Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 20, 2013, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A17 A FEW weeks ago, I flipped on the TV in mid- morning, something I don't usually do. Egypt was on the verge of a coup, and I was in need of an update. I turned to CNN, where I worked for 17 years, and saw wall- to- wall coverage of the George Zimmerman trial. Fox News and MSNBC offered the same, and the broadcast networks offered me T he View, Doctor Oz and The Price Is Right . Mind you, obsessive coverage of show trials is nothing new. The O. J. Simpson case hijacked the cable newscasts ( then only CNN) nearly 20 years ago and held them for more than a year. But the Zimmerman trial, on the heels of the Jodi Arias trial, the Casey Anthony trial and dozens more mark a real turning point. U. S. news networks have lost their way in covering news. The day for cable news playing a constructive role in reporting truly important human events is over. They're now competing to amuse you and me. The amusement takes many odd forms, from a show trial, to a car chase, to iPhone video of a parking- lot slugfest, to royal babies and the Kardashians. And it isn't the least bit funny. Neither is it news. It leaves us less informed. It's no coincidence that the decline of U. S. media, from reality TV to brainless news to shrinking newspaper staffs, is on a parallel path with the declining quality of government. TV news executives are terrified of the future they face. The average cable- news viewer comes in at just under 60 years of age - if you were wondering about the profusion of ads for Viagra, denture adhesive and motorized wheelchairs. Younger audiences tend to prefer the fake version offered by The Daily Show and Colbert Report, or they eschew news- viewing completely. So their base isn't just shrinking, it will soon be dying. The solution they've mapped out for this is to stay the course, even as both viewers and journalistic integrity slip away. When a bright, shiny object like the Zimmerman trial comes along, the cable- news nets take a news vacation and compete for their one- third of a single story. There's no denying that the elements of the George Zimmerman- Trayvon Martin case have great social relevance: guns, personal safety, profiling and myriad aspects of race relations. But something's wrong when everything from the national debt to national health, from North Korea's nukes to climate change, from the roiling Middle East to failing public schools suddenly aren't worth mentioning. That brings us to a point where calling cable news " news" is almost as unforgivable as Fox News branding its brazenly partisan offerings as " fair and balanced." As for Egypt, I found some fleeting coverage in the early afternoon that day. The cable nets broke out the live cameras and studio pundits to describe the turmoil in Tahrir Square for a few minutes because the judge recessed the Zimmerman trial for lunch. The first democratically elected government to spring from the remarkable events of the Arab Spring was being run out of town, and Americans had access to live television reports because George Zimmerman was eating a sandwich. All three cable nets went back to trial coverage well before the lunch break ended, favouring viewers with commentary from the likes of the odious Nancy Grace. Shame. It doesn't have to be this way. I know that many smart, dedicated journalists still toil in cable news. The sad part is that they're smart enough to know that pursuing serious news is a bad career move in the current environment. But consider this: On a good weekday, the combined audience for the morning shows on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC is about two million viewers, with Fox accounting for about half. By contrast, NPR's Morning Edition, which takes its journalism far more seriously, can pull in eight million on a good morning, and its average listener is a decade younger. As I write this, the trial has been over for five days. I just randomly turned on the TV, and CNN and MSNBC were mired in panel discussions, offering nothing new on the meaning of George Zimmerman's acquittal. Fox News, the exception to the rule, was in a break, running an erectile- dysfunction ad. There's a better way than competing for the lowest common denominator. NPR is thriving by staying smart and true to journalism. Also thriving are The Daily Show and Colbert Report. One would think a little introspection is in order when the people who make their living making fun of your journalism outflank you - and win elite broadcast journalism awards like the Peabody, DuPont- Columbia and news Emmys. For the sake of an informed democracy, news networks should chill out on the obsessive, often mindless coverage of mega- events and give journalism another try. For the dedicated journalists caught in the downward spiral of cable news, stand your ground. And for the sake of the old, departed TV news lions