Most thoughtful Canadians are concerned by what they see as the “dumbing down” of our major news media in recent years. As competitive pressure mounts, once-serious newspapers have replaced international analysis with articles on personal health, set aside a portion of Page One to report on subjects such as cosmetic surgery for the vagina (the headlines are still dull, but perhaps we can soon hope to see “Underemployed Cosmetic Surgeons Declare Vagina Ugly. Millions of Men Amazed!”), and create entire sections devoted to vapid commentary by young columnists whose universe consists of themselves and their close friends.
This phenomenon has repeated itself through- out North America and Europe. In a New York Times Book Review essay last July Richard Posner, an eminent professor of law and media analyst, provocatively contended that this is because newspapers are at last giving readers what they truly want. “Increased competition has not produced a public more...
Ray Conlogue is a former arts writer for The Globe and Mail and author of The Longing for Homeland in Canada and Quebec (Mercury Press, 1996), an analysis of the cultural and historical dimensions of Quebec’s independence movement, as well as being a translator, teacher and author of a young adult novel.
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