Village Squire, 1976-03, Page 341P.ft.
There are times when being in this
business just isn't very comfortable.
Sitting in on a performance of Theatre
Passe Muraille's Horsburgh Scandal, for
instance, a journalist couldn't help being
shaken by the audience reaction to a cut in the
plan taken at the media. It brought one of the
biggest responses of the night.
Nearly any public meeting one goes to
these days will see a smack taken at the
media somewhere. What makes it all so
uncomfortable is that we deserve it so royally.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't
throw stones, and the media is the biggest
rock thrower anywhere.
Few people would argue against the need
for the media, it's just how we do our jobs.
IOne has to have a certain amount of ego to
function in this business, but it seems most
journalists have been spending so much time
patting each other on the back that their egos
have assumed the proportions of the hot air
balloon we see in the beer commercials.
Most of the people in the business dream of
the day they'll be a Pierre Berton or a Gordon
Sinclair and their way to the top is to try to
gain recognition. The problem is that this
mass of striving egomaniacs comes across to
the public as a single entity: the press. When
one idiot shoots off his mouth or misquotes
somebody or exaggerates the whole business
gets a black eye.
Sometimes it's a tough
business to belong to
And every day we've got an example of this
kind of excess by the press. Imagine, for
example, the powerful Toronto Star having
the nerve recently in an editorial to bluntly
say that consumers are paying too much for
eggs. Not just too much, but 15 cents per
dozen too much.
It wasn't a case of the paper having gone
out and done exhausting research on the
matter. It was simply the case of some
arrogant editorial writer sitting in his plush
office in the Toronto Star building and taking
the word of a Consumer Association of
Canada spokesman who was equally arrogant
and ignorant about the whole situation. How
would the publisher of the newspaper have
liked some farmer from Perth County to
wander into his office and say he should be
selling his paper for seven cents instead of 15
cents, that all the cost figures the publisher
used weren't really accurate and the farmer
could show him how to do the job better and
cheaper? The farmer would probably get
shown gently but firmly to the door and there
would have been an editorial, the next day
about the nerve of the farmer, or farmers in
general.
Likewise the power of critics in the arts has
been in the news lately. A young Toronto
writer had his show taken to Broadway
recently where more than a million dollars
was invested in making the show ready for
Broadway. Preview audiences were favour-
able. The opening night sell out audience was
enthusiastic. But the critics, particularly the
all-powerful Clive Barnes, cut the show to
shreads, in fact practically picked the bones
of the writer clean. Suddenly the box-office
died and so did the show after only one week.
There's something sick there. The critic
has the right to his own opinion but surely one
man shouldn't have the power. If the
audience liked it, then the critic shouldn't '
matter. 1 for one, couldn't live with the kind of
power the New York critics hold. It's like
being judge, jury and hangman all rolled into
one. How can you face yourself if you make a
mistake, if you ruin,a show that people have
invested love, energy, talent and money in, if
you ruin a career?
An old instructor of mine back in college
told our class that there is no greater calling
than that of informing the people. There is
also no greater responsibility. Sometimes, I
think, our media people get so wrapped up in
their own importance, so sure of the justice of
their cause, that they don't or won't think
much about the responsibility of the business
they're engaged in. They play a game among
themselves, to see who can get the story first,
who can get the most by-lines, who can wield
the most power. Too few seem to realize that
with the privilege of the press comes the
weighty responsibility.
GEARIRIS
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32, VILLAGE SQUIRE/MARCH 1976