore. My local news reports very little actual news. They seem to prefer long human interest stories. As for the local paper, I can usually skim the online in a minute or two at most because there's usually so little to it. As for the national news, half of it is just American video on American stories because it's cheap for CTV and CBC to buy it and reuse it here. It's almost used as filler. If there's a snowstorm, hurricane, tornado or heat wave in the US it'll make our national news instead of whatever the hell might be going on with our various governments and provinces.

I don't know what the hell they're doing with the hundreds of millions of dollars the government is paying them but it doesn't seem to have resulted in anything useful.

[WestCanMan]

23 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

One thing I notice happening is that local Twitter feed, facebook groups and websites are filling the void, created by hard-working people who are named and known to the community.

 

They're starting the local press all over again, and that's a great thing.

Not long ago when the MSM was bemoaning the fact that "People are watching less real news and getting sucked into the dark recesses of internet disinformation" that was regarded as gospel here.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see love for social media now.  

Like anything, 75% of it is BS imo, but at least people go into it knowing that a lot of it isn't legit, unlike the news, where people have far too much trust.

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

Well, that's a bugaboo for sure.  There's money on the table, though, so I feel a deal will happen.

What the feds could really do is force providers like Telus to live up to commitments to dedicate TV channels to local producers of content. Like they did when they installed fiber-optic cable to our small remote town. This installation was heavily subsidized by federal dollars as part of 1st Nations treaty settlements in the region btw.

After it was installed Telus reneged on their commitment by maintaining it was too difficult and expensive and we got nothing. We had two local stations with the previous local cable provider with no apparent financial burden. They allowed for local advertising, journalism covering local issues and it was the perfect place for the sort of political forum under discussion.

[CdnFox]

On 12/10/2023 at 12:01 PM, Michael Hardner said:

What shocks me is that people are not paying attention to the decline in journalism in general.

That we got any of the stories on Doug Ford, Justin Trudeau that we did is amazing to me.  

This is a serious problem. The articles today are of very poor quality, and much news either doesn't get reported or is reported with serious factual errors.  And i don't just mean politics.

I'm told it's due to cutbacks, and because reporters are required to turn in certain amounts of text in very tight timelines that many just pad stories with excess verbiage and fluff and kind of 'wing' the facts a bit.

News has always had bias and such ( if you don't read the paper you're uninformed, if you do read the paper you're misinformed)  but these days it's just plain sloppy.

[Michael Hardner]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

News has always had bias and such ( if you don't read the paper you're uninformed, if you do read the paper you're misinformed)  but these days it's just plain sloppy.

The profits have left, so they run the outfit with government grants and unpaid interns.

[CdnFox]

47 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

The profits have left, so they run the outfit with government grants and unpaid interns.

I would imagine the editors are hoping to have ChatGPT scan all the web forums and write their own opinion pieces for them to save a buck.  We're getting closer and closer to max headroom  

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

The profits have left, so they run the outfit with government grants and unpaid interns.

Too many people don't want the government to have anything to do with funding journalism and especially a public broadcaster. But maybe there are other ways to skin this cat 

7 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

There's money on the table, though, so I feel a deal will happen.

I can think of a number of people I know in local governments hereabouts including 1st Nation's to whom I could suggest the possibility of participating in a local push to get Telus to make a channel or two available for local use. I also know the fellow who was a prime mover and shaker in our local cable tv scene who just recently finished bringing all the elements including some funding for a local radio station and broadcasting antenna together. It just launched this month. It would make a good platform from which to build momentum for this. His wife is also the mayor so a lot of the local political connections are pretty much already in place.

The purpose for negotiating a high-speed fibre optic connection in treaty settlements was to facilitate distant education services to remote First Nation's villages. I think having dedicated TV channels in the region might be a nice compliment to that.

Hopefully other 1st Nations and regions will take notice and ask for the same thing. As I've often pointed out everyone benefited from treaty settlements in my region and this could easily benefit everyone in the same manner.

