dieter wrote:

Another sign of decline at CTV Toronto. Passover is a major Jewish festival every year. It's mentioned by pretty much every media outlet -- often with the detail that the focal point is a ceremonial meal each of the first two nights. That meal is called a "seder," which is pronounced SAY-der. I guess Nathan Downer hasn't heard that in his lengthy career because on the Monday supper-hour newscast, he called it a "SEE-der" at least twice. Amateurish.

You're presuming a CTV announcer would use a Canadian accent. But SayDer is not how Jews from Alabama pronounce their festive meal. Anyhow, I gather last night's lead story was about Gefilte fish and its popularity prior to the Middle Ages with Catholics during Lent, when meat is verboten.
 

RadioActive wrote:

... not liking the CBC doesn't make me a card-carrying Conservative. For the record, I'm not a member of any party. I don't like government interference in broadcasting, period, no matter who dreams up the policies. Leave radio and TV to the professionals who do it for a living. How is that right wing?
.... Just don't make me pay for something I'll never use. 

RA, those comments, from my perspective at least, are conservative to the core. It doesn't matter whether or not you actually belong to a party. Your comments come across, at least to me, as opposed to state-funded broadcasting. That ain't exactly an NDP or Liberal platform.

And, consider that we pay taxes for all sorts of things we don't use directly. I think that's a very good thing. We fund universities and colleges, which many don't go to. We fund health care services, not all of which we use. We fund construction of highways in regions we'll never travel to. We fund social programs some or even many of us will never use or need. But the fact is that some people need these services, or choose to avail themselves of these opportunities. And the fact is that we all benefit from having a society whose members are well educated, healthy, and can get from Point A to Point B with relative ease.

A national broadcaster can also play a vital role, and although the CBC has not been as good, IMO, as some other national broadcast services, it has done considerable good over the years. Certainly, I've longed for serious structural adjustments. I'd love to see reorganization so entities like the National Film Board and its production capacities cross-pollinate with the CBC, and perhaps with other federal arms-length arts or communications entities. Certainly there's room here at SOWNY to talk about that kind of thing. But to argue here that you shouldn't have to pay for the CBC because you don't use it or like it, you are getting political even if you don't really consciously mean to or thi

I love the use of the word Tragic... as in this from a recent Toronto Sun headline...
Teen's body pulled from lake after tragic Ashbridges Bay drowning
My guess is it's to distinguish it from a comedic downing, or a happy drowning. Or maybe so that we're clear that they weren't just drowning their sorrows, but that somebody actually died.
Speaking of actually ... oh, don't get me started on that one...
 

newsguy1 wrote:

Blair never gave a proper answer and Paxman eventually just ended the interview rather than go for a 20th attempt.

Sometimes a non-answer reveals the 'truth' of the story

What a great observation, Chrisphen.

Kidding aside, yeah, 'great' does come across as condescending.

Interviewing has a strong psychological game component. Seasoned interviewers and even moderately trained interviewees have techniques and strategies aimed at getting what each wants from the interaction. Everyone has their agenda.

I generally start difficult interviews with easy, friendly softballs, for a lot of reasons (to work my way into the interviewee's comfort zone, or to at least get some info and a needed quote before being told to bugger off). I've also learned over the years when to and when not to go into interrogation mode (almost never, though in some circumstances, when a source is evasive, I might ask for a Yes or No answer, or otherwise ask in a way designed to elicit clarity and certainty). When I'm entering tricky terrain, I like to use phrases like "I'm curious what you mean..." or "just so my reader understands..." The latter also distances me a bit from what might be an unpleasant question. In some situations, especially when I'm asking in public (at a conference, say; and this would apply on live camera), I would want to have researched and know the answer before asking the question. What I want is an interviewee who talks, and who doesn't feed me BS (though a BS response has its place in some stories). My favourite tactic is a moment of silence and reflection; with a smile and engaged look if they can see me. Sometimes a gentle laugh - what I call a communal laugh, in other words laughing with them - keeps the conversation flowing. All this applies when dealing with people who hold relative power. When someone is on the powerless side of things, all I generally want is a truthful and trustworthy account, and there are often barriers holding them back that I'm very careful about crossing, if I do at all).

Seasoned interviewees have their own toolbox. I've been told many

newsguy1 wrote:

Sad to hear.  CFNY was my fave radio station in the 80's.  Fantastic alternative music and talented hosts. Jim of course, among them.
 

CFNY was where I first heard the Talking Heads and other bands that ruled my music world in the mid-late 70s into the 80s. Fond memories of listening. RIP, sigh...

mace wrote:

Saul wrote:

mace wrote:

LOL BIG TIME!

