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The Citizen, 2017-01-26, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2017. PAGE 5. Other Views Not wanted in the TV audience upposedly, if you believe the propaganda, we're all created equal but I know for a fact that I'm less equal than others. Maybe you are too. I mean I knew all along I'm less equal than, say, Justin Trudeau. I mean the Aga Khan has not sent my family any invitations to join him for a Christmas holiday. But no, I'm not even the equal of many others when I'm sitting home watching television. The reinforcement of this reality came to me on the weekend as I was reading a story about a hot new television show and the young producer was speaking about how pleased she was that the ratings were so high among the "key 25 -to -54 demographic". That made me an undesirable audience member. It shouldn't bother me because listening to the description of the show I wasn't sure it's something I'd like to watch in the first place but my ego was so bruised by being not wanted that I was almost tempted to watch the show, just to mess up the percentage of the audience that was in their "key demographic". Then I realized that nobody would know I was watching anyway. No one ever calls to find out what show I'm watching and if some survey company did, I'd probably tell them I was too busy watching television to take the time to do their survey. It's not the first time I've been told I'm an undesirable, of course. A few years ago a new editor took over Maclean's magazine Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk and announced that the magazine's readership was too old, white and rural and he wanted to change that. I decided to help him and didn't renew my subscription when it came due. Strangely, the magazine doesn't seem to realize I was just trying to help and every few months they send me a free copy and a cut-rate offer to subscribe again. Since I'm not just a hated Boomer, but a leading-edge Boomer as well, they don't seem to realize the disaster they'd make luring me back. So far I've saved them from their own mistake by not taking them up on their offer. The makers of movies don't make the same mistake. The movies that show up on theatre screens these days are not likely to attract my un -key demographic. Programming nothing but movies where something explodes every three minutes tends not to draw large audiences of anybody old enough to worry about hearing damage (although those who have a hearing aid they can turn down might have a better chance to survive the experience). Movie -makers say they have to cater to young boys and men because they are the people who make up the audience for movies, but they seldom give more mature viewers a chance to prove them wrong by making, or at least showing, movies older people can watch. Meanwhile their chosen demographic gets more and more of its entertainment off tiny cell -phone screens so the movie makers and theatre chains have to try harder and harder to lure them into theatres, the latest gimmick being theatres where the floor shakes when there's an earthquake or explosion and fog is piped in when it's foggy on the screen. I'm beginning to feel unwanted. Several women I know have commented/complained that they feel invisible when they reach a certain age. Men who used to turn their heads when they walked by now save their energy to follow younger women with their eyes. I can't really understand their concern, not being a man who ever turned a female head as I walked by. Besides, listening to the complaints of modern women I thought they felt harassed by men ogling them. But then I came to realize it's not the ogling that matters but the demographic of the oglers. Few women complain about being admired by men 19-35 who look like Ryan Reynolds. Being old, white and rural and looking nothing like Ryan Reynolds, I've never been part of that preferred demographic either. Maybe ostriches have the ri There were alternative designs for this space this week. I had planned on writing about anything but our southern neighbours in the USA because every person with a screen or a speaker has unlikely seen and heard more than they wanted to about the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the marches all over the world related to Trump that and the `alternative facts' that Shawn has written about to the right. Unfortunately for anyone who has had it up to his or her hat brim with news out of the United States, my initial designs were foiled. I couldn't turn on a radio, open an internet browser, watch television or even open my e-mail without being bombarded by facts and tidbits about what was one of the most controversial weekends in U.S. politics in recent memory. Before anyone thinks I'm casting my support here, let me be plain: Donald Trump has done some reprehensible things and he probably isn't finished just yet. Trump has been accused of raping a 13 -year- old girl in 1994. His recorded comments about what celebrities can get away with are easily accessible. He has openly mocked individuals with disabilities (and been recorded). The actions of this man should have precluded him from running for nomination, let alone becoming president. So no, I am not saying, "Jeez, I'm tired of these protests, just let the man lead the country he was elected to lead." What I am saying is, if these groups plan on protesting on what he has said and done on his very first day in office, they had best find a good campsite near the National Mall because I'd bet there will be a lot more to protest against in the coming months. The United States has always been a country divided. I don't know if Canada escapes the schism that comes from the two-party system because we have other political parties at play, but the right and the left just can't seem to sit at the same table without coming to blows. There's no better example of this than some Denny Scott \.111Denny's Den of Trump's first official actions as president. Shortly after his inauguration, the White House's website was changed dramatically as pages disappeared including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues; climate change and the Affordable Care Act, known by many as Obamacare. Trump also signed an order to have Obamacare removed or changed as to not get in the way of companies who charge for medical procedures and equipment. In one fell swoop, Trump had played to the fears that he had been instilling and tried to clean house of all the