Talk to any politically-oriented person in B.C. for long enough and eventually Vaughn Palmer's name will come up. For those living east of the Rockies, Palmer is the provincial political affairs columnist for the Vancouver Sun.
A
reader of this blog sent me one of Palmer's posts, where he
recaps an interview he did with Jim Hume, who is retiring after 50 years of covering B.C. politics. I'm a sucker for these kinds of things, which are, when well done, part nostalgia for days gone by, part cute anecdote and part wise advice for the future.
I loved Hume's opening line: "You know, my mother said there'd be days like this, when journalists run out of ideas and have to interview each other. But go ahead."
He had some gripes for today's political media, reminding me a bit of
this great talk from Senator Hugh Segal. Among his comments, paraphrased for length: "It's not too ago that [media] luminaries would say after an election, 'Okay gentlemen, we've got a new government to bring down.' ... that feeling still pervades. Why do they want to bring down a government? The people elect an opposition. It's not the media's right or responsibility to be the official opposition, it's their right to challenge."
And like every retiring journalist, he was asked about the future of newspapers. His (paraphrased) words: "I think newspapers will survive. I believe that the great age of Facebook and Twitter and 'send us an email' ... and nobody checking facts - I think that will go. Maybe it's an old man dreaming of the past, but I think we saw what can go wrong with
bloggers in Copenhagen, where they did a very authentic-looking scam. It was caught, and caught in time, but eventually somebody is going to work one of those scams and the world is going to fall for it. I think that will spend the end."
Time will tell.
Labels: B.C., featured, Jim Hume, media and citizens, Vancouver Sun, Vaughn Palmer