We're killing ourselves with an unhealthy lifestye_Part IV

Putting the brakes on the obesity epidemic should be easy. If you consume more calories than you burn, and do this everyday, you will gain weight. It's that simple. On the other hand, if you cut back on calories, and add a little exercise to the mix, you'll lose weight. Again, it's that simple.

Processed foods are notoriously calorie dense and often nutritionally thin. Why are so many people turning to processed foods when the results are as obvious as the thickening waist lines expanding around the world? Paul Berton, the editor-in-chief of The London Free Press has an answer, "We'd rather buy our food prepared (and salty) than make it ourselves."

He's right but I also think a little mean spirited and preachy. (If there is one tone that I can recognize it's preachy.) I think Berton needs a little history lesson.

When I was young most families were supported by only one working parent, usually the father. My father never made a lot of money. My mother told me my father never earned much more than $5000 in any year. Yet, my mother was never forced to work outside the home.

Speaking of home, our home didn't cost a lot; I don't think it was more than $7000 in 1960 when my parents bought the pleasant, two-story, five-bedroom home, built in the 1920s. Our home didn't cost even two times my father's annual wage. (Well, maybe it did on a bad year.)

Today the average wage in Canada is about $42,305 and the average home costs about $332,00 according to The Canadian Real Estate Association. It should come as no surprise that more than three-quarters of mothers with school-aged children are employed, most full-time, or are actively looking for work.

Today parents struggle to juggle multiple responsibilities. Fifty percent of working mothers, and 36 percent of working fathers report having difficulty managing their work and family responsibilities. Stress is on the rise.

Many parents simply do not feel they have the time to cook. Processed foods are time savers and many of them are healthy — at least that's what it says on the label.

And if the processed food product doesn't have the word healthy in the name, often it carries the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Health Check program logo. Many believe the Health Check logo means 'healthy,' 'good for you' and 'approved by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.'

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

According to The Uniter, Winnipeg's Weekly Urban Journal:

"Although high amounts of sodium are associated with increased health risks leading to strokes and high blood pressure, the Health Check can be found on food products with extremely high levels of sodium. Canned soups with 650mg of sodium per serving still bear the Health Check symbol . . . Dinner entrées are allowed to bear the Health Check symbol with 960mg of sodium per serving."

1500mg of sodium (salt) is all an adult needs in a whole day!

The Health Check program is updating their nutrition criteria as of November 2010. Soups will soon have to contain less than 480mg of sodium; and dinner entrees, less than 720mg.

It's tough out there. Putting good food on the table is even hard for those of us who shun processed foods and have the time to play in the kitchen cooking healthy meals.

Check out the peaches at the top of this post. They are from Chile, imported by Del Monte, and tossed out by my wife. They were hard; They never ripened — not even when left for days to ripen in a bag — they were stringy, dry and tasteless. The food value was nil as they were inedible. 

O.K. I know I shouldn't buy peaches out of season but I did. Forgive me. It won't happen again. Trust me.

Oh well, when it comes to the Chileans it all comes out even. We sent them Coke. And the stuff, unlike the peaches, tastes good. Now they, like the rest of world, are hooked on sugar water.

When I was in the little Saharan town of dusty Douz in Tunisia, I discovered Tunisians quench their thirst with Coke. When I bought a carpet from a desert shop I was offered the choice of traditional mint tea with an almond cookie or I could sip a Coke while we haggled. (I went with the mint tea.)

What do Canadians look for when buying healthy foods. The Heart Check icon is not perfect. How about the Kraft Sensible Solutions flag? It's not perfect either. According to Kraft the Sensible Solutions products cannot have more than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat plus trans fat . . . Trans fat? I think not.

Trans fat is related to elevated risks of heart disease and type 2 diabetes but even if you read labels you may still be eating trans fat. You see, Health Canada says if a food contains less than 0.2 grams of trans fat per serving it can claim to be "trans fat free."

But stated serving sizes are often rather small. In some cases a consumer can eat three "trans fat free" cookies a day and in a week consume approximately 4 grams of trans fat. And that is just from three cookies over a week. How much trans fat sneaks in the back door and into our diets in year of eating "trans fat free?"

Berton tells us that we eat too much fat. I don't know. Maybe we do. But according to Harvard School of Public Health the low-fat approach hasn't helped Americans control weight or become healthier.

