INSIGHTS policies dominate DID YOU ever see that great Ben Hecht play The Front Page? It was a carica- ture of the newspaper game in the old days and a fot of fun. Everyone puffed away at the weed, copy editors sucked on booze between takes, the talk was slick, and there were no women except the girl on the phone to whom the tough-talking reporter barked ‘‘Gimme the city desk, sweetheart.’” The dailies were the only news medium and everyone read them. Today they are in decline. Television is one reason, of course. But another reason is that today’s editorial departments are domiinated by the politically cor- rect. ‘ They march one way, ordinary folk another. Ted Byfield of B.C. Report Magazine has pointed this out. He said there was the Media World plus the Real World and the twain rarely met. In June, Biil Buckley’ s National Review magazine devoted a whole issue tothe topic of. today’s dailies under.the title The Decline of American Journalism. And what is true down south i is for the most 2. part true here.’ “The old hard-drinking Front Page types have been replaced by people with a tendency to think of |, themselves as a priestly class,” o writes James W. Michaels, ‘ ‘*elected by no-one’ but believing. dedicated to helping make the _ U.S. more egalitarian, more ' multicultural. “**So you don’t read many news- . paper articles about ... how racial quotas hurt young white males and create racial tensions, or about how senseless environmental restrictions drive industry out of r. your community.” Michaels’ thesis is that if daily . Newspapers hope to survive they : should be less-concerned with a “'Jiberal social agenda and more with the lives of their potential ‘readers. . © : You can see what he means when you scan the pages of our ’« dailies, Canada’s self-styled “na- tional newspaper,’’ the Globe &- “Mail, is stuffed with multicultural . and homosexual propaganda. So -is The Vancouver Sun.’ The ‘Globe récently devoted over ‘a page to what some editor ob- : themselves to be of the elect, and « oa Doug Gollins ON THE : OTHER, HAND viously considered to be the j joys of bisexualism: In Vancouver, any refugee sob-story is pumped up to max- imum pressure. And the press is devoted to Canada’s cultural fragmentation. . Worse is to come, since we * always follow the American ex- - amples. There, “‘diversity’’ is the new slogan, meaning racial quotas in the newsroom, The New York Times aims to include people of every sex, (sic) trace, color, ethnicity, culture, lifestyle, sexual orientation, age, “. experience, and ‘‘all the other characteristics that make individu- als unique.”’ (What, St. Vitus’s Dance victims, too?) Sounds bloody awful. Here, the Sun sucks up to ethnic groups in an abject attempt to gain their favor, and it an- nounced some time ago that it planned to hire as many multicults as possible. Such policies always lead to reverse discrimination, no matter what fancy name they get. (KEN BAXTER ILAWYER 124 Years |. Experience They also lead to newsroom organization on ethnic lines, and Mr, Michaels’ account of the U.S. stary is enough to curdle the blood of the old Fi ront Page reporter, Political correctness is the major force, as it is in the universities, The U.S. has national associa- _tions for Black Journalists, Hispanic Journalists, Asian- American Journalists, Native American Journalists, American Women in Radio and Television, Press Women, and National Les- bian and Gay Journalists. The homos report on homos, women on women, blacks on blacks, and so on. The Seattle Times assigned a lesbian to cover the Gay March in Washington, D.C. The New York Times assigned a homo ‘‘whose hurrahs were unabashed.”’ It would make as much sense to , pay the B.C. Federation of Labor to report on labor issues'and the Teachers’ Federation to report on | ‘education. For as Michaels states, _ ‘diversification’”’ produces the suppression of ideas and informa- © tion. In addition to which the various groups are all ‘‘panting to pro- claim victimhood.”’ But it is not the alleged victims who are the real victims. . The Boston Globe bosses fined a columnist $1,250 for using a. rude un-feminist word in the newsroom. The fine was later rescinded but the incident reduced the man to a jelly. " One of the greatest-ever Amer- ican reporters was H.L. Mencken, a Bostonian and straight out of The Front Page. « Have they dropped him down -the Memory Hole, 1 wonder? Must go now. Want to see how many times the word ‘‘fishers’” appears in The Vancouver Sun. LONSDALE QUAY NORTH VANCOUVER 988-6321 OPEN - MON. - FRI. 10 -8 ‘SAT. 10-6 SUN. 12-5 CUSTOM DRAPERIES AND VALANCES Labour $8.50 per | pane! unlined, $9.50 lined. CUSTOM BEDSPREADS & COVERS Low, low prices on blinds & tracks. 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