Bruce Dowbiggin
Kill The Witch: Canadian Media Beclowns Itself Again
They don’t get it. They never do. One of the knee slappers in the Tucker Carlson saga is that Canadian media may be the ones most genuinely outraged by his behaviour (“Father Coughlin red-meat racist”, they clucked). Monday’s news of his dismissal brought the righteous grandees of Canadian media out to wag their fingers and say “We told you so” after his “threat” to invade Canada to restore democracy.
By contrast, the aggrieved in the U.S. were almost all the predictable political fainting goats. His was a crime without victims. It was part oi the game. But CDN media bought it all, predictably calling him racist, sexist, homophobic and, yes, a Nazi. (BTW his executive producer is gay.) What has been described as “doing it to himself” is actually the mandate of journalism. Get it right, and get it first.
As opposed to CNN, MSNBC and the DC print media doing FBI/ CIA spin, Carlson was correct on the major hoaxes of the past seven years from Russiagate to Hunter Biden laptop to Ukraine impeachment to FBI’s targeting of parents school groups. As an example, he asked, how did the Muller Investigation spend two years with a team of 19 lawyers, $40 million in resources, 40 FBI agents, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants & 500 witnesses— and not find out that Hillary Clinton created the hoax they were investigating?” (Answer: They never interviewed Clinton’s campaign manger.)
But the broader audience was largely unprepared for these truths until much later in the news cycle. See: On the eve of his re-election bid announcement, CNN was running against Biden’s re-election by pointing out his laughable approval numbers.
While some blame FOX’s settlement of the $685M Dominion Voting case, Carlson’s schism with the Murdoch clan likely dates to 2022 when FOX News polling experts assured him a major GOP win in Congress. He was personally embarrassed when the GOP flopped in effort to win the Senate and flip some governorships. And FOX News could not back up fraud charges emanting from several states. It showed. “Do the executives understand how much trust and credibility we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real,” Carlson texted after the 2022 debacle.
He cut away from the FOX brand to do documentaries and long-form interviews. He built a separate space which allowed a home for people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Alex Berenson, Jason Whitlock and Glenn Greenwald. Which was increasingly intolerable to the Murdochs. Hence, Monday’s purge. (Which, hilariously, coincided with the firing of Carlson’s reliable punchline, Don Lemon, at CNN.) Or maybe not.
No doubt Wall Street and its Big Pharma friends were excited. (The Pentagon sure was: “We’re a better country without him bagging on our military every night in front of hundreds of thousands of people… good riddance.”) Despite Carlson being the No. 1 figure in cable news history Wall Street tried to starve Carlson’s show of advertising revenues, reducing his stable of support to Mr. Pillow, a vitamin company and Navage sinus machine. As in, who cares what the audience wants, here’s more prescription drugs to keep you sedated.
Kennedy summed up the pressure tactic. “@TuckerCarlson Carlson’s breathtakingly courageous April 19 monologue broke TV’s two biggest rules: Tucker told the truth about how greedy Pharma advertisers controlled TV news content, and he lambasted obsequious newscasters for promoting jabs they knew to be lethal and worthless. For many years, Tucker has had the nation’s biggest audience averaging 3.5 million — 10 times the size of CNN. Fox just demonstrated the terrifying power of Big Pharma.”
While his other targets congratulated themselves on being rid of Carlson and faith-tinged commentaries, some prominent liberal stars were making Carlson’s point about the corruption of media. Actor Tim Robbins, one of the few dedicated ACLU liberals left, blasted their failure to expose TwitterGate, “a massive censorship operation by the US government to control content on social media and eliminate any dissenting voices. Have you read their reporting? Or are you listening to the embarrassed, compromised hacks from the media that are covering their tracks?
“Could be the most important story related to our personal freedoms in the US and it’s being buried. Mainstream media have not only ignored the story but now attack the journalists, effectively serving as a thuggish censorship arm of the government. Meanwhile @StaceyPlaskett @RepJeffries @RepJerryNadler threaten journalist Matt Taibbi with jail time. What an embarrassing, shameful time for the Democrats and the ‘free’ press. You are losing any shred of credibility you had, you fucking fools. Oh, and by the way #FreeAssange
There are some making the same point about Canadian journalism, but they’re not Canadians. British historian and columnist Douglas K. Murray summed up the Media Party clique last December in his Munk Debates performance on the Trucker Convoy coverage. After reading a catalogue of CBC hacks (and others) demonizing the demonstrators at the expense of the facts— one called the truckers “a feral mob”, another suggested Putin was behind them— Murray unleashed. “The Canadian mainstream media acted as an amen chorus of the Canadian government,” Murray argued. “Now why is this is rancid? So utterly, utterly, rancid and corrupt? Because in this country your media–your mainstream media–is funded by the government.”
So it should come as little surprise that Tucker Carlson is a bridge too far in the cozy world of Canadian journalism. While there are notable exceptions, most of Canada’s media bien pensants have no idea that touching the third rail, as Carlson did, was journalism. At best, what they do is fill space between the commercials.
