I know writers who are obsessed with it. The showrunner on one series I did would only deliver scripts to the network on ultra bright 20 lb. bond paper with an embedded watermark.
He was seriously old school, forbidding the re-use of even one brass brad and even importing stainless steel Chicago screws to fasten the final versions that were neatly stacked in his office -- unread, untouched, but perfect.
I'll never forget the look on his face the morning we were to deliver a spin-off pilot...
He'd proofed the final copy a dozen times and made sure there was a fresh ink cartridge in the Laser printer. Each newly minted page was delicately handled and personally collated. Once fastened, the script was slipped into a thin vellum envelope to protect it inside the Fedex box.
Then his assistant walked in. LA couldn't wait til tomorrow. They needed to read it right off the fax...
The Latin word for his obsession is not "Papiroflexia", instead that describes the Japanese art of "Origami" or paper folding. Some Japanese Masters spend their entire lives perfecting the recreation of nature from a single piece of paper.
The first sign I noticed was the guy with the shaky head.
CBC Newsworld was covering the flooding of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and either unable to send their own reporter because of budget cuts or in need of American instruction on how you cover a major TV story these days, they opted for a live feed from NBC News.
The NBC Reporter was parked on the banks of the once placid Cedar River with the flooded city in the background looking suitably dour as the CBC Anchor intro'd him. But as she asked her first question, he began shaking his head in that classic bad actor "I've just never seen anything so bad" mode. Never mind the massive flooding CBC had just been covering from China or the Monsoon death toll in Bangladesh, we had basements underwater here and city records getting soggy.
He even quoted Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller, "We're just kind of at God's mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start."
Wow -- not two minutes in and we're already suggesting devastation of Biblical proportions requiring intervention from a Deity. This guy was a really good Cheerleader of Doom. No doubt he's destined for a big future at NBC, which is becoming known for its own disasters.
"Oh -- the Humanity..."
Now, I'm sure the folks of Cedar Rapids weren't enjoying their ordeal, but seeing their discomfort milked for every ounce of suffering was a little much. Especially since I'd just seen a Vancouver reporter for Global looking uncomfortable as the "flood ravaged" farmer he'd phoned refused to get any more emotional than farmer nonchalant.
No matter how many suggestions the reporter offered on how devastated the farmer must be, he just -- wasn't. "Nope, it's been flooded worst hereabouts a few times". And, "Well, we're makin' coffee and sittin' her out." Even the dire warning that he'd lost his crop and faced financial devastation was met with, "No, we got insurance."
Damn! Will nobody accept that the Apocalypse is upon us? Doesn't anyone but a seasoned network Anchor know a rabid mob of Zombies when they see one?
A couple of months ago, CBC hired an American consulting firm, Magid and Associates, to "pep up" their newscasts. Ratings were sliding against CTV and (God, forbid) Global.
And rather than explore whether that might be because their newscasts were on when nobody wanted to watch them, showed a little too much enthusiasm for the Federal Liberal Party or that the lead-in programming had failed to draw a crowd in the first place; the Mothercorp decided to toss generations of reliable and reasoned news coverage for the American "Chicken Little" approach.
"Frank Magid is called 'The Maggot' in the United States because he is loathed and despised by pretty much anyone who wants to be, or is, a serious television journalist. He is loved by ratings-hungry station managers and blow-dried airhead anchors."
'60 Minutes' producer Don Hewitt dubbed Magid's formula "Ken and Barbie journalism" while Walter Cronkite denounced the reporting concept as "...total perversions created from outside."
CBC won't say how much they paid Magid and Associates for their consultations. But since he charges $28,000 US for each tiny market US station, I'm sure it's a whack.
Gee, first we get Toledo Affiliate programming with "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" and now we're watching their version of the News. "Cows loose on I-90! News at Eleven-- er, Ten, uh, 9:30 in Newfoundland." God, DMc, can those cops of yours on "The Border" defend us from nobody?
This Approaching Apocalypse version of journalism has been creeping onto CBC for a while now. No story on disgraced ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Bernier is complete without the now months old clip of his former paramour's cleavage combined with a complete lack of real coverage of that story.
If Bernier left secret NATO documents under his gun moll girlfriend's bed that's certainly worth investigating.
But you had to giggle at CBC's blustering over the last couple of days when Bernier suggested she'd "stolen" them from him and he'd been "set up". Because it wasn't "we got a lying politician" bluster, it was clearly pique at having somebody think up an even better plot twist than the tired old sex and power melodrama they'd been serving.
"The Horror...the horror..."
Last night, the "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid" reporting style was all over a lengthy CBC report on the impending collapse of society as we know it because of higher oil prices.
Futurists who seemed to have a weak grasp on tomorrow's weather pontificated on our return to feeding ourselves on what we could grow at home, that air travel would be a thing of the past and implied that millions of jobless automakers and former Motel 6 employees would roam the country in packs, rampaging through the few remaining Tim Horton's Drive-thru's at will.
My favorite was an "expert" from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce literally rolling his eyes and perspiring in panic as he described how much we just don't get the complete devastation we're facing. It made me realize that CIBC isn't collapsing because it stupidly dumped Billions into the sub-prime mortgage market. It's because idiots like this guy have executive positions at their soon to be defunct bank.
Although, I have to say, he was positioning himself well to be the next doom and gloom forecaster on Fox. Peter Mansbridge might be heading there too, because he seemed tickled pink at all the bad news he's got coming down the pipe.
Or maybe he just enjoys the feel of a new puppetmaster pulling his strings.
Look, I know the planet is confused and difficult right now. And items reported on newscasts are usually there because they're more serious than normal events to begin with -- Presidential blowjobs and baby Belugas aside.
But I expect journalists to give me the whole story, or at least as much of it as they can dig up on a deadline, instead of just trying to scare me. Like most people, I already have enough problems in my own life and don't need to be endlessly spooked.
I mean, I'd like to make a difference in Darfur and Zimbabwe as much as the next guy, but I need at least a suggestion that it's not all hopeless and pointless over there.
I'm not asking for "feel-good" stories here, I'm asking for some balance, some suggestion that somebody is trying something to fight the darkness.
Sure the airlines are in trouble. But yesterday Pratt & Witney debuted an engine that uses 20% less jet fuel and carriers like Westjet who employed some forethought in their business planning are reaping huge quarterly profits.
How come that never gets mentioned?
The world never stops changing. Dinosaur industries will always die around us, just like some guy with a gun will eternally lose it at the post office and once trusted public officials will forever turn out to be liars and thieves. That's life. I know that part of the story. Tell me the rest of it. Because if you don't, I'll find it somewhere else.
"Rosebud..."
And if you journalists want something to be really scared about, consider this: The first suggestion debt counselors make to people squeezed by rising costs and threatened earnings is to get rid of cable television. It not only saves them $60 a month. It reduces their stress and aggravation so they can better address their situation.
