Fed up with sports taking over the news? You're not alone

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      Tonight, I turned on the CBC Radio News at 6 p.m. to listen to the big stories of the day.

      What did I get? The NHL is moving the Atlanta hockey franchise to Winnipeg. More mindless chatter about the Canucks in the Stanley Cup final. And at 6:08, I heard the first nonsports story.

      This morning on CBC Radio's World Report, it was yet another FIFA soccer bribery scandal, noise about the Canucks, and a story about a Toronto Blue Jays pitcher.

      In the past week, we also learned on local newscasts that the Whitecaps had fired their coach.

      The sports pages and sportscasts are where most of this stuff went in the past. No more. Now, you're more likely to see Roberto Luongo than the premier on the front page of any daily paper.

      Talk shows are also increasingly dominated by sports. Maybe it's because two of the highest-rated hosts in this market, Bill Good and Rick Cluff, are both former sportscasters. On CBC this afternoon, I endured a lengthy interview with a guy from Boston Bar about why townsfolk have a problem with the name.

      That was followed by a discussion with somebody wearing a Boston Bruins jersey and a Vancouver Canucks hat. He called himself a sports bigamist.

      This is occurring even though there are full-time sports stations like Rogers Sportsnet, the TEAM 1040, and TSN to provide a constant diet of information and entertainment for the sports addicts and gamblers in our midst.

      Last night, I suffered through a bunch of B.C. Liberal MLAs hogging the airwaves to complain about one of their own, Blair Lekstrom, supporting the Boston Bruins. This was on the first day that Christy Clark was in the legislature.

      Can't the CRTC do something about this appalling trend? What's wrong with wanting a little news with your newscast? Or a little current affairs with your current-affairs radio program? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned curiosity, anyway? It seems to have disappeared off the dial.

      Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.

      Comments

      17 Comments

      You

      May 31, 2011 at 8:45pm

      Remember that nuclear reactor that still has not been stabilized? Neither does mainstream media. But don't you worry! Burn outs like Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen can still be found in the pages of your daily paper. Because there's nothing more interesting going on in the world than how a wash up celebrity is spending her house arrest. It isn't only the sports.

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      mike karikas

      May 31, 2011 at 9:38pm

      Like anything else if you dont like what you here change the station, it is you,re right yuou do live in Canada.

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      ???????????

      May 31, 2011 at 9:54pm

      @You

      I live in Japan. Kinda hard to forget about Fukushima...but hockey keeps me sane and reading hockey news makes me feel a lot less fatalistic then when I just hear how bad things are.

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      Leftist Loon

      May 31, 2011 at 10:42pm

      Bread and circuses...

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      You

      Jun 1, 2011 at 12:06am

      @?
      Pretty much everyone here has forgotten about it. It's terribly sad, to be honest. But my point was that there are some very serious world issues going entirely unnoticed here. That's not to say I believe all news should be 'bad' news, but there should be a healthy balance to things.

      And Mike, I assume that by using your real name you hope to be put in the print someday. If that's the case I suggest you take the five seconds to proofread your comments. Just a thought.

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      miraj k.

      Jun 1, 2011 at 12:51am

      @charlie:

      That's why we 'the public' (as consumers of news) need to hack the news. to bring forth "People-Powered News" http://goo.gl/UAowW

      we'll be looking into ideas around these on June 1st at the 'Hacks/Hackers Vancouver' launch event. http://goo.gl/WQPKe

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      MyRevenge

      Jun 1, 2011 at 5:50am

      People love to identify with something they've had no part in accomplishing. A recent Canucks C.B.C Canucks headline "we're all in this together". Well what the fuck have 'we' done?

      Maybe if we sent more Canadians to places like Fukishama, but called them a team, Canadians who had nothing to do with it but sit on their asses, stuff their faces and drink beer, can talk about how 'WE' went over there and kicked that reactors ass.

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      KMack

      Jun 1, 2011 at 7:42am

      Not a surprising trend. The Frothing 30% that gave Harper and his goons their majority lives for this pap. They think everything is a game and their idea of intelligent discourse is to mindlessly cheerlead for their team. Oh yeah, and they watch more TV than anyone else.

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      Mark Fornataro

      Jun 1, 2011 at 8:56am

      My sentments exactly. While the world is burning from global warming,
      unprecedented species extinction etc. we are buried in mindless sports chatter. I like to watch a good hockey game; I used to play a lot of hockey. But if future generations could have a voice for us today they would probably be crying 'shame on you!' for our mindless priorities and apathy. One of my favorite NHL alumni is the former Montreal Canadien
      who is deputy leader of the Green Party, who understands clearly there are bigger priorities than sports.

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      ursa minor

      Jun 1, 2011 at 9:46am

      When the largest source of revenue for the country's public broadcaster is advertising revenue from hockey telecasts, how could anyone expect it to be different?

      Canada is possibly the only country in the world where the daily evening national newcast is pre-empted by a professional club sports event.

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