Such An Important Story.

I can't say I'm too impressed with the lineup editor for CTV Saskatoon's 6 o'clock newscast tonight.  The lead story?  That consuming marijuana is bad for dogs, and the number of cases is going up.  I don't know about you, but I'd say a report about someone being shot last night at Preston Crossing is more important than dogs getting sick from people being stupid.

The Demographics Of Foreign Adoption.

One of the ongoing elements in Canadian coverage of the Haiti earthquake is the fate of Haitian orphans who were in the process of being adopted by Canadian families when the quake hit. Watching these reports I began to notice that all of the adopting families appearing in the reports I saw are white. Aren't black Canadians, including Haitian Canadians, adopting Haitian children? Furthermore pondering this got me thinking about the wave of Canadian couples who in recent years have been adopting orphans from China. Again, those that appear in the media when the subject is covered have been white. Don't Asian Canadians adopt children from China? Mixed couples also seem to be missing from such reports.

So, what are the demographics of foreign adoptions? Are these news reports an accurate reflection of the ethnic makeup of Canadians adopting children from Haiti and China, or are we seeing an example of some other factor at work? And if Canadians from minority communities aren't adopting abroad why not?

Balloon Boy Is Number One.

Well, the producers at Global TV's supperhour national news program think so. Falcon Henne's parents being given jail sentences was their lead story tonight. Why they thought it was a more important story than the crash of an American Airlines Boeing 737 in Jamaica is something I'd like to know. I think I'll forego asking, as I've got a pretty good idea that the answer beings with r and ends in atings. Hopefully other Canadian national newscasts today put that story where it belongs, towards the end of the program.

Slow News Day?

That's the only explaination I can come up with for the amount of attention the "feud" between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump generated today. Even the CBC had a link to it on the main page of their website. Surely if they wanted to present an ultimately meaningless fluff story they could have found a Canadian entertainment story, or something cute involving animals. Sometimes you have to wonder if things like this aren't staged. After all Trump never is one to shy from publicity, and what better way to up the ratings for The View than a loud but ultimately safe verbal tussle.