The Emperor's New Clues

Yesterday, page one of the Globe and Mail had a story about whether or not Prime Minister Chretien was sufficiently dapper at the recent G8 conference. Page one.

This wasn't the Toronto Sun, mind you. Or an infotainment rag. This was Canada's leading newspaper. I was talking about this with my partner this morning, and she said, "Well, you know they've come down in the world since the National Post."

I'm sure that if you asked the people at the Globe, they'd probably say that they print what the people want to read. But, at some level, I wonder: is the news of what's going on in the world too important to be left at the whim of popular opinion? Dare we have a free press that is the victim of public boredom with real news? (And am I just being elitist when I reject an article about Chretien's wardrobe as "not real news" or, at the very least, not worthy of page one?)

I guess that's one of the reasons why I've always rather admired the CBC and supported government funding of the CBC. Obviously, if the only news available was from the government, that'd be a problem.

But then you get other media arguing about how unfair it is to have to compete with the publically-funded CBC. How can a radio station, for example, ever hope to operate on equal footing with a station that isn't dependent on advertising revenues?

Hard questions, I'll grant.