In the 1960s, fats and oils supplied about 45 percent of the calories in the U.S. diet. At that time 13 percent of Americans were obese and under 1 percent had type 2 diabetes. Today Americans take in far less fat, they get only about 33 percent of calories from fats and oils. Yet, 35 percent of Americans are now obese

and 8 percent have diabetes, most with type 2 diabetes.

Why hasn't Paul Berton's suggestion paid off? I admit, I thought he was right. Let's have Harvard's answer:

"Detailed research — much of it done at Harvard — shows that the total amount of fat in the diet isn't really linked with weight or disease. What really matters is the type of fat in the diet. Bad fats, meaning trans and saturated fats, increase the risk for certain diseases. Good fats, meaning monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, do just the opposite. They are good for the heart and most other parts of the body.

What about cholesterol in food? For most people, the mix of fats in the diet influences cholesterol in the bloodstream far more than cholesterol in food does."

According to Harvard, "Eliminating trans fats from the U.S. food supply could prevent between 6 and 19 percent of heart attacks and related deaths . . . "

Here we really get the last laugh on Chile, they'll be sorry for those peaches; we may be cutting our trans fat use but inexpensive partially hydrogenated oil has become a staple in homes in the developing world. There is a growing epidemic of cardiovascular disease in developing nations around the world.

Slowly, I'm beginning to think there my be something to be said for the eat-organic-movement. And I no longer think vegetarians are giving up an important source of protein. We will be taking another look at food in the coming weeks and maybe giving out some recipes that my wife uses and which help us avoid the worst of the processed food traps.

Cheers,
It's the weekend,
I'm off,
Rockinon!

Are you knowledgeable or just another know-it-all?

Paul Berton, the editor-in-chief, of The London Free Press recently wrote a piece titled, "Are you knowledgeable or just another know-it-all?"

Yesterday Berton ran a piece on the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest structure. Paul wrote:  "The Burj Dubai, in the city-state that may be the very definition of excess in a modern world, is finally complete. Stretching more than 800 metres into the desert sky, the office tower dwarfs even the world's second tallest structure, Toronto's CN Tower."

Interesting. Just two things that I'd like to add. One: the building was renamed the Burj Khalifa  in honor of the president of the United Arab Emirates. You do recall that it was the UAE that bailed Dubai out of last year’s debt crisis?

So sorry Paul, but you got the name wrong. (I'm sure you're in good company but a fast Google lap didn't turn up any other news organizations making the same error. But, it is a big world and I am sure you are not alone.)

And oh, the world's second tallest structure is not the CN Tower in Toronto; It's the KVLY-TV tower located three miles west of Blanchard, North Dakota. If you want to play the tallest game, you have to call the Toronto tower the second tallest "freestanding" structure. The freestanding is very important as without that word the CN tower would never have been able to make its claim; The Warsaw Radio Mast was hundreds of feet taller but it was a guyed affair and not freestanding.

Oh well, look on the bright side. You can do another column in the are-you-knowledgeable-or-just-another-know-it-all vein and you can take a more generous and forgiving approach this time. Your view will now be tempered with the wisdom of someone who has been-there-done-that.

Maybe, just maybe, you should have kept those editors you let go at Christmas.

The London Free Press has December 2009 layoffs

I tried to Google the recent layoffs at The London Free Press in London, Ontario. No luck. I checked both The London Free Press site and the Canoe site; Nothing.

As I understand it, and this is just gossip, five in advertising have been pink slipped and as many as six may be leaving from editorial. The editorial staff members willing to accept a voluntary buyout have now submitted their names and the lucky winners of the buyout lottery will be announced early next week.

At one point it was thought that about twenty jobs in editorial would be lost. Word was that Sun Media / Quebecor wanted to gut the newsroom and move the work to the Barrie, Ontario, Centre of Excellence. Editor-in-chief Paul Berton, managing editor Joe Ruscitti and publisher Susan Muzak are credited by some staff for successfully lobbying against the suggested move.

As it is, I understand six pagination workers are being hired to assemble pages but without the editing responsibilities of the present staff. This will result in London losing some well-paid jobs and gaining a few poorly paid one -- it is rumored, the new jobs will pay possibly half of what the old positions paid. If these new workers get bumped up temporarily into a more traditional editing role, they would earn an acting pay premium of about $1.60 an hour. Sun Media / Quebecor gets a bargain both ways.

I understand that the Woodstock and St. Thomas papers are also being hit. How many other papers in the Sun Media chain are affected is still an open question. Maybe the Freeps will see fit to do an article on this latest round of layoffs by Canada's media giant, Sun Media / Quebecor.

