The National Post wants all Canadians to know it "stands on guard for thee."
Yesterday's headline almost blared: "B.C. man critical after Canadians shot in Mexico strip club."
The details were every bit as alarming. Apparently (from what one can gather from the breathless reporting), three young Canadian men, on vacation with their families, innocently wandered into a strip club in Baja. The next thing they knew, an unknown assailant shot one man (the subject of the headline) point-blank in the neck. His two friends ran, and the assailant caught one and shot him in the throat and leg. The third man is in hospital with unreported injuries.
In a throw-away line, the reporter tells us: by the way, a Mexican security guard was also shot.
But, that is all prelude for our intrepid reporter. The shooting seems to be merely a dramatic device to support the grand announcement: "Mexico is getting a reputation as a dangerous place to holiday for Canadians."
Is there a band of psychotic serial killers in Mexico searching for a maple leaf to target? From the tone of the article, Canadians must be stacking up like cord wood in Mexican resorts.
But, wait for it. There is always some interesting statistic to support the as-yet unfounded hysteria. And there it is. Not until the end of the story. "In seven years, Foreign Affairs missions in Mexico logged 172 reports of violence against Canadian travellers."
7 years? 172 reports? I suspect that the Toronto police might have some interesting statistics that would simply dwarf the "reputation for violence" label.
Is there crime in Mexico? You bet there is. The three young men hospitalized in Cabo are a perfect example. Each of the reported acts of violence is a tragedy.
But the story is just another fluff piece of hysteria that distorts reality for some nonsense agenda of the reporter -- perhaps no more pernicious than the desire to sell a story.
What offends me is the inevitable result of this style of reporting: it merely ends up feeding people's paranoia. Worse than that, it is bad writing and shoddy logic.
That, I guess, is the blessing. Any story this badly-written will not have legs.
Newspaper readers are smarter than that. Aren't they?
Yesterday's headline almost blared: "B.C. man critical after Canadians shot in Mexico strip club."
The details were every bit as alarming. Apparently (from what one can gather from the breathless reporting), three young Canadian men, on vacation with their families, innocently wandered into a strip club in Baja. The next thing they knew, an unknown assailant shot one man (the subject of the headline) point-blank in the neck. His two friends ran, and the assailant caught one and shot him in the throat and leg. The third man is in hospital with unreported injuries.
In a throw-away line, the reporter tells us: by the way, a Mexican security guard was also shot.
But, that is all prelude for our intrepid reporter. The shooting seems to be merely a dramatic device to support the grand announcement: "Mexico is getting a reputation as a dangerous place to holiday for Canadians."
Is there a band of psychotic serial killers in Mexico searching for a maple leaf to target? From the tone of the article, Canadians must be stacking up like cord wood in Mexican resorts.
But, wait for it. There is always some interesting statistic to support the as-yet unfounded hysteria. And there it is. Not until the end of the story. "In seven years, Foreign Affairs missions in Mexico logged 172 reports of violence against Canadian travellers."
7 years? 172 reports? I suspect that the Toronto police might have some interesting statistics that would simply dwarf the "reputation for violence" label.
Is there crime in Mexico? You bet there is. The three young men hospitalized in Cabo are a perfect example. Each of the reported acts of violence is a tragedy.
But the story is just another fluff piece of hysteria that distorts reality for some nonsense agenda of the reporter -- perhaps no more pernicious than the desire to sell a story.
What offends me is the inevitable result of this style of reporting: it merely ends up feeding people's paranoia. Worse than that, it is bad writing and shoddy logic.
That, I guess, is the blessing. Any story this badly-written will not have legs.
Newspaper readers are smarter than that. Aren't they?
