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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!brewster
From: brewster@watdcsu.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: View of the world and News.
Message-ID: <3045@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Feb-87 14:17:49 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.3045
Posted: Sat Feb 21 14:17:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Feb-87 19:47:15 EST
References: <792@water.UUCP>
Distribution: can
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 45

>From: jmlang@water.UUCP (Jerome M Lang)

>As an example of what happens on US news w.r.t. Canada, I remember
>the anchor man saying about the Ocean Ranger disaster :
>only nine [not sure about the actual figure] AMERICANS were on board.
>I almost heard: fortunately only nine americans.

    Lets not blow our own horn about how noble and worldly we Canadians
    are.  You are much better off and probably closer to reality when
    you assume that people are pretty much the same in a basic sense.
    This includes a heightened sense of interest about events closer
    to "home".  As an example of our worldliness consider what happens
    on Canadian news w.r.t. news south ofthe border. 
    
    Remember the recent hotel fire in Puerto Rico (and I really dont
    remember much so I may have got the location wrong).  Who did we
    see being interviewed for over twenty minutes on the national news
    that evening.  Two Canadian women who had survived, and their families
    back home.  In fact, in that disaster which was probably the second
    largest hotel fire in history, only x (some small number) of
    Canadians were killed.   I almost heard : fortunately only x
    Canadians.   I did hear Barbara conclude the live interview with,
    "Thank God YOU're safe".  Authors emphasis on YOU.  As if YOU
    were the only people in the hotel who mattered, being Canadian and
    all.

    Also consider all recent events in Europe and Middle East.  What gets
    the most news ? An event that has a Canadian connection, such as the
    "spy trial" of Enge (of St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, north of the
    U.S., just in case you forgot where this guy lived.  On the first
    night the story broke I watched one newscast that showed the cameras
    driving through St. Catherines and arriving at his home.)   When a
    gondola breaks in the Alps and thirty die which ones do we here about ?
    When a train tunnel in Italy is bombed and over one hundred die who do
    we here about ?  

    I am not saying that this is not the way the news should be presented
    (although maybe is shouldn't); I'm simply saying that some humility
    with respect to our own worldview is in order.  When it comes right
    down to it, we aren't very much different from Americans.

						   Try not  to become  a  man
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