This is worth a large, in-depth post. Someone should get the word out and possibly make the Freeps discuss openly their ongoing staffing cutbacks. I personally see more cutbacks in The Free Press future but that's just my guess.

Addendum:
I now have four names of editorial staff expected to leave. I also have four names from advertising. These changes at the London paper are no longer a rumour.

On poor and pore pronunciation

Now that newspapers are going on-line they have one more thing to watch when it comes to quality and professionalism. In print there was spelling, grammar and fact checking. Now, with Internet podcasts and the like, pronunciation can be added to the list.

When I was in school in the '50s and '60s I had some really bad experiences on account of my pronunciations. I said poor, pronouncing it pore, and my teacher made me stand in front of the class while she corrected me for the edification of all.

The word was pronounced poor, poo, and not poh. "A pore is a hole in your skin," she told me. If you say pore when you mean someone had little money it makes you sound like you're poor; It makes you sound as if you come from the poor side of town. It makes you sound like a farmer from down east.

She was right, on all counts. I was poor, or maybe I should be honest and say pore. Us pore folk shouldn't put on airs and use pronunciations above our place. And I was but one generation removed from a farm in eastern Ontario.

I always thought my teacher was right — it was poor and not pore. But I also thought that she, and the others who humiliated students because of their pronunciations, were the ones who lacked class.

How I wish those teachers were still alive today. I could introduce them to Paul Berton, the editor-in-chief of The London Free Press, who could chastise them for their pronunciations. They might get their backs up but my money would be on Paul. Times and pronunciations have changed.

Paul tells us that zoology is good example of a word badly mangled in conversation today. My teachers would agree. "Never say z-oh-ology. It's pompous," they'd say. "It's zoo-ology." Paul would challenge them, "It is correctly pronounced z-oh-ology."

Unfortunately, he wouldn't stop while ahead. He'd continue by admitting, "(saying) it that way makes you sound like a snotty scientist." They would tell Paul an adult does not use the word snotty as an adjective.

My spelling is a fright. I'm sure, if you've followed this blog at all, I have made your hair stand on end with my creative spelling. I'm sorry, but I do try. I even pronounce February as 'Feb-roo-air-ee." I want to remember to put in the first 'r'.

Some of my teachers tried to knock that out of me. "Just because a word is spelt one way does not mean it is pronounced that way," they said. Other teachers demanded just the opposite, "Remember the 'roo' in February." Paul and Daniela, quoted in Paul's column, agree with the rooites. I checked my dictionary and sure enough the pronunciation favoured is 'roo'. Yes!

I wondered what the Internet would add to this discussion. I found a site that claims to be: "a free online talking dictionary of English pronunciation." Feeling mischievous I typed in mischievous . Ah . . . Teachers one, Paul zero.

My wife objected to my site selection. "That speaker is English!" Well of course he's English; I'm looking into English pronunciation. "Just type in jaguar and see how he pronounces it. Or yogourt." (The site didn't even like my spelling for yogourt, taken right from my Astro yogourt container. "Just anything goes when it comes to spelling yogourt," my said and went back to making soup. She's not fond of the stuff whether it's yogourt or yogurt.)

I tried zoology. It pumped out both pronunciations. Teachers two, Paul one.
I tried forsythia . Teachers two, Paul two.
I tried harassment . Teachers three, Paul two. (Paul wants the emphasis on the 'har' not the 'rass.'
I then tried Iraquis . Hmmm?

I'm afraid that at my age I suffer from tinnitus and I'm even a little deaf. I'm finding I am no longer a good judge of this stuff. Oh, I could still pick Eliza Doolittle out from a crowd before old Higgins got hold of her, but I'm not a good judge of this stuff anymore. I swear that I heard not 'Eye-raqis,' which Paul hates, a position with which my teachers would agree, nor did I hear the short first "i." I heard a third pronunciation! Sure sounds like, "Eee-rack-ees" to me.

I give up. I'll step back and let my teachers and Paul duke it out. Now, what else do I have on my schedule today? ....uh, is that pronounced skedule?

Oh, and the word poor . I checked its pronunciation using my Internet English buddy and he, it turns out, did not have a proper upbringing either. He said pore!
__________________________________________________

Inspired by the column, "You say potato . . . " Proper pronunciation is no longer just a concern of traditional broadcasters --- By Paul Berton, editor-in-chief, The London Free Press / Sun Media

Coyotes are changing

This week a young folk singer died after being mauled by a pair of coyotes. Hiking the Skyline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, 19-year-old Taylor Mitchell, of Toronto, was airlifted to a hospital in Halifax but died from her extensive injuries.

