On July 17, CNN carried continuous coverage of the missing plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. The network couldn't run the risk of not being there when the inevitable was discovered--that Kennedy had crashed the plane and drowned two women, surpassing the family record of one previously held by Uncle Teddy. The Kennedys are the more attractive U.S. equivalent of the British royal family, so it is not surprising that CNN, the network that made O.J. Simpson the first murder defendant in history to have his own theme music, chose to show water all weekend.
What is unusual is the amount of coverage Junior received in the Canadian media. CFTR Radio, Toronto's 24-hour news station spent most of that weekend carrying CNN's feed. They broke occasionally to tell listeners in Peel not to bother calling 911 because it wasn't working. Then it was back to the water. In the week that followed, newspapers went on and on and on about the president that never was.
You would think that all this coverage would have been attacked by Sheila Copps and her fans. Unless you count spending one of your last days in a fast food place on Yonge Street, JFK Jr. was certainly not Canadian content. The Canadian culture freaks who see the demise of our country as being inevitable, caused not by the separation of Quebec but by the showing of Seinfeld reruns were strangely silent over the attention paid to Kennedy in the week after he became fish food.
It has been widely said that John Kennedy Jr. never did anything. This is unfair because he was an editor of a magazine and you can't say editors don't do anything (well maybe you can, but I can't--Judi reads this). But Kennedy never accomplished anything that was historically significant to Canada or the world that would justify the contant Canadian media coverage.
The reason John John was not an over acheiver was in his genes. Other than try and start World War III and starting the Vietnam War, President Daddy didn't do very much. He avoided blame for what became known as Lyndon Johnson's war and received credit for civil rights legislation that Johnson introduced in congress after JFK's death. Jackie Kennedy, was the subject of a miniseries, made for TV movies and tons of books; yet all that could be said at her funeral was that she was a good mother. How Americans treat their royal family when one of them gets charged with rape or skis into a tree is up to them. But why all the coverage in Canada? And why no complaints from the crowd whose motto is "Split run magazines can kill you!"?
The answer is simple. The Kennedys are perceived to be small "l" liberals and anything liberal is good. The irony is that President Kennedy was hardly a liberal by today's standards. He refused to send civil rights legislation to congress because it wouldn't pass and might damage his chances in 1964. Shortly before his death, he stated that taxes, raised after World War II to prevent the economy from overheating, should be lowered. And JFK never said, "Ask what your country can do for you, and we'll run deficits and do it".
As long as the politically correct views are aired, the necessity of Canadian content goes out the window.
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Privacy Statement