page 6, August 25, 1976 - North Shore News

. Welcome back, ‘Sun and Province!

When you consider all. the brickbats. that are

regularly huried at: ‘‘the media’’ nowadays, it’s
interesting to find that the nine-day shutdown of
Vancouver’s two. dailies apparently caused a
genuine sense of loss in wide circles of the
community. Does it mean that newspapers -- both

the big dailies and community weeklies like the .
North Shore News -- are foing ‘something right

after all?

A couple of weeks ago our
Inquiring Reporter conduct-
ed a random quiz of North
Shore residents on-- the
matter. The indication was

that 80 per cent of them were |

missing their daily news-

_ papers badly. A_ further
informal survey last weekend
‘suggested that many North
and West . Vancouverites
were happy indeed to hear
the products of Pacific Press
thumping down on their

. doorsteps once more.

RADIO AND T.V.
Particularly significant: in

this electronic age was the
frequent comment that radio

and TV don’t make up for the -

absence of newspapers. It’s
all the more surprising in
view of.the fact that Greater
Vancouver residents are ser-
‘ved by one of. the heaviest
concentrations: of . electronic
media.i in North America.

vision subscribers have a
choice of nine different radio
stations pumping our news-
‘casts on the hour or oftener.
Plus eight TV channels
(three and a half Canadian, if
you count KVOS; the re-
mainder American).

Between these 17 sound
and sight media you’d think
there would surely be
enough news and advertising
flooding forth, up to 24 hours
a day, to satisfy even the
most information-hungry ci-
tizen. So why doesn’t it work
out that way when labor-

management problems bring. —
the printing presses grinding

toa halt? . .

The answer, of course, is
that we're talking about
apples and oranges. News-.
papers on the one hand, and
radio and TV on. the other
simply don’t perform the
same function. That’s why
the one can never compen-

‘easily .

sate for the absence of the
other. .
“SCOOP” -

_ ‘Newspapers have been
around since the time of
Julius Caesar, who posted a

daily information tablet in~
_ the public squares of Rome.
‘After the invention of print-

ing they began to develop in

their present form from the —

17th century onward.
They’re an old, old institu-
tion and, until a fellow called
Marconi came along about 80
years ago, they had the field

to themselves in'the matter -
of information and advertis-_

ing.

Even so, the only funda-
‘mental change brought ahout
by radio and TV. has been to
rob - newspapers ~ -of . the
**scoop’”’. -- the big, thrilling,
eleventh-hour story for which
the . derring-do ‘reporters: of

“~ . an earlier age were ready to
"Local listeners and ‘cable-

murder their grandmothers if
it‘gave them a three-minute
jump over their rivals. ;

Nowadays, radio and TV
announcers interrupt the

program to tell us. 2
_ president has been assassi-
‘nated or a city flattened by

an earthquake almost while
the event is still happening.
No longer does the stirring
cry “‘Hold the front page!”
ring through the newsroom...
because station CLIE already
had the story on the air half
an hour. ago.

WEATHER COMICS |

Radio also has the advan-
tage of providing news in
swallowed capsule
form at times when our eyes
are otherwise enguged -
driving, washing the dishes
or waking up in the morning.

- TV adds the excitement of..

movie clips, and now even

. Showbiz,
radio/TV news and comment

time nor add extra minutes to
.the day,

- Everything on radio and TV
- is here and

_the chances are you still

-radio and TV bring'us all the

advertising the mandarins in.

Ottawa (not to mention their
audiences) can bear. .-

By and large, the electron-
ic media do these things
extremely well. But they are

not the same things that a
newspaper does. One reason -
.is that there are only 24

honts i ina day.

Since the main concern of
the electronic media is
this means that
have to be kept brief. They
can’t overrun their allotted

in the way a
newspaper .can add extra
pages. So the treatment of a

wide range. of-news in detail .

and depth is still a job that.

only the newspaper can do. .

And for exactly the same
reason radio and TV can

never duplicate that most

valued of all . newspaper
features - the classified ads.

-. PERMANENCE
‘Secondly, - permanence,

gone in seconds.
Even if it’s repeated later,

won’t have a pencil and pad

handy. The newspaper read-. :

er, on the other hand, can-
scan the headlines quickly,
turn back, re-read and ¢ even
clip.

He cari also keep the paper

‘handy for as long as he

thinks it may be useful to him
(with community papers like
our own that often means a

whole week). And all these .f

comments apply just as much
to the newspaper’s ads as to
its news and editorial con-
tent.-

“Finally, the believability of
the printed word... “‘I read it
in the paper, so it must be
right.”” Not. always, quite
true, alas, because news- .

-paper people are prone to-

human error like everyone
else. But. it’s ‘certainly ‘true
that all competent newspap-
er editors think two or three
times before passing any.
item for publication. There’s
something a little different
about *“putting it. in writ-

‘ing.”’

hires talented comics to give |

us the weather report. Both

7 “continued o: on page 29

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