Canadian Fox News

It appears that Fox-style news is finally making its way to Canada and there are several thoughts that come to mind:

-At last. I was getting tired of thinking and was hoping that someone would do that for me

-Anything that's good for the U.S.A must be good enough for Canada, eh?

-Finally, some competition for Global News as the most ego-centric, silly, trivialized panic-for-nothing broadcast

Fox News. Out of all the things that you could export. It appears that this is the thanks we get for timber and maple syrup. I have to say, though, it does have that distinctly American stamp to it. There are few exports that are so uniquely culturally specific as this.

I've seen Global News on occasion and it currently comes the closest to Fox News, which makes a lot of sense, because it's the most 'American' of Canadian cities. It's big, busy, self important and obsessed with making money. The people are generally blase, not easily impressed and they follow the trends and line up for lattes at one of the hundred Starbucks in the city. They're generally dressed well in expensive clothes that are strategically chosen and love to talk on cell phones.

Toronto, unlike some of the big bad cities out there, is pretty safe. In general, you can walk around and not really be bothered. You might see a photo shoot, a few broadcasts, maybe a film being shot somewhere. But if you watch Global News, you'd think that there's a gang war on every corner. Every night, the focus is around the yellow tape and cop cars and reports of yet another murder with yet another non-white suspect.

Of course, they often forget to add that this murder occurred at some unholy hour like 3 a.m. outside some seedy strip club by gang members who know each other.

But even for the nice typical hard working middle class family, there's a lot of other things to be worried about, right in your home. Hence, the painfully long segments devoted to the amount of lead that's contained in toys from China, and then reports of the general evil of China and the fact that the Axis of Evil, as they're famously known, are still 'out there.' There's always some enemy lurking in the shadows with a leery eye and a tinny laugh.

And now that Fox style news is making its way to Canada, we're going to have a lot more enemies lurking in the dark. There's nothing to fear, after all, but fear itself.

It appears that this alternate model of news is being introduced because the current Canadian news is condescending and boring. Condescending, of course, being another word for informed. And we all know how much we hate wordiness when it comes to getting information. We'd rather have our news come towards us with big words like when we see an ad for a blockbuster film or a sale at the Brick. Rock music and cheerleaders would also be cool. And maybe some special effects, so I know which news is REALLY important and which ones are just so-so important for me to know.

And they should cover celebrity news, too. There's not enough of that, either.

Hang on to your tuques, Canada. We're about to have news-tainment.