To put us all at ease, editorial writers like Paul Berton, of The London Free Press/Sun Media, are telling us, "unlike wolves, coyotes tend to be solitary and do not travel in packs."

Not according to the Nova Scotia Department of Resources that has posted pertinent information on the department Website. "Coyotes do travel and hunt in family units or packs, generally there is a dominate pair with young of the year."

Berton continues to mislead his readers by writing that coyotes "are smaller than medium-sized dogs and not designed to take down large prey..."

Not according to the Website All Points North which states that whitetail deer are the "primary diet for the eastern coyotes in the Adirondacks."

If you are thinking that deer are rather large prey to be downed by something smaller than many family pets, you're right to wonder. Truth is, according to Project Coyote, folks like Berton are confusing the coyotes found in the west with those found in the east. The eastern coyote is a much bigger predator. A 55-pound female eastern coyote was radio-collared in New England. Large males of almost 50-pounds have been reported in Nova Scotia in the area where the young hiker was attacked.

Why are these coyotes so large and why are they hunting in packs — possibly because they are not purebred coyotes but a product of a "canid soup." The most plausible scenario is that the Eastern coyote is often a hybrid between coyotes and a small type of wolf — the red wolf, although some believe the grey wolf may also be part of the mix. DNA sampling of coyote tissue in the Northeast has confirmed the presence of wolf DNA.

The Nova Scotia Department of Resources believes the Eastern coyote has significant wolf and dog characteristics resulting from interbreeding and producing an animal "twice the size of . . . the western coyote." This is not an animal to be lightly dismissed as simply looming "large" in "the human imagination" as Berton writes.

It was not until 1977 that the first coyote was trapped in Nova Scotia. Since then they have dispersed across the province. The danger coyotes pose to people is not great, that said, there have been three recorded incidents of people bitten or attacked in Nova Scotia since 1995. Newspaper articles record that across Canada between 1998-2008 there were 24 incidents resulting in injury. It must be noted that these were mostly scratches or puncture wounds. Until this week, there were no deaths.

It is much the same story in the States. Attacks on joggers, hikers, cyclists and children are increasing, especially in southern California. A rash of coyote attacks on children in 2008 led to the closure of a park in southern Cal. "People cannot be ambivalent about coyotes," said Harry Morse of the California Dep't of Fish and Game.

Most injuries are minor but one victim of a coyote attack required 200 stitches.  And back in 1981 a Glendale, CA, girl was attacked and killed while playing outside her home.

In areas where aggressive coyote behaviour has been reported, people are wise to take note. In most cases, simple precautions are all that is necessary. The following, based on advice given by the CBC seems prudent.

•  In areas where coyotes have been spotted, be prepared. The best defence is a good offence. Carry a whistle, flashlight and/or personal alarm. This is especially important for small children who play outside or walk to school.
• If confronted by an aggressive coyote, stand your ground. Stay put and look it in the eye. Do not look away and never run as it is more likely to consider you prey, give chase and seriously harm you.
• Be aggressive yourself by waving your arms, stomping and yelling loudly in a deep voice. You are trying to deter it from coming closer.
• Don't walk alone in areas with known high coyote activity. Walk with a companion and stay together.
• Don't lure coyotes with food. Coyotes are scavengers and will be attracted by food left outside for pets, meat scraps left in compost buckets and garbage bins that do not seal tightly.

There is little reason to fear coyotes but there is no reason not to have great respect for them. The coyotes in eastern Canada are a dynamic, evolving species with a changing genetic make-up.

For another take on coyotes in Ontario see Anatomy of a Coyote Attack by Harold MacGregor. Be warned, he has posted pictures which some may find difficult to view.

Miracle heater changes newspaper into huckster

huckster/n. 1. a mercenary person ready to make a profit out of anything. v. 1. tr. to promote or sell (an often questionable product) aggressively.

The newspaper and magazine hucksters are again promoting the purchase of the Amish mantle (sic), a very questionable product - a grossly overpriced, Chinese made, portable electric space heater, contained in a solid wood, and possibly partially particle board, ersatz fireplace, complete with artificial flames flickering from the glow of twin 40-watt light bulbs.

