Culture Schlock.

A9

Craig Pinhey

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It is the day after Canada Day and I bet many of you are reflecting on how you spent yesterday, telling everyone you sort of know what you were doing every five minutes or so, via Twitter, texting, Facebook, MySpace (how passé"¦), or whatever social networking tool you are addicted to. But, darn it, you forgot to go outside and have a beer, sit in the sand with your feet in the water, read a book, and empty your mind. That's what I hope I did on Canada Day.

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Sometimes I wonder if I am the only media person who doesn't use Twitter, or the only person in the food and beverage industry who doesn't send Tweets about their latest bite or dram. Does this make me some kind of a twit, or maybe even a twa"¦what the hell are all you people doing? Do you ever put that Crackberry down?

Don't your friends want to kill you when you break after every sip or snack to send a message? Or are you all doing the same thing, sitting around the table participating in some bizarre techie version of the circle jerk, instead of doing what you are supposed to be doing, which is talking to each other and enjoying your meal/drink (social networking).

I make fun of new tech, but I did finally ditch my ancient Samsung flip phone and buy a new 3G (whatever that means) iPhone. God I'm with it. I'm trying to join the 90s. Really I am. I want to be like that pathetic Bruce McCulloch character from Kids In The Hall. "He's hip. He's cool. He's 45."

You can probably download the video of this from the YouTube section on your iPhone. Wait a sec, let me try it. Wow, that took about 20 seconds using "hip cool 45 kids hall." Hilarious! And embarrassing"¦

I tend to like the music classified as "Aging Hipster" according to the now defunct and faintly missed Blender magazine. But I'm just not that into new technology.

Anyway, now that I have an iPhone I suppose I'm supposed to check e-mail ALL THE TIME, tippy tapping under the tavern table while pretending to have conversations with my friends (the REAL friends, I mean, not the ones I only talk to on Facebook). But I'll never do that. It's just too flipping rude.

I will, however, learn how to download apps. I've heard about these cool thing, these apps. I'm not sure what exactly they are, but I'm determined to find out.

I have been in several arguments, online and via old-fashioned verbal techniques, about Twitter, and blogging. Based on these discussions, I know that there are very valuable aspects to these new communication methods. Reporting from Iran via Twitter seems to have reached heroic status, and I get that. And online reporting allows news outlets, including newspapers, to give timely reports on events. So yes, I see how these tools are fantastic for this. Like "OMIGOD a meteor is about to land on my house" or "There is a revolution going on right in front of me" or "Oh look, Ben Mulroney is about to sing the national anthem on the Canada Day broadcast." We can all agree that they are great for reporting disasters.

But I don't want tweets and blogs replacing the news. For one thing, there are almost always honest mistakes made when things are done that quickly, and there are too often more serious problems surrounding a lack of qualifications concerning the writer. There is also no editor.

News reporting, also known as journalism, is different from event reporting. I read the newspaper every day because I want context. I want thoughtful analysis by a talented writer/commentator who is capable of making the news educational AND entertaining.

I want to know why that meteor landed on that guy, where it came from, maybe even what it smells like, and I want to know how this event will impact the rest of the world, and, ultimately, me. I'm less interested in reading about the bloody details at the moment of impact. Sometimes a journalist's reporting of the news can be infected with sloppy research, bias, and even outright lies, but it can also be brilliant, educational, funny, and, at its best, life changing.

Craig Pinhey thinks that two out of three ain't bad. Visit Craig at www.frogspad.ca.