For A More Efficient Media

Note: This post is part of my spring cleaning project and was initially started around the time of the B.C. transit plan announcement.

Hello dear media member. I have heard your concerns, growing more desperate with each passing year. Things are moving so quickly these days, tight deadlines, staff cutbacks and an accelerating hyper-media culture have left you without enough time to do the deep, insightful reporting that you are really capable of, and instead your media outlet is meeting its content requirements with bare bones wire copy and the latest celebrity shenanigans.

What you need is a way to improve your efficiency! Here's a thought: one of the biggest topics the media covers is government and what is government always doing? It is always raising money and spending money. So if you could make your stories on the topic of governments raising and spending money more efficient - if you could automate them somehow - think of the time savings!

Well, I've been conducting a thorough review of media stories on governments and money and I've noticed something remarkable. At first glance, every story looks different: A panel recommends government institute a carbon tax at the federal level, someone wants to increase spending on transit at the provincial level, the Conference Board of Canada suggests allowing municipalities to levy sales taxes, another province is spending money on film projects - how can we bring automation to this bewildering array of diverse topics?

Here's what I noticed, every story on government finances, whatever the topic, whatever the level of government, whatever the media outlet, always includes one block which looks the same. Let me demonstrate with a few examples culled from a quick google news search. You could do the same search yourself any day and get plenty more where these came from:

"The Canadian Taxpayers Federation wants the province to reconsider nearly $20 million in annual subsidies for the commission, which operates bus, freight, passenger rail and high-speed Internet services in northern Ontario."

...

"Reaction to the proposed carbon tax is mixed. While the Vancouver Board of Trade has described it as a "smart" policy that will be "neutral to the pocketbook of the individual consumer and business," Retail BC predicted that the tax will disproportionately add to the cost burden of retailers. In a similar vein, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation described the tax as "anything but neutral for individuals, businesses and industries," and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business suggested that the carbon tax would effectively cancel out other tax relief measures included in the 2008 Budget."

...

"The provincial government is offering paid leave for thousands of public service employees it believes want to volunteer for the 2010 Olympic Games. ...
The plan was attacked by Maureen Bader, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who said the province's Olympic spending is already out of control.

"It's not necessary. There are already a number of people voluntarily giving up their time."

...

"The government's promise of spending prudence, however, was greeted with skepticism by the head of a tax watchdog group.

"Under the Conservatives, spending has increased by 14 per cent," said Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director John Williamson, noting that program expenditures have increased from $175 billion a year in the final year of Liberal rule to what this year will likely be more than $200 billion for the first time ever.

"If Mr. Flaherty's pledge to be fiscally 'responsible' is to mean anything, he must . . . match his tax-relief freeze with a corresponding spending freeze," Williamson said. "Increasing spending while shunning tax cuts will mean the Conservative government has put the interests of the bureaucracy ahead of ordinary taxpayers."

So now let your imagination run wild - let's say you program two shortcut keys into your word processor: The first one, say CTRL-C-T-P-Up Arrow is used for stories where governments are raising taxes (or considering raising taxes, or offering new taxes, etc.) or spending money on any item, whether it be improving the environment, public libraries, emergency preparation, or whatever. This keyboard shortcut will insert the following text into your story.

"Mr/Mrx X [program macro to randomly select a name from a list of CTP spokespeople, there is no difference between any of them, so this is not a problem] criticized the move saying that this move could only lead to a heavier soul-destroying, life-crushing burden of taxes applied to ordinary, everyday, hardworking Canadian Taxpayers."

In cases where taxes or spending are being cut, you simply hit CTRL-C-T-P-Down Arrow and get the following text:

"Mr/Mrs X said the move was a step in the right direction but far more needed to be done to lighten the crushing, family threatening, puppy stomping, tax load being borne by ordinary, everyday, hardworking Canadian taxpayers."

So c'mon media, think about how many stories about Britney you could write up if you followed this easy method of saving time on stories about government programs and services.

