Jeff Burgar
As storytellers and reporters, it’s always interesting for us to look back on a year just past to see what people were interested in as far as news and opinions went.
There is a slightly morbid saying in the news business having to do with what many people say they want in news. More uplifting stories and ‘good news.’ And what they actually read.
Ah, if ‘good news stories’ were only that easy!
Cheque presentations. Faith columns by local clergy leadership. Top scholars in our schools. These would all be at the top of every ‘Most Read’ list if that were true.
It isn’t a fluke people dying in snowstorms, street shootouts, insurrections, court docket reports and crime all make the top story list. But there is hope for humanity. Lottery winners, obituaries, classified ads, business ads, and oddball stories also make the top lists. In fact, as a general group, obituaries and ad groups far and away top our statistics every year.
A lot of that is human nature. When we talk with friends and relatives, do we mention Frank down the street who shovelled snow from a neighbour’s walkway? Do we say how Laura at the restaurant once again did a great job looking after our table? Do we mention how the wind blew the real estate sign over, and the agent was there the next day putting it back up? The surprisingly low bill from the garage? How well country roads were graded? The tiny tax increase?
Not usually. Because, in fact, good stories happen all the time. In all sorts and manners of ways. We talk to each other. Good news actually fills our newspapers and websites and radio stations many times. So often in fact, we can say they are not really ‘news’ but just good stories.
News itself, almost by definition, can be ‘bad,’ like crime. Or a lot of ‘fun,’ like a lottery winner. Or a lot of ‘unusual.’ Like our own newspaper Most Popular Story of All Time – the ‘KKK hood spotted in Grimshaw’ from early 2021. Sadly, that is followed by ‘RCMP dog shot and killed,’ also from 2021. Followed by ‘Breaking news from Peace River UCP,’ ‘2021 Municipal Election Results’ and first COVID case in HP’ And sixth is the ‘Willier cashes in’ lottery win story from 2017.
For 2022? The ‘Freedom George’ group of 2022 Convoy stories. Next is ‘Fire at Tolko.’ Followed by ‘Body found in burned building in Girouxville.’ Then the Shari Poole hiring fiasco. Then ‘Man’s body found at Northern Lakes College.’
None of these were actually labelled as a crime story. A few were distressing. If you call freedom of expression uplifting, and not the portrayal of agenda driven eastern media as criminal, then in fact, the popular stories were what together are described as balanced. We think so anyway.
The really big stories of 2022 were all ongoing. The comeback in energy prices. The Ukraine war. Freedom Convoy news. The slow unwinding of COVID. UCP leadership race. Blizzards. Queen Elizabeth passing. All in all, everywhere, an average year of good, bad, sad, and odd.
That’s what makes news!