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From: wagner@utcs.uucp (Michael Wagner)
Newsgroups: net.space,net.columbia
Subject: Re: Television coverage
Message-ID: <1094@utcs.uucp>
Date: Mon, 10-Feb-86 13:06:51 EST
Article-I.D.: utcs.1094
Posted: Mon Feb 10 13:06:51 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Feb-86 13:51:30 EST
References: <11627@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <15019@rochester.UUCP> <192@sivax.UUCP> <11456@watnot.UUCP>
Reply-To: wagner@utcs.UUCP (Michael Wagner)
Organization: University of Toronto - General Purpose UNIX
Lines: 56
Summary: Reaction from the frozen North

I'm glad someone else remarked on this first.  Sometimes I feel that I 
jump in too quickly.  But the remark lumping Canada and the Soviet Union
into the same basket w.r.t. news censorship was, at first blush,
unsubstantiated and un-called-for.  But alas, he gave, as illustration
of his point, a joke that I fear will be misunderstood outside the
"local viewing area".  To recap.....
In article <11456@watnot.UUCP> jjboritz@watnot.UUCP (Jim Boritz) writes:
>>   (some else (the attributation is lost) wrote) 
>> government would like us to see? Why don't you go to Canada or the
>> Soviet Union if you'd like to have your information controlled. 
>
>I would really like to know where you get off even implying that there is 
>less control of the news in your "free" country than there is in Canada.
	(then follows comments saying that sensationalism is overdone
	in news broadcasts)
> 
>By the way, you must be extremely naive if you think that journalism is not
>controlled to some extent in the US, or anywhere else in the world.

Incidentally, there is one card in the Trivial Persuits game which is
not in the American version, although it is in the (original) Canadian
one.  It asks (I'm paraphrasing) how pregnant Nancy Reagan was when she
walked down the aisle with Ronny.  It was suppressed, I suppose, because
it would make Ronny look like a hypocrite from both sides of the M+M
(moral majority) line.  But hey, cummon, it's only a game.....

Now, Channel 7 (Eyewitness) News in Buffalo is a standing joke in Toronto.
Every evening (well, all right, sometimes in the spring or fall they miss
a an evening and cut in some other attraction instead), they show seven
cute little wooden cottages burning to the ground in Cheektawaga or 
Tonawanda (sp?).  In Toronto, where all houses built in the last n years
must be at least brick exterior, it's hard to imagine so many houses
going up in smoke.  The explanation is always that the poor family, with
faulty furnace, turned the heat up to high, and the place caught fire.

Now, I've basically stopped watching their news (it gets depressing),
but in the last few years I've made friends in Buffalo.  Contrary to my
expectations, there isn't always a conflagration burning somewhere on the
horizon.  In fact, no one I've asked has ever seen *any* of the houses
shown on Ch7 news every night.  Maybe it's all done with little models...

Anyways...now you know why the next line might be funny.  Maybe you had to
be there.
> 
>Q: If 10,000 UFO's flew over Buffalo, which ones would be reported?
> 
>
>A: The ones that were on fire.
>
>
>"Time it was and what a time it was..." - Paul Simon Bookends
> 
>Jim Boritz @ watnot 


Michael Wagner (@ utcs)