TheyAreMostDecidedlyNotVille
Jay Rosen, a media watcher down south, began to decry the emergence of 'The Cult Of Savviness' in the US'ian world of political journalism more than a decade ago:
...(M)ost of the people who report on politics aren’t trying to advance an ideology. But I think they have an ideology, a belief system that holds their world together and tells them what to report about. It’s not left, or right, or center, really. It’s trickier than that. The name I’ve given to the ideology of our political press is savviness.
In politics, our journalists believe, it is better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere, thoughtful or humane. Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.)
Savviness is that quality of being shrewd, practical, hyper-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political. And what is the truest mark of savviness? Winning, of course! Or knowing who the winners are...
Well.
Just in case you missed it, the latest wave of the cult of the savvy has arrived in Lotusland.
It has washed up on our shores in the form of a podcast called 'Hotel Pacifico' that it is currently being hosted by a couple of old, apparently now out of the game but likely still very much plugged-in, pols from each side of the Lotuslandian political divide, Mike McDonald and Geoff Meggs. They are joined by former corpmedia journo turned Comms runner for one of Vancouver's biggest foundations, Kate Hammer.
I decided to give it a regular listen during the election campaign thinking I might learn something about what the two big sides are really about, what they really want to do, and how and why they are doing the things they are doing during the current campaign.
After all, these are insiders who know what's really what, right?
And, because they are no longer being reigned in by the bridle and bit of their political machines, they'll give us the straight goods and take a real chance by telling us what they really think, right?
Wrong.
Because, except for one interesting episode on battleground ridings with Richard Zussman, mostly notable for the zingers that Zussman hurled at McDonald for his past electoral campaign state(r)gies, it has pretty much been nothing but paper-thin wafers of minutiae wrapped around huge, glop-laden bangers stuffed to bursting with the savvy.
Which is fine, as far as it goes, I guess.
Until, of course, the savvy swells and swells until it finally explodes in everyone's faces to little apparent chagrin and, instead, much laughter.
Just like it did on Friday's episode with Kory Teneycke:
G. Meggs: So, Kory was challenging BC United to die with dignity. On a scale of zero to ten how did he do?K. Hammer: (through the giggles) How much dignity was there?K. Teneycke: Zero being, you know, 'your corpse being dragged through the streets behind a chariot' and ten being 'a respectful funeral', I'll give him about a four.M. McDonald: That's generous.K. Teneycke: Ya. I don't know. Umm. Ya. It's ahh, it was ultimately, ahh, a made sort of action.
Instead of actually asking the noted Conservative insider, Mr. Teneycke, what he meant when he said that the political killing of the Soccer Party was a 'made sort of action', and why, the local folks immediately made jokes about how it it was 'more like a murder' and that it 'was more like a pillow' that did the deed. This led the suddenly off-the-hook Teneycke to further joke that, because it happened in B.C., it was likely done with 'a giant syringe of opioids'.
Gosh.
With quips like that there is really no need for 'Air Quotes', eh?
Zero stars.
_____
Gosh.
With quips like that there is really no need for 'Air Quotes', eh?
Zero stars.
_____
Subheader ghost in the machine?....This!
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7 comments:
I am ever grateful for often not hearing about podcasts and such until the reviews are published. Saw Meggs at a gathering yesterday and am now glad I did not take the trouble to ask his take on the election at hand.
I guess the pillow stops here: https://icba.ca/
Meggs, well never thought much of him.
Podcasts some are great and others just a waste of time--people who are just so full of themselves. I'd rather listen to dogs barking than listening to their blather
With media content being horse racing and polls all the time, I was looking forward to al all-candidates' meeting in a local hall, and an organization I've worked with for the last 15 years was working with the local Chamber of Commerce to see this through until the BCCP candidate said he wasn't doing ACMs. This was my reply to our board members:
I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the BCCP doesn’t see fit to meet the electorate and elucidate its programs and priorities. Their silence is eloquent in pointing out how they intend dealing with the public in their quest to turn back the clock on human rights, environmental issues, social progress and economic policy. I believe that it also indicates concern that there are enough loose cannons amongst the candidates that Rustad and his backers wouldn’t be capable of muzzling as to their own views and the agenda of the party as a whole. I hate to go all Clint Eastwood, but I would advocate holding an ACM with an empty chair for any party that outright refused to send a candidate. Alternatively, lacking a BCCP candidate, I would occupy that place as a stand in and happily hold forth on the likely policies and outcomes of that party. Would that be enough to frighten them into showing up? Certainly, there is a deeply political angle to this (Duh!) but the idea of asking voters to cast a vote blindly when there is so much at stake comes from deep in the authoritarian playbook in the shining tradition of MAGA and Pierre Poilièvre. In the current context, as in many elections through which we’ve suffered, there are a lot of reasons to be voting against both incumbents and opposition parties, or abstaining, which is also the hope of those grasping at the front-door key to the Rockpile.
I
n the long run a harmful truth is better than a useful lie.
---Thomas Mann
Meggs is just not toxic, he is definitely radio active. The "sooner he departs these lands (maybe Ottawa?)", the better for BC.
The fiscal damage this man has done to Metro Vancouver is horrific.
Kory Teneycke - ugh.
mr perfect
It has been my experience that the public should be afraid of politcans that are afraid of a public debate.
Sadly in Canada, the parliamentary system used was based on debate but today it is based on strongman politics, where the public have been all but erased from the politcal process.
In today's politics, the public are only allowed a modicum of democracy for about 12 hours every four years. Today we elect dictators, with many ignorant of or ignoring or ignoring the politcal process.
This failure of governance has created great distrust of both the politcal process and those elected.
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