I’m not sure what your evening habits consist of, fine reader of this amazing publication, but I’m an avid viewer of the nightly news. While my job is to cover all the goings-on in Outlook and the surrounding areas, compiling all of it into a weekly smorgasbord for your consumption, there’s obviously a whole lot else going on in the province and around the world. So each week from Monday to Friday, I can typically be found with my feet up and the TV tuned in to my local news station in order to fill my head with whatever made the headlines that day.
However, after watching the 6:00 news for the last while, I’ve come to realize something.
The way that Saskatoon media outlets such as CTV cover horrible events such as stabbings and gun violence is baffling. This not only concerns me as a fellow reporter who works to make the public aware of the issues in their own backyard, but simply as a human being worried about the dark tunnel that Saskatchewan’s biggest city finds itself in.
To me, there just seems to be a certain lack of emotion on their part whenever there’s an incident involving stabbings, shootings, standoffs with police, or the increasing number of armed robberies. And if you live in Saskatoon, or at least keep up to date on crime stats, you know that these kinds of incidents happen far too often in a city of less than 300,000 people.
Turn the channel to any American station such as CBS or FOX to watch their news broadcasts and they’ll cover so much ground whenever there’s a report of someone getting stabbed or shot; police are interviewed, neighbors of the victim are interviewed, statistics are analyzed, and the reporters speak with such emotion about what just happened, whether they appear shocked, concerned or surprised.  I mean, hey, someone DID just get stabbed or shot, after all.
Watch a report of a similar incident in Saskatoon, and it’s talked about for all of *maybe* two minutes before they have to get to whatever Trudeau or Trump did today, or else they have to cut to that wacky Jeff for the weather forecast. You almost blink and it’s over; like as if someone DIDN’T just get stabbed, shot or robbed.
I think it’s high time that some hard questions are asked about what it’s going to take to REALLY tackle city crime when reports of stabbing incidents in Saskatoon (Stabatoon?) or gun violence seem to show up consistently. Instead, these topics are basically a blip on the radar when discussed on the TV news. Are we to believe that these reports are whisked through so speedily because those behind the scenes know that there’s just going to be another stabbing, shooting, or armed robbery in another couple of days? No, that can’t be it. I don’t want to believe that.
This isn’t one reporter telling another reporter how to do their job. Besides, while there’s a connection between what I do and what a station like CTV does, we’re also very different in both how and what kind of news is presented. I just believe that there are bigger questions that need to be asked, and that when a gun goes off in a residential neighborhood or someone is assaulted outside a convenience store, there’s a much bigger picture that needs to be presented to the public who are watching the 6:00 news. Because honestly, it’s getting to the point where one of those people watching the nightly news could be the next victim.
Maybe it’s a lack of resources (funny how Rob MacDonald retired and they’ve never announced another co-anchor), maybe these reports are designed to come off low-key so they don’t spread any panic, or maybe I’m just overthinking it.
But I do know one thing about the effect that these quick, low-profile news reports have on public perception surrounding crime.
It makes it appear like the wolves are winning.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