Maybe I should be surprised that newspapers are stooping to run ads like these, but I'm not. While I still worked at The London Free Press, the paper ran a double-truck version of the Amish miracle heater ad. The ad, clearly designed to resemble a news page, going so far as to credit the writer, is a disgrace, shaming the publications stooping to carrying it. The word advertisement at the top of the page is in almost the smallest, and in easily the lightest, font on the page.

Offended that this ad was running in The London Free Press, a paper at which I had worked for decades, I walked down to Paul Berton's office - Berton is the editor-in-chief of The London Free Press - I told him what a disgrace it was to be running this ad. Readers deserve better from their community paper. I told him that other papers had run stories in their news pages revealing the truth behind the false claims for the Heat Surge space heater. He listened politely to my rant and brushed me off. In the coming weeks we ran the ad a second time and we never, to the best of my knowledge, printed the truth about this rip-off.

I no longer work at the paper. I took a buyout in January. I no longer have to bite my tongue when it come to the Amish miracle heater. But why is it left to a blogger to tell Londoners the truth? Since I personally talked with Paul about this ad, he cannot claim that he didn't know the ad was highly questionable.

The local paper talks a good line about caring for the community but running an ad like this shows complete disregard for the community - for the readers of the paper and for the local advertisers who are truly the paper's financial backbone.

According to The London Free Press and other papers, I assume that many in the Sun Media chain carried the ad, readers who ordered their miracle heater and Amish mantel within the 48-hour deadline would get the imported hi-tech miracle heater for free. You only had to pay for the mantel, the shipping and handling and tax. Roughly $463 will get you the free heater. There may be importing fees, duty, still to be paid. If you want cherry wood (actually poplar with a cherry finish) plan on spending more than $500 to receive your free heater.

• "Amish man's new miracle idea helps home heat bills hit rock bottom" read the original ad. Now, the ad says, "Amish mantle (sic) and miracle invention help home heat bills hit rock bottom."

The new ad credits an "engineering genius from the China coast" for the miracle heater. ". . . (a heater) is so advanced, you simply plug it into any standard outlet." I guess the Amish haven't heard that we plug all small, electric space heaters into the wall. Canadian Tire has one for $19.99 and it too is most likely from China.

• "Fireless Flames" gives a peaceful flicker without flames, fumes, smells, ashes or mess.

I guess Fireless Flames is what the Amish call twin 40-watt light bulbs. Those Amish may not know a lot about electricity but they certainly are poetic.

• ". . . slash your heating bills . . . "

First, turn down the thermostat. Now, roll your portable heater from room to room. You simply take the heat with you. But, be careful as rumour has it that the Roll-n-Glow has plastic wheels prone to break.

• "It produces up to an amazing 5,119 BTU's on the high setting."

Yes, it pumps that much heat but it is not amazing. This is exactly the same amount of heat as the $19.99, 1500 watt, heater from Canadian Tire. This is the amount of heat all 1500 watt heaters produce.

• ". . . fine real wood Amish made fireplace mantles (sic) . . . "

Reports say that some parts of the mantels are solid wood, like the tops, but other parts are wood veneer over particle board. Quality Amish staples are also used in the construction.

If you think you need a space heater, the cheapest ones have a bad reputation. The fans can be loud and the heaters may not have a thermostat to control the heat - oh, the Amish miracle heater does not have a thermostat. What does that tell you? And it has heater coil construction like the least expensive space heaters.

A New York Times article in January of 2009 reported, "Since 2007, the Better Business Bureau of Canton has received 237 complaints against Heat Surge, many of them related to misleading advertising and customer service issues; the company currently has an F rating from the bureau."

The Providence in Phoenix carried the ad but then in a subsequent story addressed the issue. The deck below the headline read, "In tough times, newspapers get ad money where they can."

According to the Providence:

"When an ad exec at the News & Observer in North Carolina defended an ad the paper published for the "Universal Health Card," calling it clear about "what it is and what it is not," the N&O's public editor disagreed.

"To me the ad looks misleading and, from my brief research, promises more than it delivers," the public editor wrote. "I'm concerned not only that it gives information to readers that is at best confusing, but also that it undermines the credibility of the newspaper. The ad caused me to wonder whether the well-publicized revenue declines in the newspaper business have caused the paper to accept advertising that might not appear in flusher times."

The Providence in Phoenix is part of a chain. The reporter, Ian Donnis, contacted Tim Schick, administrator of the Providence Newspaper Guild in Rhode Island. Schick said, "As long as [such advertising] is clearly marked as advertising, we do not have an issue . . ."