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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Cometh the hour, cometh the comedian. Or, you can learn a lot about a demographic by what makes them laugh.
The legacy/ lunacy media schvitzed itself over a few furious sociology majors and look-at-me drama queens walking out on Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement address at Duke University last weekend. But the significance of his admission that he was 70 was probably far more newsworthy to those now in retirement, binge-watching his eponymous TV series on one of those down-the-dial channels.
If we had a dollar for every Boomer who said, “Seinfeld is 70?” while watching the address we’d be Warren-Buffett-rich this morning. He doesn’t look like any 70 year olds we know. Fifty? Maybe. But listening to his familiar delivery, the mocking on his honorary degree costume, it was easy to believe that we, too, are much younger than our blood-thinner prescriptions say.
It also pointed out the evolution of Boomers’ comedic tastes. When they came of age in the late 1960s/ early 1970s Woody Allen best profiled as his generation’s comedic muse. With a dozen classic movies ranging from What’s New Pussycat (1965) through Play It Again Sam (1972) to Annie Hall (1977) Allen’s self-deprecating nebbish captured the romantic/ridiculous self-image of Boomers with “Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge. Others only gargle”.
The neurotic, insecure Allen then decided to become Ingmar Bergman, and Boomers— now assembling jobs, children and first spouses— moved on. But for that 12-year span the bedraggled standup comedian was the go-to with lines like “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you” and “The only love that lasts is unrequited love.”
Woody’s pointed contemporary political references in those years were few (conflating “D’you” for “Jew” with Tony Roberts in Manhattan) and self-deflating (see Annie Hall). His most prominent political jabs were framed in absurdist material like Love And Death and Bananas. Culturally he was merciless but affectionate about his Brooklyn upbringing. In short his were perfect date movies for Boomers seeking love to advertise their pretensions.
Flash forward from Woody to Seinfeld (created with Larry David) which was anti-romantic in the extreme. The characters were sociopaths. The situations often cringeworthy. The 24-minute formula harkened back to Lucy and the Honeymooners. And while schlock like Friends trod the same ground it was Seinfeld that somehow captured the Boomer zeitgeist.
Why? Boomers going through middle age were too disillusioned with how life was turning out to romanticize anymore. The self-obsessed characters were people they knew from work, school and dealing with government. Smirking Bill Clinton was the face of an era. “When we did my show in the 90s, it was so easy to make fun of things. It was so easy,” Seinfeld told Amy Schumer.
Significantly, Seinfeld the Show was cultural. Or quasi-cultural. It was never about politics per se. It was about the people who thwart you in life. Whose vanity ruins your plans from school days. Who go 50 mph in the left lane. “When is Jerry going to see the baby?” It rarely challenged its fans on an emotional level. It was mostly about navigating madness.
And often about the most mundane elements of life. The address on the weekend contained The Seinfeld Doctrine of Lowered Expectations. “It’s easy to fall in love with people. I suggest falling in love with anything and everything, every chance you get. Fall in love with your coffee, your sneakers, your blue zone parking space. I’ve had a lot of fun in life falling in love with stupid, meaningless physical objects.
“The object I love the most is the clear-barrel Bic pen — $1.29 for a box of 10. I can fall in love with a car turn signal switch that has a nice feel to it, a pizza crust that collapses with just the right amount of pressure. I have truly spent my life focusing on the smallest things imaginable, completely oblivious to all the big issues of living.”
Reaching across the generations Seinfeld delivered Dad jokes and bromides to kids who education probably cost $100 K a year. “I think it is also wonderful that you care so much about not hurting other people’s feelings in the million and one ways we all do that,” he said. Then he explained why that might be a fruitless pursuit. Not in Curb Your Enthusiasm darkness. But sobering.
That’s why it was in character for him to let the furious demonstrators depart at Duke without comment. So was appearing at Duke, the Ivy League of Tobacco Road, founded by the people who made jillions selling nicotine. And why he let them garb him like Thomas Cromwell in the absurd 16th century cape and hat so he could score few laughs.
Because laughter is his means of dealing with jerks like the outbound Hamas crowd. “What I need to tell you as a comedian: Do not lose your sense of humour. You can have no idea at this point in your life how much you are going to need it to get through. Not enough of life makes sense for you to be able to survive it without humour.”
Yes, He has been vocal lately about the effect of political correctness ruining TV comedy. Drawing flak from former friends and fans who are in the Biden re-education camps at the moment. But his annoyance at ruining an art form far outweighed any complaints about Covid and Ukraine.
As opposed to the nihilism of his former partner David, his insouciance and comic patter represent an antidote for where most of his original fans are at the moment. Woody Allen, their former idol, is now seen as a pedo and a failed nouveau vage auteur. Disillusioned with virus lies, electoral shenanigans and soaring prices, Boomers on a pension are unanchored, floating through what used to be North American society (when only women had babies).
