REGINA - Today, the topic I want to talk about is “bad news.”
You would not think this would be a controversial topic, but it is for a lot of people. You wouldn’t believe the number of folks who seem to think it’s not the media’s job to give us “bad news.” Instead, they say they want to see “positive” stories and "positive" coverage in the media.
To which the response of news reporters is to say: “so what do you expect us to do? Not report the news?”
The reality for our business is that a lot of the time when the news is reported on these news channels and online, the news is bad. Such as: people dying. Or people being arrested. Or war breaking out. Or scandal and corruption. Or your municipal taxes are going up, again. It’s just the way it is.
I remember one time watching an anniversary special for CNN in which they were recounting all the big stories they had done over the years. It was a long line of misery: War in Yugoslavia. War in Kuwait. The Challenger exploding. The ‘87 stock market crash. The Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings where Thomas had been accused of sexual harassment. The O.J. trial.
The endless amount of bad news CNN covered in its history was so extensive that it was comical. I wondered if these folks had any time to cover any “good news” whatsoever.
Keep in mind, this special aired before 9/11, which could have filled up all of their airtime all by itself. The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers were the ultimate bad news story, but I couldn’t stop watching. I remember tuning in to the coverage for days on end.
For that reason, I have found this particular season, this particular point in the calendar, to be a sad one.
Of course, there are other contributing factors. In this part of the world you also have leaves changing colour and the nights getting cooler, and reminders that winter is around the corner — adding to the apocalyptic sense of doom. Back when I was a kid, this time of year was also normally associated with Back to School, which I hated because going back to school always meant being buried in homework.
So the Labour Day weekend always seemed like the end of summer, in a bad way. But now with the US Open tennis going on, the time of year just hits me even more with the blues, because in 2001 it was right after the US Open ended that 9/11 happened.
It’s not only the time of year. It’s that particular city, New York, where the US Open is played. Whenever I turn the TV channel looking for something to cheer me up on Labour Day weekend like a CFL game or something, and it lands on the US Open, I can’t help but associate that event, and that city, with bad news.
There is one other bad news story that contributes to my feelings about this time of year, and it happened 25 years ago this past week.
It was the crash in the Paris tunnel that took the life of Princess Diana and her partner Dodi Al-Fayed.
This breaking news happened either on Aug. 30 or 31, depending on where you were living in the world at the time.
If you were in Paris or anywhere in Europe, the events took place during the wee hours of Aug. 31, when most people were sleeping. A lot of folks over in Britain didn’t even know what happened until they woke up the next morning.
On our side of the pond, it was the evening of Aug. 30. At the time, I was living in London. Not that London — London, Ontario.
I heard about the incident from my dad who had called me up to tell me the reports of the crash. From that point on, I was glued to the news channels and to CNN. I remember they had Linden Soles anchoring the news, going back and forth to Jim Bittermann in Paris and putting eyewitnesses to the scene on the line.
The reports of Princess Diana’s condition just kept on getting worse and worse until finally it was confirmed that she had died. And that was it — just shocked and stunned for the rest of the night.
I know a lot of people talk about “where were you” when the Kennedy assassination happened, but many of us never had that experience because we weren’t born yet. I was around to see the coverage when Ronald Reagan was shot, but that was different because he lived. Then there was the Challenger disaster in 1986, which also stood out.
The Paris crash really was our “where were you” moment for my generation, because Princess Diana attracted so much attention for so long.
I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but she connected with people, and with the people. A lot of folks had tuned in to her big Royal wedding with Prince Charles in 1981 and had wanted to believe in the Royals fairy tale, and then over the years the marriage unravelled and it all became just a sad soap opera.
By this point, it was obvious there was a lot of tension in the royal family over what had happened. A lot of the general public had taken sides and decided they didn’t like Charles and especially this Camilla character he was hanging around with now.
Then came the Paris accident, and it seemed like all that tension, and the ill feelings that had built up from the general public for years, just let loose for an entire week.
For several days I tuned in the news coverage of the scenes from the U.K. outside of Buckingham Palace, where people were gathering and leaving flowers. From a distance it looked like Britain had ground to a halt. People were in shock and getting hysterical. It was obvious everyone in Britain was losing it.
Looking back, it was a good preview for what we can expect when Queen Elizabeth II eventually passes away. Britain will grind to a halt, and it will be days of national, emotional mourning. That’s what happened in ‘97, except in a lot of ways it was worse.
What made it worse was that Queen Elizabeth II headed into seclusion for a few days up at Balmoral. This move didn’t calm down people in the least in the aftermath of Diana’s death. There were screaming headlines in the British press directed at the Queen, blaring “show us you care!”
The reserved "stiff upper lip" reaction from the Queen got to be a crisis for the Royals. If you want to see a good movie about that particular week, check out “The Queen” starring Helen Mirren, which recounts the behind the scenes drama that transpired over those days. Keep in mind also, Tony Blair had just become Prime Minister and there were a lot of people in his Labour government who were not fans of the monarchy. Yet Blair turned out to be a key figure behind the scenes in calming things down and making sure the institution of the monarchy stayed afloat.
Anyway, we know the story. The Queen and the other Royals finally did show up to meet with the crowds and she gave a televised address. And then the funeral happened on the weekend during the early hours, with Elton John singing.
Now here we are in 2022, Elton John is still kicking on his farewell tour, and Queen Elizabeth II is still on the throne, now in her Platinum Jubilee year.
The Queen has stayed the same, but in a lot of ways times have changed. For one thing, we have social media now.
Come to think of it, it was a good thing Twitter wasn’t around in 1997, or else the mob of Twitter users could have run the Queen right off the throne with their unhinged reactions. My guess, though, is that Her Majesty probably would have just ignored Twitter and continued on, just like she is doing today.
In other ways, nothing’s really changed in 25 years. Just look at the current nonsense surrounding Harry and Meghan, with their current estrangement from the Royal Family and so on, and you think back immediately to the drama surrounding Diana and the Royals in the 1990s when things were coming apart.
Well, here I am talking about the negative news, again. Sorry about that.
I guess I can’t help it. I’m a news junkie. And when you’re a news junkie, news events mark the important days on the calendar of life.
They certainly do for mine. For folks who have experienced the biggest news stories, when this time of year rolls around you just can’t help but have that melancholy feeling.
