MINNEAPOLIS — We have a crisis of intelligence in this world. It seems that the more you read a newspaper, the dumber you get.
It was Thomas Jefferson who said: “As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers,” and that has never been more evident than it has been this week.
And hey, it’s only Tuesday.
1) A headline in USA Today on Tuesday read: “NFL Replay: Fourth-Down call Stain on Belichick’s Record.”
Stain? What, are newspaper reporters doing now? Pouring tomato juice on people’s hoodies? A stain? It was a call late in a regular season game that ended up backfiring and costing the Patriots the game. A game. One game. Big effin’ deal. The Pats will still be no worse than 12-4 this season.
Stain? What kind of media-created bull-crap is that? A stain on Belichick’s record was the time he spent in Cleveland screwing up the Browns. Taking a chance on Tom Brady is not a stain. It’s not even a blip.
The Pats are 6-3 and still in first place. All that decision did was guarantee that when the two teams meet again in the AFC Championship game, the TV ratings will be right through the freakin’ roof.
2) The Ottawa Sun just cracks me up. This is the newspaper that either can’t get a trade rumour right or simply makes these rumours up.
I know that suggesting a newspaper makes things up is about the worst thing you can say, but goodness gracious, the trade rumours started in Ottawa would be comical if they weren’t so sad. These guys can’t even get a lie straight.
We’ve spent some time chronicling their errors, but let it go because it just got so silly. This week, however, we just couldn’t resist.
Now, for most of this season, the Ottawa Sun has been reporting – and I use the word reporting lightly – that the Chicago Blackhawks were on the verge of trading either Jonathan Toews or Patrick Kane or both. The Sun claimed the Hawks had a cap problem and needed to move one of their stars. We’ve already called that rumour a crock.
Then, yesterday, word filtered out of Chicago that the Hawks were on the verge of signing both Toews and Kane to new contracts. At least eight years each according to my source inside the Hawks.
Wow! How can one newspaper be so wrong so often and still sell copies of their newspaper? Are people that stupid? Or are they just looking for a good morning laugh?
3) Newspapers from coast-to-coast, desperate to write about some mundane NHL issue other than the copy to the headline: “The Leafs are Lousy Again,” have had a big month writing about head shots and all the horrible bodychecks being tossed out in the NHL.
NHL general managers are looking at the issue and might come down hard on the league’s headhunters. But there is one thing our newspaper-employed tall foreheads forgot. They forgot to ask an NHL GM who is an expert on the subject.
This week, before I did my radio hit with Eric Nelson on WCCO in Minneapolis, Eric’s guest was Minnesota Wild GM Chuck Fletcher. Fletcher said he didn’t much like checks to the head, but he also said the NHL will put the issue into perspective.
“During the course of the season there are about 46,000 bodychecks,” Fletcher pointed out. “In a bad year, 10 are head shots. We want them out of the game, but there isn’t a big panic over this. The numbers suggest there isn’t a problem at all.”
Of course, he’s right and the fearmongers with the truck loads of ink trying to make up stories where none exist are wrong. Again.
4) I just love Canada’s network TV weasels, don’t you?
According to Canadian Press: “Canada’s largest private broadcaster laid out a scorched earth scenario Monday if it doesn’t get paid for its signals, suggesting more station closings and even yanking signals from cable.”
Wow! “Yanking signals from cable.” That means because nobody watches it now on cable, Canadians would be sure to watch it when the only way they can receive it is with rabbit ears.
“‘We are not going to be here operating conventional TV unless we can make a business of it,’ CTVglobemedia president Ivan Fecan told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.”
That makes sense. But why can’t you make a business of it? Is it because so few people actually watch it that selling overpriced commercial time is now damn near impossible?
I love listening to people like Fecan tell us that he’ll have to dump local television if he doesn’t get money from the cable companies. If Fecan gets money from the cable companies, this is how it will go: First he’ll line his owners pockets, then his pockets and then the pockets of his executive buddies. At that point, he’ll used what’s left over to go out and buy more shows from the United States that we already watch on U.S. stations.
How’s this for a response to that malarkey? Take your stupid signal off cable and let’s replace it with ESPN. I’d love to see ESPN HD on Channel 210 on my Shaw HD service.
I don’t know about most of you, but if CTV pulled the plug tomorrow, I wouldn’t miss it. In fact, just like CBC and its $1 billion per year in taxpayer-funded welfare, can’t say as I watch it now.