It's true, if you wanted to really be radical, you could leave the Taxpayer Federation references out altogether. After all, I think everyone in the country can predict what they are going to say with regard to any story (Tax up: boo, Tax down, yay, No change in tax: who cares) so it's not exactly news is it.

Let's face it, you're just needlessly padding your stories with empty content that doesn't say anything new to anybody and wouldn't be missed by a soul if it didn't appear. But I don't want to rock the boat, so if you just want to maintain the current feeble status quo, but be more efficient about it CTRL-C-T-F-Up Arrow and CTRL-C-T-F-Down Arrow is the way to go.

These Are Not Serious People

From today's Globe business section:

"While Canada should weather the deepening U.S. slowdown, Jim Flaherty said he's increasingly concerned about Ontario, the country's largest economy. And he urged the provincial government to curb spending and cut taxes to spur economic activity."

[emphasis added]

You know, you won't find many topics that pretty much every economist agrees on, but the concept that cutting spending does not help you fight an economic downturn would certainly make the list.

What Flaherty said may not immediately sound crazy, thanks to the constant droning of one-track-mind folks who think there's no problem that can't be solved by spending less money on health, education, research and infrastructure, but it really is pretty crazy. You might as well have the head of the Canadian Medical Association explain how his patient had a fever so had to do some old-fashioned blood-letting, and you'd be at about the same level of professional competence. And this Flaherty clown used to be Finance Minister of Ontario which was a total disaster which won't fully be undone until the end of the highway 407 contract (in 2098, maybe your kids or grandkids will be alive to see it). This is a guy who locked his province into a terrible deal for 99 years, who managed to pile up a huge deficit during an economic boom - and what happens? He goes on to become Finance Minister for the whole country.

Let's face it, we're screwed. If George Bush's 8 years of being the worst president in the history of the United States proved anything, it's that having incompetent people run your country has serious consequences. Let's just hope we don't have to learn the same lesson quite as painfully.

The whole situation puts me to mind of this classic old Kung-Fu Monkey post on how he missed the good old days when the local right wing party was actually made up of grown-ups with serious opinions about things based on knowledge and evidence.

Because it's different here / this time / etc.

Via the comments at Vancouver Condo Info, here's a funny article from the CBC on how B.C. is protected from any fallout from the economic problems, with the biggest concern being that people might lose a little confidence because they see all the negative headlines.

"On Tuesday morning the main Canadian index, the S&P/TSX composite, was up 337 points to 12,467 by 11 a.m. ET after it had tumbled 605 points on Monday, while the U.S. market opened with a nosedive after being closed on Monday for a holiday.

Mutual funds and other investments are taking a hit, but B.C.'s economy is relatively protected, say economists.

"We have this commodity and construction boom of epic proportions which is keeping the western provinces essentially at full employment," Aron Gampel, the deputy chief economist of Scotiabank told CBC on Monday."

So the U.S. is going into (is already in) a recession, but it won't affect B.C. because of the commodity boom (and these commodities are being sold to who, exactly?).

Meanwhile, how long will 'a construction boom of epic proportions' last when house prices drop in B.C. like they did in the U.S.?

Consider this chart of U.S. housing starts.

--

"SFU business professor Lindsay Meredith sees no black clouds on B.C.'s economic horizon. And he predicts consumers — especially cross-border shoppers — might actually benefit if retailers in the U.S. begin slashing prices."

So, if people cross the border to do their shopping somewhere else, that will be *good* for the B.C. economy? OK then.

I've heard of 'every cloud has a silver lining', but sometimes it seems like the media in B.C. thinks that clouds are actually made of pure silver. The fact is, sooner or later we'll see the impacts of a U.S./global slowdown here in B.C.

For example: Canfor closing two mills in Fort Nelson, B.C. ... "The PolarBoard oriented strand board mill and the Tackama plywood mill are closing indefinitely, with the firm blaming poor wood product markets"