Good discussion...smoke is pouring out my ears.

Edited December 12, 2023 by eyeball

[Guest]

11 hours ago, I am Groot said:

I hardly even bother to watch the news anymore

I think the having to do my own homework while watching the news gets old.

Being objective used to be a thing many pushed for.

Nowadays, being divisive provides far more ratings.

So if I watch liberal or conservative news, I always have to watch the other then research a bit more to find the balance am looking for. 

I feel annoyed when am being pushed to think a certain way. 

I feel like am provided with homework that I never asked for.

Would much rather read a book.

Imagine, Israel war. I have to watch CNN and Al Jazeera to get as pro Palestinian of an opinion as possible. 

Then Israel local news, and Fox, to get as close to Israel propaganda as possible.

Then need to do my own research, because I don't fully trust neither. 

No wonder the news is declining. People are sick of being fed garbage.

[ExFlyer]

15 hours ago, I am Groot said:

I hardly even bother to watch the news anymore. My local news reports very little actual news. They seem to prefer long human interest stories. As for the local paper, I can usually skim the online in a minute or two at most because there's usually so little to it. As for the national news, half of it is just American video on American stories because it's cheap for CTV and CBC to buy it and reuse it here. It's almost used as filler. If there's a snowstorm, hurricane, tornado or heat wave in the US it'll make our national news instead of whatever the hell might be going on with our various governments and provinces.

I don't know what the hell they're doing with the hundreds of millions of dollars the government is paying them but it doesn't seem to have resulted in anything useful.

For a person that "hardly even bother to watch the news anymore.", you certainly comment alot on world and national affairs LOL

I agree that the government is spending millions on Canadian news and forcing social media to spend more and the results is what, more layoffs on tv and newspapers shutting down?? But staying on subject....it is rarely women getting fired. LOL

[ExFlyer]

8 hours ago, eyeball said:

Too many people don't want the government to have anything to do with funding journalism and especially a public broadcaster. But maybe there are other ways to skin this cat 

....

Good discussion...smoke is pouring out my ears.

I am on the top of the list of folks that is anti government funding for news media. Especially angry that they make social media pay.

Does the government fund any store is they cannot sell their stuff? No. Does the government fund a company that makes a poor performing product? No

If the news has a lousy product, make it better or die....or add more women for eye candy and to appease a certain market segment.

[eyeball]

3 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

Does the government fund any store is they cannot sell their stuff? No. Does the government fund a company that makes a poor performing product? No

You're wrong because they do this all the time.

Governments in Canada spent more than $350 billion on corporate welfare

According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, federal, provincial and local governments in Canada spent $352.1 billion (inflation-adjusted) subsidizing firms from 2007 to 2019—more than was spent on national defence over the same period. This corporate welfare, which does little if anything to stimulate widespread economic growth, came with huge costs to government budgets and Canadian taxpayers.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/governments-in-canada-spent-more-than-350-billion-on-corporate-welfare

 

[ExFlyer]

43 minutes ago, eyeball said:

You're wrong because they do this all the time.

Governments in Canada spent more than $350 billion on corporate welfare

According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, federal, provincial and local governments in Canada spent $352.1 billion (inflation-adjusted) subsidizing firms from 2007 to 2019—more than was spent on national defence over the same period. This corporate welfare, which does little if anything to stimulate widespread economic growth, came with huge costs to government budgets and Canadian taxpayers.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/governments-in-canada-spent-more-than-350-billion-on-corporate-welfare

 

 Big Difference between corporate welfare and Timmins Times newspaper or CJbN Kenora TV station LOL

Besides, the media got at least $750 million plus the Google money.

[I am Groot]

10 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

For a person that "hardly even bother to watch the news anymore.", you certainly comment alot on world and national affairs LOL

I find my news online, in various social media forums and news outlets from around the world.