DUMP TRUMP AND REVIVE REAL NEWS

ALL TRUMP NEWS ALL THE TIME IS BORING

We will all remember these last months because of the media preoccupation with a liar who has always been a liar since he was in kindergarten.
I want Trump gone because then the newspapers and TV shows may talk about something else than the latest bald-faced lie from Donald Trump who has never told the truth about anything or passed up an opportunity to cheat, whether it was in a charity or a casino.
An astute columnist the other day lamented that the New York Times was writing so much about the U.S. president. The Times is prospering, despite Trump calling it the "failing" Times, but I do wish it could return to broad coverage instead of just shooting down the latest bloated utterings of a man who        has never had an honest thought.
I also blame the media for cheating on its incessant coverage because it's an easy and cheap way to fill pages or consume hours.
The decline in the public view of politics in general, which was never high, can be traced directly to newspapers and TV and radio stations going to 24-7 coverage. The easiest way to provide such coverage is with sports, politics and old movies.
Once upon a time, my duty as a young reporter was to do follows on all the political stories that appeared in the final edition so the first edition the next day would appear to have fresh updates on all the important political stories of the day.
So I do know all the tricks. And I do know, as any experienced journalist does, that most "new-s" stories are 95% old. So you try for a variety of stories instead of just one oldie that is often not a goodie.
We know that all-news radio and TV stations repeat their coverage several times an hour, so after a few hours any listener can practically repeat all the stories verbatim.
It makes me cringe when CNN, still far better than that awful Fox operation, keeps giving as breaking news something that was boring me the previous evening.
The future for real news is bleak because right now newspapers are cutting their staffs, and all the media that steal their stories, ideas and their talking heads from the newspapers become starved for real different news too.
This decline will continue until the newspapers, which are the foundation of all real news reporting, figure out a way to get more money for their content so they can afford to hire more real reporters to give more coverage.
There is this myth that bloggers and the various innovations in social movement actually give us the news. Horseshit! Most bloggers just sift the lint in their belly buttons or their ravings or they just make it up. As for the pretend reporters who are really disguised activists,  send Joe and Jane Canuck off the street to monitor a session of city council or the Legislature and you will watch baffled amateurs drown in confusion.
All you have to do is watch those inane TV interviews where bystanders are quizzed about a fire or an accident or a shooting and it is obvious that it takes experience to figure out what really happened at anything more complex than a parking ticket.
There never was more of a need for journalism schools. There never was more need for the public to realize that most of the stuff on the Internet is garbage - contrived mischievous malicious crap.
Because too many people accept what they read there, it  was possible for Donald Trump to get elected by dumb souls and those who know that sure he lies but maybe he may actually cut their taxes.
Facts no longer matter because Trump and much of the Internet just make up their own versions and try to shout down the legitimate critics who actually know what they are talking about.
But there, I have just fallen into the media trap by taking easy shots at a flatulent target. There are more important issues in Toronto and Ontario and Canada than Trump's latest fake promise.
When I wrote a daily column, it would have been so easy to stretch out the same topic over a few days.  I was ashamed whenever I did it because I was failing my readers. After all, they are quickly bored by politics. When you keep returning to the same topic, it's an easy excuse for them not to pay attention to what are often important and costly issues.
That's what has been happening for months now in the U.S. where the media are preoccupied with the latest nonsense in the White House while important issues are not given the in-depth background examinations that they need and deserve.
Even humour has been affected. The trouble with political jokes, they say, is that they kept getting elected. The trouble with jokes about Trump is that his failings have so infected late-night TV that you switch from Colbert to Fallon to Kimmel and you hear them reciting ad nauseam the latest gaffe to set up their punch line.
The American political system is broken. Trump is just another boil on its skin. Let's lance it and let the poison drain! I want to laugh at someone who can't blunder us into nuclear war!

GASSING TORONTONIANS

BIG SMOKE SUCKERS

There is a routine media announcement every night about the price of gasoline in Toronto. There should be an ad that runs with it that says "hello there suckers, gassing up your car in T.O is stupid."
On my weekly jaunt to the Kawarthas, to sit on my point on the Trent River and rejuvenate, I routinely pay a nickel or a dime per litre less than the standard price in the Big Smoke. A few days ago I paid .15 cents a litre less than was being charged at the Esso stations closest to my home in Etobicoke.
I mention Esso because I recall many complaints from Imperial Oil fatcat PR chiefs over the years as they explained to the "stupid" newspaper editor that just because the world price of oil had plummeted, our pump prices would stay high because that was the gas that they had bought months before.
I would point out that it was truly miraculous that the price at the pump would never fall months later because then the world price was back up and they could use that as their excuse.
Torontonians like to think that our retail prices are generally lower than out in cottage country because of all the competition and all the stores. Chain operations have kicked that smug argument in the slats but prices are higher in independent shops. But it certainly isn't true when it comes to gasoline.
So my question, dear reader, is why do our the big oil companies continue to steal from the residents of the biggest city in the country when routinely their identical product is sold from their identical gas stations for less whenever you drive outside our fair city?
The answer, of course, is because they can get away with it.
 So much for pretending to be good corporate citizens when they join the national jealousy that loves to screw Hawgtown.