Thursday, September 10, 2009

Fake news

Went to work today but apparently they didn't want someone who was sick and coughing and delirious with fever. They're so picky.
Also I wanted to say I had a dream the other day that I was drafted by the Blue Jays. I went straight to the bigs and had two at bats at Roger's Centre. I didn't get a hit. Then I think I tried to find my baseball card on eBay. I think some of my friends were jealous, but the good ones weren't. I thought it was cool as I never dream and if I do it's never good stuff or normal stuff, always like aliens or radioactive waste or people trying to kill me.
Saw this on the front page of the Metro paper today, check it out (click to enlarge):

Dear Metro
torontoletters@metronews.ca
I am writing about your front page article in today's paper "Stores may face consumer food fight over prices".
I would like you to reconsider your news criteria. This story was a non-story, it was not news, and had no facts to back up your allegations. The quote you ran, from a random Toronto food shopper, indicates that people with low incomes have to shop at cheaper stores like No Frills. This is about low income families and has nothing to do with the economy, it's more like a recommendation for shopping choices. You indicate she is living on a pension, a fixed amount that would not fluctuate whatever the economy was doing. You also indicate that she recently decided to splurge and shop at a Metro store, again contradicting the point of your article that consumers will only choose cheaper food choices.
To close your FRONT PAGE article, you have an American adviser saying stores will have to keep pace with the competition on price, again not newsworthy and something that does not change no matter what the economy.
By shaping the news like this, you're encouraging skepticism in the economy on a foundless basis. Sentences like "Stores MAY face..." and "COULD face pressure from disgruntled shoppers" are baseless.
I would encourage you, as one of the top newspapers in the city, to focus on reporting the news and backing up your sources instead of inventing it.
- Adam Dunn

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This story from this week's Now makes a nice counterpoint.