In fact, Boomer spectators watching Seinfeld’s 17-minute speech maybe summed it up for themselves by recalling the Seinfeld mantra, “It was a show about nothing.” And they’d be right. Jerry is the man for those times.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/
The Toronto Maple Leafs made the “what colour is that green light?” decision to fire their head coach Sheldon Keefe last week. The removal of Keefe after five years followed a dispiriting first-round playoff series loss to a very ordinary Boston Bruins team. Coaching may or may not have been the root cause of that loss. (Keefe himself admitted “teams are waiting for the Leafs to beat themselves”.)
The real reason for the firing is 1967, and we don’t think we need add more than that.
In essence, the management of MLSE— the owner of the Maple Leafs and a lot of other sports stuff in Toronto— needed to throw a body to the baying hounds of disappointment. Also known as Leafs Nation. Newly minted CEO Keith Pelley, fresh from the PGA Tour/ LIV psychodrama, was certainly not going to pay the price.
Nor was GM Brad Treliving who has only been on the job for two seasons. The key decisions on Toronto’s lopsided salary cap were decided long before Treliving occupied his desk. That left two people in vulnerable positions. 1) Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, who has been drawing an MLSE cheque for a decade. 2) Keefe.
When was the last time you saw a coach fire a team president? Precisely. Keefe joins the list of (briefly) unemployed coaches who circulate in the NHL like McKinsey consultants. Shanahan gets a lukewarm mulligan from Pelley. But after the failure of the Kyle Dubas experiment— “who needs experience?”— and now just a single playoff series win in a decade Shanny’s best-before date has arrived.
Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan attends a news conference in Toronto on April 14, 2014. Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan said Peter Horachek will remain the team’s interim head coach until the end of the season. Shanahan met the media Friday for the first time since coach Randy Carlyle was fired on Tuesday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Depending on who he and Treliving enlist to coach— remember, Mike Babcock was too tough and Keefe was probably too player friendly— it had better produce instant results. Because Shanny, the pride of Mimico, is out of chances. The coach choice will also be affected by whichever player or players that management decides are superfluous to ending the Leafs’ ridiculous run of misery.
The Leafs brass’ press conference last Thursday did little to shed light on what happens after Keefe’s expulsion. Just a lot of MBA determinism on a bed of baffle gab. A crabby Steve Simmons question/rant briefly threatened the harmony of the moment, but order was restored. And the media bitching switched from the press box to social media and podcasts.
Speaking of the fourth estate, the other unmentioned aspect of this story— indeed every story in the NHL these days— is just how it was revealed to the public. When people sipped their morning Tim’s or Starbucks the (almost) coincident bulletins came down the social media pike about Keefe’s dismissal.
Predictably, Chris Johnston of Sportsnet and Daren Dreger of TSN announced the breaking news within heart beats of each other. While there had been speculation on Keefe’s fate for days, the announcement coming from the networks duo confirmed the story in the minds of the industry. That allowed everyone else drawing a cheque as a hockey journalist to pile in and swarm the dead body.
In today’s sports journalism, where social media has replaced newspapers, scoops are governed by a protocol. There are the heralds— in the NHL it’s currently Johnston and Dreger— and then there are the disseminators. The days of a rabble of reporters all scrambling to get a story bigger than who-will-play-in-tonight’s-game are gone. Today, it’s a very narrow funnel for scoops.
It’s the same in the NFL where Ian Rappaport (NFL Network) and Adam Schefter (ESPN) monopolize the tasty scoops on behalf of their employers, who also happen to be NFL rights holders. In the NBA, Brian Windhorst (ESPN) has the inside rail when it comes to the LeBron James/ Steph Curry scoops. In MLB… it’s probably Ken Rosenthal (The Athletic) but no one cares about baseball anymore, do they?
The leagues like it this way, doling out stories to guys they can trust. None of this is criticism of Johnston or Dreger, who have deftly maneuvered themselves into the coveted “from their lips to your ears” spots. From our own experience we can remember the exhilaration of having the best source or sources on the really big stories. Like Johnston/ Dreger, we worked hard for a long time to develop those sources and only very reluctantly let anyone else horn in on our stories.
It was also our observation that this order of things journalistic suited a lot of reporters who either couldn’t get good sources or didn’t want the stress of being first on stuff. It was enough that, like the Keefe story, they’d get the goods eventually and most fans would not care who was first. So long as you had a take. So be it.
Some resentful types took potshots at our work if it upset their pals in the dressing room or the management suite. On the Stephen Ames/ Tiger Woods story in 2001, we had the late Pat Marsden tell us on air that we’d done a great job on Ames’ criticisms of Tiger. Only to hear him lambaste us— again on FAN 590— only minutes later as we listened driving home from the studio. But we digress.
Many reporters are complacent in playing the game, so long as their bosses didn’t enquire why they are getting scooped all the time by the same few rivals. With the death of daily newspapers that doesn’t happen much any longer. (Many editors today may only see stories when publication brings a libel notice.) For them a salty take is good enough.
The scoop business is also affected by the multiple roles now demanded of sports media types. In addition to their “day job” on a beat they also have to supply digital content and talk-back hits to the Mother Ship. Most also are feeding a weekly podcast, dictating time on air rather than time working the phone. There are only so many hours in a day to chase a story.
Better to play the Breaking News waiting game.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/
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