like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, let's hope their graves are in a No- Spin Zone. Peter Dykstra, publisher of Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate, previously worked as CNN's executive producer for science, technology, environment and weather. - The Sacramento Bee. Winnipeg Free Press Saturday, July 20, 2013 A 17 POLL �� TODAY'S QUESTION Would you be willing to ride a riverboat to Bombers games? �� Vote online at winnipegfreepress. com �� PREVIOUS QUESTION What are your feelings on the band Kiss? TOTAL RESPONSES 3,042 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 VOL 141 NO 244 2013 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published seven days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204- 697- 7000 BOB COX / Publisher PAUL SAMYN / Editor JULIE CARL / Deputy Editor U. S. news networks are ' lost' By Peter Dykstra A CCORDING to some in Miami, Cuba remains Fidel Castro's island, its economy throttled by the all- too- visible hand of collectivist central planning. News that Cuba loaded Soviet- era missiles on a North Korean ship, apparently for repair by Kim Jong Un's regime, may reinforce that impression. In fact, since Raul Castro took over from his elder brother in 2006, he has moved to dismantle Fidel's system. One way or another, perhaps 15 per cent to 20 per cent of Cubans now work in the private sector. More are likely to join them in all but name as their jobs move into co- operatives. Much of the spadework for a mixed economy, such as laws on taxes and banking, has been quietly carried out. Reform is about to gain pace, with state enterprises winning more autonomy and steps toward the abolition of Cuba's system of dual currencies. But change is still being held back - mostly by the regime's ideology, but also partly by the outside world not helping enough. Raul is determined to avoid a Soviet- style collapse into oligarchic capitalism. The leadership's mantra is that the economy must be " socialist, prosperous and sustainable" - an impossible trinity. Although officials now accept the need for " wealth creation," they still disapprove of people getting rich. Small businesses are now officially blessed, but they are not allowed to grow into mediumsized ones. Until they are, the prosperity the leadership seeks will be unattainable. The cautious nature of reform is generating new distortions. Farming, for instance, is supposed to be in the vanguard. Most land is now worked by individual farmers rather than state- owned enterprises, and farmers can sell some produce in the private market. But they are still hobbled by state bodies that fail to supply fertilizer, seed and other inputs. Meanwhile, the web of restrictions around the private sector creates scope for graft. Ironically, the move toward a single currency may involve several exchange rates, and thus fresh distortions and corruption. Currency and enterprise reform are fiendishly complex and take time. They will inevitably create losers: Both unemployment and inflation will rise. That makes it all the more important to sweep away the remaining curbs on farmers, small businesses and the wholesale trade so market forces can do the work of generating jobs and keeping prices in check. The government should introduce a conditional cash- transfer program, like Brazil's Bolsa Fam�lia, to help the losers. The outside world matters, too. The tempo of reform has increased since Hugo Chavez's illness and death: Cuba depends on Venezuela for around 40 per cent of its foreign exchange, provided essentially as a donation to keep the red flag flying, and the future of that aid is now uncertain. Cuba is developing new trading partners - China, Brazil and Angola, for example - but on capitalist terms. The missing name is America. Though the United States' economic embargo against Cuba has sprung leaks, it limits Cuban- Americans to being providers of remittances. Diasporas played a crucial role in the transition to capitalism in China and Vietnam. They could help Cuba too. Similarly, swift and clean monetary reform would be much easier if Cuba could draw on support from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to augment its meagre foreignexchange reserves. One obstacle to that is the United States, where the Helms- Burton law requires America's delegates to vote against Cuba's admission to international financial institutions. That is a pointless piece of bullying. Its only effect is to conspire with Cuba's own residual Stalinists to make the island's transition to capitalism harder and slower than it should be. T HESE days the news from abroad is mostly grim. So it was inspiring last week to watch Malala Yousafzai - the Pakistani teen shot in the head by the Taliban because of her campaign for girls' education - standing erect on a UN podium on her 16th birthday. It was even more inspiring to hear her moving speech, delivered in a clear, confident voice, which