Terror! Death! Fear! Journalism?
Re: varsity.ca online poll, Sept. 14
Congratulations on propelling yourselves from the realm of respectable journalism into CNN and Fox News’ fear-based journalism. Your web poll question asking students how safe they feel is ridiculous and blatant fear-mongering. Of course any journalist must have the right to ask any question she or he wants, but as clichéd as it sounds, rights actually do come with responsibilities. One of those is to put things in context, which is the opposite of what you’ve done. If they are taking the time to visit a website or pick up a print piece aimed at some of the brightest youth in Canada, your readers have no time for your capitalizing on recent 9/11 coverage (which itself is capitalizing on tragedy for ad revenue) in order to turn an isolated, Montreal-specific incident into a threat for students who attend one of the safest universities in one of the safest cities in the world.
The only difference between that poll and CNN screaming about imminent death and destruction is that they’re doing it for money, whereas I can’t think of any reason why you’d set aside integrity and pump fear. Please stop before you get addicted to this type of reporting, like your colleagues to the south did a few years ago.
Steve Durant