Schick added that there's always a risk "that these ads will lure vulnerable individuals, but this is nothing new in the industry. It has been going on for a long time." I cannot argue with Schick there. How long have newspapers been running the 0% car loan ads? I addressed that problem in my blog GM Slight of hand . . . 0% becomes 7.2%.

To the credit of the Heat Surge company their website is far more honest than their newspaper ads. Possibly they could still sell their units without the questionable claims.

David Baker, Heat Surge vice president, told The New York Times, "If someone would come to me and say, 'I need a heater and I want to spend as little as possible,' I would say go to a local big-box store and buy one for $29.99. Our heater represents a fireplace rather than just some space heater."

So take David Baker's advice, if all you want is a space heater save money and buy an excellent space heater right here in London. Support a local company and trusted local advertiser in The Free Press. You will save a pot full of money and be a much better community supporter than the local paper.

Unfortunately, many of the small, space heaters do not have wheels. Oh well, you can buy eight or more for the price of one Amish miracle heater - just don't turn a number of them on at the same time or the miracle will be paying your home hydro bill when it arrives.

Addendum:

Consumer Reports has released a video in which they give their take on the Amish Heater from Heat Surge of Canton, Ohio. It is a very balanced report. Watching it left me wondering why Heat Surge even bothers with the questionable sales gimmicks. It they put their money into upgrading their product, installing a heater equiped with a thermostat for instance, I bet they would sell lots of these Amish mantels.

___________________________________________________

The colour photo at the top of this post was found in the National Geographic. It seems just about everyone has carried the Heat Surge ad. This company is clearly selling product as they can afford to spend big bucks on advertising. In looking through the National Geographic I found another questionable ad and one that was completely out of place in a magazine dedicated to protecting the world's heritage. I'll talk about it in detail another day.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Newspapers, not such smarties

When considering a name for this blog, I thought of calling it "Rockinon: Musings." In some ways, it was a better name as I write about stuff I think about, like newspapers. I like newspapers. I read them. I worked for two of them. And now, I muse over them.

When I worked at newspapers, I just grumbled, mostly quietly—now, I blog. I get to grumble openly, loudly, and often. I've been surprised to discover that journalists don't like public grumbling. I get what I would call public-hate-mail for my innocuous observations. And now to today's small grumble. I'm sure some journalists' will soon have their knickers in a knot over this. All too weird.

Paul Berton, editor-in-chief of The London Free Press, claimed, "Newspapers may be increasingly late to breaking news parties, but they have the advantage of getting more (if not all) the facts right." I'm sorry to tell you Paul, you're late to many stories and often wrong.

The London Free Press can't even get a story about the changes in Smarties right. I blogged about this problem of inaccuracy before here and again here. Paul, the columns you write for the paper are all too often error-filled. You, like your staff, are spread too thin. My guess is that the paper cannot spare an editor to edit your column and we both know how important that second pair of eyes can be.

It has been more than four months since Nestlé changed Smarties. Nestlé no longer uses artificial colouring. Their website states the improved candy was "available starting in March 2009." The London Free Press broke the news today, the end of July, in their "monday minute" column. The Free Press, in keeping with the fun nature of the column, doesn't capitalize the "M" on Monday.

I hope the reader is having fun because I know The London Free Press staff isn't. They are stretched so ridiculously thin, as are all the staff at all the Sun Media/Quebecor Media papers, that they simply repackage a bit of stale fluff and report almost word for word the company's press-kit claims. This plagiarism is bad writing and bad journalism. Both the paper and the press release talk about "the trend to healthier lifestyles" driving the change.

Sadly, there is actually a bit of a story here, but even months late to the party The London Free Press had no time to discover the story. Tell me again, why we need big media—like Quebecor with their big layoffs resulting in thin staffs unable to perform.

So, what was the story missed by The London Free Press? Answer: Some colours have gone missing! Temporarily there are no blue nor green Smarties. Nestlé states on their website, "It’s proving very difficult to find a non-artificial blue." This eliminates both blue and green Smarties from the line-up as green results from a mix of blue and yellow.

The other missed story is the claim about Smarties being part of a trend toward a healthier lifestyle. Smarties? Give me a break. Nestlé itself states, "Save sweet and fatty treats for special occasions." When it comes to kids and lunch box ideas, even Nestlé nixes Smarties.