called for free, compulsory schooling worldwide. She recalled the October day when a talib jumped into her school van, aimed at her forehead point- blank and shot her and two fellow students. " The Taliban... thought that the bullets would silence us," she said. " But they failed." Malala - as she is now known around the world - was targeted because she had publicly denounced the Pakistani Taliban's violent campaign against girls' education in northwest Pakistan and the beautiful Swat Valley. More than 800 schools in those regions have been attacked since 2009, and leading women's rights activists and teachers have been murdered. Only last month, 14 female students were blown up by a suicide bomber as their school bus travelled from their all- girls college campus in the city of Quetta, Baluchistan, near the Afghan border. Yet the Taliban failed to kill Malala. Evacuated to England for medical treatment, she made a miraculous recovery. Wrapped in a pink head scarf that once belonged to another courageous woman, the murdered Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto, she described why the Taliban are so hostile to girls' education. " The extremists are afraid of books and pens," she said. " The power of education frightens them. ... The power of the voice of women frightens them... That is why they killed many female teachers and polio workers. ... That is why they are blasting schools every day. ... They are afraid of change, afraid of the equality that we will bring into our society. ... " One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world." With her outspoken courage, Malala has become a symbol of a UN campaign to assure that all children can attend primary school by 2015. The majority of those deprived of education are female. The bulk of these girls are in South and West Asia ( including Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan) and sub- Saharan Africa. In Malala's country, which has one of the worst education records in the world, two- thirds of the 5.1 million children who do not attend school are girls. Malala reminds us that religion and culture are no excuse for denying girls an education. As she noted, the Taliban are " misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society." Nowhere in Islam is there any prohibition against girls' education. Taliban leaders ( if not their foot soldiers) know this, but they fear the modernization of society that comes when women are educated. Study after study has shown that to develop a middle- class society, a country must educate its women. Yet religious extremists charged Malala with being a western agent because she wanted to go to school. Now that Malala has become a global icon, a senior Pakistani Taliban commander - perhaps more sensitive to the group's image - called the attack on her " shocking" and urged her to return home. He also advised her, however, to limit her studies to the Qur'an. Malala's story should remind us that the barriers to education in poor countries often have less to do with poverty than with the cowardice of politicians who are unwilling to challenge the extremists' claim that girls' education will bring western " decadence." ( Note that the radical Muslim group that has been attacking schools in northern Nigeria is called Boko Haram, which means " western education is a sin.") It remains to be seen whether Malala's fame will help persuade Pakistan's new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to take on the fundamentalists who attack female pupils. His government has been contemplating peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, though Malala warned against any deal that " goes against the dignity of women and their rights." ( I hope U. S. negotiators also observe that warning in talks with the Afghan Taliban.) Her story may jump- start the faltering UN drive for universal primary education by 2015. And, for those who are tired of bad news from abroad, Malala offers an inspiring cause worth supporting - the cause of girls who risk their lives for an education in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. She has just started the Malala Fund, whose first grant will help 40 girls in the Swat Valley with their schooling. You can learn more at www. vitalvoices. org or www. malalafund. org. Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial- board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. - McClatchy Tribune Services A FTER years of premature congratulation over the renewal of Winnipeg's downtown and the Exchange District, there's been a sudden outburst of belated candour. On Wednesday, city council voted 13- 3 to support a CentreVenture plan. The new program offers $ 10,000 incentives to buyers who purchase unsold condos in the Exchange, even though the units were already subsidized at the construction phase. Winnipeg's strategy for urban renewal has been so successful, taxpayers will even bribe you to be a part of it. CentreVenture president Ross McGowan told the Free Press that " to our knowledge, this has never been done before." He has a point. After 20 years in public policy, I haven't seen many governments dumb enough or desperate enough to subsidize both the buyer and the seller in the same transaction. No one else has done this before because most city councils would be more inclined to ask for someone's resignation instead. At a forum on the fate of downtown in May, I was asked if I thought core- area neighbourhoods had finally turned a corner. I replied that the only honest answer was " we can't really say." Winnipeg has a chronic fear of measurable facts. The mayor raises a cheer whenever new condo or rental units are announced, but real outcomes in terms of occupancy or density get short shrift. Crimestat still doesn't publicly track assaults or stabbings downtown or in any other neighbourhood. No one has ever honestly measured socio- economic returns on millions invested in CentreVenture or similar agencies. Without real data, we're supposed to sit back and trust the latest press release. Now, the truth is creeping out in city hall's own documentation. Contrast the last few years of cheerleading with the language in Wednesday's report. " Unit sales since ( the latest development subsidy's) inception have been lower than expected with many completed units remaining vacant." More: " The development community is skeptical about further investment." More: New policies are needed to focus " as much on developing demand as on subsidizing supply." Even with that outbreak of realism, other facts were still sidestepped. For example, Coun. Jenny Gerbasi incorrectly described this program as if it's tax- increment financing. It's not that simple. Real TIF programs are supposed to pay for themselves by directly incenting new growth in a city's tax base. Instead, this plan redirects future taxes from projects " approved under the downtown residential development grant program," though many of these projects are already complete or underway. Also, the public discussion of this plan has focused solely on the city's role in this mess. It's important to note, however, that there are at least three programs at work here, not just two. Many of the condo sites in question already benefit from the provincial tax- increment finance program, which uses future school taxes as an incentive. To their credit, councillors John Orlikow, Brian Mayes and Russ Wyatt voted against the plan. But any sunny inspiration you may glean from their courage should dim when you consider all the questions that remain unasked and unanswered here. Start with the fact that this plan is debt- financed. Council approved a $ 7.8- million increase in CentreVenture's line of credit on Wednesday to fund the incentives and a number of other new Exchange District services. Lesson learned: There isn't sufficient debt room to fix Winnipeg's roads, pools or bridges, but there's plenty of debt room to entice you to buy unsold condos from unlucky developers. Just seven months ago, CentreVenture was already carrying $ 18.6 million in liabilities, backed in part by its growing collection of down- market hotels. Just four years earlier, CentreVenture's liabilities were a mere $ 2.5 million. Question: Has anyone checked lately on the agency's ability to carry or repay this bubbling pot of new public debt? And if we're funding new Exchange services like " area foot patrols" by handing debt room to a city agency, isn't that back- door deficit spending? Question: If CentreVenture exists to read realty markets before directing millions in market incentives, why hasn't city council called McGowan to account for misjudging the market? What research did CentreVenture do before it bet public dollars on misplaced expectations? If Exchange District condo demand is not in sync with the overall market, it stands to reason that nearby rentals may face the same challenges. Question: Since taxpayers have invested millions in direct cash subsidies for rental construction, has anyone bothered to check on actual tenant occupancy, satisfaction and turnover in those projects, too? One last question: Since these concerns aren't a surprise to anyone who was paying attention for the last few years, why are you hearing these questions from me first and not from your elected representatives? Brian F. Kelcey blogs at stateofthecity. ca. BRIAN KELCEY TRUDY RUBIN Doubling down on downtown condos The Economist Castro's management of ' free' market is doomed Malala inspires in face of grim news MARY ALTAFFER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS UN Secretary- General Ban Ki- moon ( left) and UN members applaud Malala Yousafzai ( centre). They're my Reason to Live 4% I Love It Loud 22% Enjoyed them more in my Flaming Youth 31% They Shock Me 3% Ugh, I find them Unholy 21% Who the Deuce are you talking about? 19% A_ 17_ Jul- 20- 13_ FP_ 01. indd A17 7/ 19/ 13 8: 16: 02 PM ;