Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Great minds think alike. (And others don't think at all.)

It's hardly surprising that Becky should also choose to post about The Hour and George Stroumboulopoulos. And it's also unsurprising that Becky, too, has some reservations about dear George...

The Hour, having been relegated to CBC Newsworld for the past two years, made it's debut on the main network tonight. I've watched this show off-and-on since its Newsworld debut, and it's become somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me; however, I'm not sure how much longer it will be at all pleasurable.

It's interesting, somewhat bittersweet, to see how a show that originally purported to provide coverage of news that mainstream media ignored--replete with as much manufactured "edginess" its CBC packaging can afford--and that tacitly promised unintentional camp in spades can degenerate into the sort of pap that tonight's interview with Belinda Stronach was!

Irritating me even more than Stronach's increasing adeptness in talking around questions (the girl is learning to play politics, and she's learning to play well! Ladies and gentlemen, I think she'll be in Parliament for a while!) was George's softball questions, schoolboy-ish giggles, and coy smiles. (The giggles and the smiles were few, but still. There were enough of them.) He may know his music--I don't think I could ever accuse him otherwise--but George is not a journalist. Irony and sarcasm can get one only so far...

Where is the alt-news show (I emphasize show since I know I can find plenty of alternatives to mainstream North American news coverage online--especially since I can also read the news in French and in Italian--or at the newsstand) that doesn't insult my intelligence in its privileging style over substance? I love The National, but it doesn't cover everything.

EDIT: Someone's finally put this interview up on YouTube. Am I too harsh on George? Decide for yourselves:

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