You can get 22% of your daily fat from a box of Smarties.

My mother, back in the '50s, understood what is truly meant by a healthier lifestyle. She gave me apples, navel oranges and even carrot sticks.

By the way, I don't get my knickers all in a knot over serving a child a few—very few—Smarties. But, a few go a long way. They are not my idea of a healthier lifestyle.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Where were you when. . . ? Watching TV?

Two days ago, I blogged on a column "Where were you when. . . ?" by Paul Berton, editor-in-chief of The London Free Press. I pointed out how the paper, like many others across North America, messed up the Challenger disaster photo big-time. The Free Press was forced to pull the original colour plates and replate for the city edition. For details see my earlier blog.

I must now add that the black and white picture at the bottom of the Challenger disaster front page is not as presented. In the haste to get the best images from the disaster on the wire, AP erred when captioning the photo. Here is the correction from the New York Times:

Editor's Note: A picture on Jan. 29, published after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, showed the parents and sister of Christa McAuliffe, the teacher astronaut. Under the heading ''Family in Shock,'' the editors' caption said the family was watching ''as the space shuttle took off and exploded.'' In response to inquiries, The Times has reviewed its film, frame by frame, against television tape of the sequence, from liftoff to the announcement of the explosion. The review shows that the published photograph was in fact made slightly before the explosion. The suggestion that the family was reacting to the explosion was mistaken. (The London Free Press used the word "reacts" in their cutline.)

Note how the New York Times used television tape to clarify the situation. The dog (television) wags the tail (the newspapers) again. Now, what was Paul saying about, "Newspapers may be increasingly late to breaking news parties, but they have the advantage of getting more (if not all) the facts right."

I wasn't going to mention the following, but since I have had to revisit the column, let's look at some other stuff said in Paul's column.

First, Paul writes: "It (video of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon) was made possible by the electronic media, and, conveniently enough, by the fact the camera was somehow on the moon and rolling before the big step became a news event."

Forty years after the event and The London Free Press does not know there was no camera magically "somehow on the moon." Geesh, shades of moon landing hoax stories or the moon landing conspiracy theories. The historic event was telecast live from the side using a television camera ingeniously attached to the lunar module.

Wired has an excellent story on how the filming was accomplished. Briefly, a young electrical engineer at Westinghouse, Stan Lebar, was given the task of developing a camera that could capture the most memorable moment of the 20th century – the Apollo 11 moon landing. The goal was to send back a live television feed so that everyone could watch it – particularly the Soviets.

Paul tells us, "Those on Twitter were clearly the first to learn about the miracle plane crash on the Hudson River last winter."Yes, but . . .

According to CNET News, "TwitPic, an application that allows users to take pictures from their mobile phones and append them to Twitter posts, went down after at least 7,000 people attempted to view the photo of the airplane taken by Janis Krums." (Krums, by the way, is a man, and not a "she" as reported by The London Free Press days after the Hudson River landing.)

"According to Noah Everett, the founder of TwitPic, . . . the resulting traffic was too much for the site's servers."

According to Silicon Alley Insider, "Thirty-four minutes after Krums posted his photo, MSNBC interviewed him live on TV. . ." Twitter was first out of the gate, but it was the mature technology of television that won the race and made the world aware of Krums amazing photo. As usual, newspapers were not in the race.

Let's do a little creative editing and let Paul Berton win the last round by quoting his closing words, "Newspapers may be increasingly late to breaking news parties . . . " Well said, Paul.

Where were you when. . . ?

"Where were you when . . . ?" This is the question posed by editor-in-chief of The London Free Press, Paul Berton, in his Saturday column. Maybe I could be so bold as to answer his question with a warning, equally original: "Be careful what you wish for . . ." or in this case, "what you ask for."

Berton asks the expected: "Where were you when you heard President Kennedy had been shot?" Where was I? I was between classes in high school, waiting to enter Mr. Allen's French class. The exiting students whispered the news to us. Some of the young girls were sobbing as they left Mr. Allen's room and all the young boys were stone faced. Some were wet-eyed.

My wife was in her high school cafeteria. Her high school principal announced the event over the school's PA system. She recalls the boys sat quietly numbed while the girls cried openly.

Paul goes on to ask: "Do people still find out about big breaking stories from newspapers, the way they probably did about the attack on Pearl Harbour, the bombing of Hiroshima, or even the assassination of JFK?"

This is my answer: Ever since the first historic radio signals crossed the Atlantic early in the last century newspapers have been losing ground. They were rarely, if ever, first out of the gate with the big story.