connections the White House had to former president Barack Obama and the Democrats. As I said last week, I'm not overly concerned about Trump being president because there are checks and balances to make sure things don't go overboard. I am concerned, however, that important news stories are being lost in the shuffle. Just look at Trump's Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Did you know that, before joining the Republican National Committee, before being named the committee's chief strategist, he waged a very important war on ice cream? In all seriousness, for five years, the man Tweeted about his disappointment with Dippin' Dots, claiming, among other things, that it's not the ice cream of the future. On top of that, there are the numerous stories about the celebrities involved in the protests that don't necessarily add to the narrative. Does it matter that the actress who plays Supergirl was in a protest that included over five million other women across the world? ht of it That should be the story — that millions of people protested, not that Melissa Benoist or Madonna or Jane Fonda or Charlize Theron were part of a protest. Add those stories to the innumerable number of jokes made about Trump's loose interpretation of truth and fact, and you might miss something actually important that is happening somewhere in the world. So where is this whole thing going? Well we need to keep an eye on our own news when the internet and the talking heads try to convince us we should all be looking south. I can't pin information about important events in the world getting lost in the shuffle on Trump. Since people started turning to the internet for their news, there has been a tendency to put the salacious first and bury the important news behind two or three hyperlinks of click -bait. Trump pulling out of the Trans -Pacific Partnership should definitely be higher up the reading list than information about which celebrities held which signs at protests against Trump. Trump's son planning a trip to Calgary to speak with cabinet members is definitely not as important, on a Canadian website, as the fact that a convicted rapist and violent offender escaped from a Kingston halfway house. We can't bury our heads in the sand that is the news stories that aren't, well, news. We need to be looking for that information. As has been said, getting information from the internet is like trying to take a drink from a fire hose. Unfortunately, until some solution comes up from separating the real news from the alternative news, it's something we have to deal with. Stick to the legitimate news sites and channels and look for the news that matters because, as long as people keep wondering which actress does what more often than what real news is being produced, we're going to keep finding out about the Kardashians and the Trumps of the world and miss those stories we really need to see. Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense Alternative universe The dawn of a new, very scary era is upon us. Anyone who consumed news in the 48-hour period following U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration will know exactly what I'm talking about. Two direct and definitive statements made in the aftermath of the inauguration have no doubt set the tone for what will be the Trump presidency and his self-proclaimed "running war" with the media. As most thinking people would agree, Trump's running war is not with the media, but with facts. This leads us to the first of these statements, in which Press Secretary Sean Spicer addressed White House reporters for the very first time. He took a scolding tone and spoke in a very stern voice about the reporting of the size of Trump's inauguration audience. Despite facts to the contrary, Spicer instructed reporters that Trump's inauguration had the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period." He then presented a laundry list of actions Trump undertook after being sworn in where he was allegedly warmly received, directing reporters, "that's what you guys should be writing and covering." In a subsequent interview, Kellyanne Conway, counsellor to Trump, in the face of reporters stating that Spicer had lied about a number of issues in his first address to the media, stated that Spicer had not lied, but rather, presented "alternative facts". These two statements should scare the hell out of Americans. However, because the view of facts is so fractured under Trump that "alternative facts" is a term an educated person can use with a straight face, supporters will believe anything Trump says as fact, no matter how unlikely or outlandish. If the Trump administration is prepared to lie so definitively about something as benign as the size of a crowd, what else are they willing to lie about? That, however, is not an issue for the devoted followers of Trump. Because distrust for the media has been sown by Trump since day one, his supporters believe him and focus on the alleged lies being told by the media. They now look to Trump for the truth and will believe anything he says, no matter how easily it can be proven wrong. Trying to present real facts to someone who's plugged their ears and shaking their head "no" is impossible. Now, Spicer and Conway, and indeed Trump himself, have created a dynamic where news perceived to be "bad" is a witch hunt full of lies, while news perceived to be "good" is a triumph for truthful journalism in the face of a massive ensemble of "crooked" reporters. Trump, a billionaire, has declared war on celebrities as being rich and out of touch, when he surely is worth more than they are. He has filled his cabinet with other billionaires who will, according to supporters, champion the working man. Again, the facts present a situation where the rich man is king, but Trump says that's not true, so he must be right. Spicer establishing first contact with reporters by telling them what they should be reporting is one step away from state- controlled media and, indeed, propaganda. Remember when North Korea's Kim Jong Il shot 38 under par the first time he golfed, or when he invented the hamburger or how he had no need for washrooms, as he did not defecate — likely a bi-product of his supernatural birth under a double rainbow? Americans will no doubt laugh at such controlled hogwash being spewed from North Korea, but how different is the situation when phrases like "alternative facts" are being accepted by millions in the world's most powerful country?