When you're DXing on your car radio, you either pull over or you get nailed for distracted driving. Fortunately for OJ, when he was confirming an ID on 103.3 KKCW way up in Beaverton OR, the police were waiting through national ads on 101.1 just before Portland's Morning News on KXL. Had the police not been DXing, they might very well have nailed him with a charge even the late great Johnnie Cochran could not have disputed.

Actually it is quite easy to DX on the 401 in rush hour bumper to bumper traffic. I can keep my eyes on the road while I change stations manually on my steering wheel.

In Toronto's traffic you could probably update your handwritten DX logbook.

mace wrote:

The morning of his arrest, there was a huge tropo opening. I had crystal clear reception for several hours of WTAJ ch 10 in Johnstown, Pa.

Perhaps this is why the pursuit was so slow. Both OJ and the officers were fidgeting with their radios trying for distant signals.
 

A DXer (Allen Willie) in Newfoundland reported signals sounding local and then gone again with daylight returning fully:

693 - UNITED KINGDOM - BBC 5
855 - SPAIN - Radio Nacional de Espana
909 - UNITED KINGDOM - BBC 5
1017 - SPAIN - Radio Nacional de Espana
1044 - SPAIN - SER Radio
1089 - UNITED KINGDOM - Talksport Radio
1107 - SPAIN - Radio Nacional de Espana
1140 - CBI - Sydney, Nova Scotia
1200 - WXKS - Newton, Massachusetts
1260 - CKHJ - Fredericton, New Brunswick
1270 - CJCB - Sydney, Nova Scotia
1280 - CFMB - Montreal, Quebec
1390 - WEGP - Presque Isle, Maine
1450 - CFAB - Windsor, Nova Scotia
1510 - WMEX - Quincy, Massachusetts
1600 - WUNR - Brookline, Massachusetts

Had a clock radio at age 13 and found I could listen to hockey and baseball games on the likes of KMOX 1120 St. Louis. I decided to keep a list of stations I could hear, and that if I could get places like New Orleans (WWL 870) and Winnipeg (990) then I could perhaps get even farther. Eventually I IDed 850 KOA Denver, then KFI 630 Los Angeles and with these I was hooked. I went to the Toronto reference library, looking for a station list of some kind, and landed on the World radio TV Handbook. Somehow I decided to set my sights on XEX Mexico City on 730, with its listed slogan being "La X de Mexico", and I nailed this soon thereafter.

In 1977, I was 16 and at the family cottage in the Kawarthas where I still DX, I had begun keeping track of FM stations, and at that point Toronto, Erie and Buffalo were DX. I hadn't even yet heard Ottawa, Cleveland and Detroit. One night in early summer, I was stunned to get three IDs for very loud stations with K-call letters. I made rudimentary notes of what I could pull in terms of content, and went to the same library, and found a directory of some kind that pinpointed Joplin MO 90.7, St. Paul MN 91.1, and Oklahoma City 104.1. All from the same opening. To this day, I only know the year, that it was early summer (June, I think school was still on), and that there was a glorious sunset at the time. I also had no inkling whatsoever about propagation. I have since passed the 5,000 station mark on FM, with my best FM e-skip catches being in Colombia.

As for TV, I am surprised to find my earliest computerized logs starting in 1986. I hope my handwritten logs at my DX site have the earliest years of my monitoring TV and aren't lost. I reported fairly regularly to the WTFDA club, so that might be a backup. I recall early logs including the likes of WPBT Miami 2, WWL 4 New Orleans, and RadioActive's aforementioned CKCK 2 in Regina. TV has always been a lesser priority than FM, but I've had interesting events, like hearing New York City

unclefester wrote:

Just watched a 30 second commercial on the CBC News channel
There were about-half-a-dozen actors of various genders, ages and ethnic backgrounds who, while smiling & looking "self-satisfied" make the comment "I'm playing with myself"
Turns out it's an ad for Casino Days - an online casino that claims to offer more than one thousand games of chance you can wager on.
The ad aired at about 5.58 p.m. eastern time.
Not funny to me. Kids easily viewing and listening at that hour. How f*cking low can we go?

The kids probably know more than all of us oldsters combined. It's the gambling that worries me more...

The cost of not doing what needs to be done will only keep climbing higher. But it's hard to swallow new taxes and other such distanced measures when large swaths of government, business and the public have been so utterly slow, neglectful - and in many cases horrifically stupid - for decades. Just to stay on topic, it's going to make the demise of AM radio look like tiddly winks. Big time.

I also met Don, in somewhat recent years. He was very kind and genial and will be missed. I never heard him on the radio, but in person he struck me as a natural storyteller and conversationalist.

RadioAaron wrote:

Saul wrote:

... except that WTSS isn't adult contemporary...

Sure they are.

Thanks, RadioAaron - and Tomas as well. That makes much more sense to me now. Correction appreciated.

You were in the wrong. It wasn't worth saving...