The assassination of JFK was a radio and television story. And after they broke the shocking story, word of mouth quickly made all the world aware. When JFK was shot in mid-day in Dallas Texas most newspaper presses were sitting idle, the press rooms empty. Newspapers were not slow out of the gate, they were not even in the race.

Try googling Paul's question. It's interesting. It appears that no one, absolutely no one, first learned of Kennedy's assassination from a newspaper. From my admittedly shallow research, it appears radio gets the nod here. A quick investigation into Pearl Harbour sees radio declared the winner here, too.

Now, Paul's mention of Hiroshima raises other issues more complex than just "where were you when . . .?" A lot has been written about the press and the handling of the Hiroshima story. If you're interested, a good place to start is with Greg Mitchell's piece The Press and Hiroshima: August 6, 1945, republished from Editor and Publisher.

Paul goes on to share his recollections of the Challenger disaster and how he first learned of the explosion from the front page headline in the Toronto Star. Let me share my recollections of the Challenger disaster and how the newspaper coverage was not only bested by television but, in many cases, lead into embarrassing errors by an unearned faith in the accuracy of the televised image.

According to MSNBC the belief that ". . . millions of television viewers were horrified to witness the live broadcast of the space shuttle Challenger exploding 73 seconds into flight . . . " is actually a myth. "What most people recall as a 'live broadcast' was actually the taped replay broadcast soon after the event." (Many now argue the Challenger didn't explode, or blow up as apparently the Toronto Star reported, but I'll let you google that.)

But whether television broadcast the event live or not, what is clear is that newspapers were left out of the loop. Newspaper newsrooms everywhere scrambled to put together a story by following it minute by minute. Newspaper reporters and editors around the world were glued to newsroom television sets.

When it came time to place the front page picture, many newspapers were horrified to discover the AP image by Bruce Weaver showed the shuttle apparently exploding against a night-black sky. The disaster occurred against a blue sky; The editors knew this, they had watched the actual event on television. Editors across North America were howling: "The sky was blue, damn it! It wasn't night!"

Back then, in 1986, it took the better part of half an hour to receive a colour transmission at a newspaper. The entire process for publishing colour pictures in the paper was long and tedious. After a transmission, all that an editor had in hand was a collection of three black and white pictures called printers. The pictures were identical except in tone and the labels magenta, yellow and cyan.

These paper printers were labeled cyan, magenta and yellow and were sent to the back-shop by editorial to be proofed. As you can imagine a lot was necessary to transform three black and white images into a colour picture in the daily paper. To give editors and the press crew an idea of how the image should look when printed, a proof was pulled. This involved three, overlapping coloured images: one cyan, one magenta and one yellow and all on a transparent base. Making these took time. As I said, this was a slow, tedious operation.

By the time the editors had proofs in hand, they were sitting on deadline. The deadline at a newspaper is well named. If you are the editor in charge of the front page, you do not miss deadline. The press must roll on time. The papers must be delivered to the waiting trucks on schedule. Release your page late too often and the newspaper will release you.

Editors everywhere were in an awful bind. The Challenger disaster had to go front with art and they knew their front page picture, the one they must use, was incorrect. The sky colour was wrong. There was no time for a corrected transmission from AP and as this was in the days before Photoshop — there was no easy way to turn the sky blue.

The solution decided upon at The London Free Press was to take the magenta and the yellow printers and opaque the negatives. Opaque was a special water-based paint used in the back-shop on negatives. Once opaqued, an area would not print. The Free Press would turn the sky blue by using only the cyan printer.

This was a quick solution. Unfortunately there was no time to pull another proof. With fingers crossed, the colour plates were sent to the press room and the big Goss letterpress rumbled into action. As the press rolled and everyone saw the first papers, hearts stopped.

The editor in charge of the front page ran into the newsroom waving one of the first papers. "We've got dog shit on blue linoleum," he bellowed in anger. "We've got to replate for city!"

The flooring picture went out to the district but was pulled and replaced for the city edition. This time the original image was used as transmitted. The sky looked black but it was better than the alternative.

The truth is the blue-black sky is correct. It is an accurate representation of the image captured by many of the photojournalists shooting at the disaster. Transparency film, used by photojournalists at the time, records images differently than electronic television cameras.

Would all those editors have been panicked by the oh-so-dark sky if they had not viewed the actual event themselves on television? I doubt it.