Straining at gnats and swallowing camels

I think like me many Canadians are getting a bit tired of the media's unprofessionalism and seemingly endless obsession with trivialities. Their preoccupation with Stephen Harper's every move as though he were something other than a normal human being capable of the occasional mistake is regrettable.

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Take the so called "waferagate" silliness for example. Most fair minded Canadians are willing to accept Harper's explaination that he accepted and partook of the wafer in good faith as a Christian but the media seems determined to make a mountain out of a mole hill and and spin it as a major protocol gaffe. Then we have the same selective journalism and lack of objectivity on Harper's much publicized late arrival for the photo shoot at the G8 in Italy. The Canadian media apparently missed or willfully overlooked the fact that Egyptian President Hosni Mumbarak pulled up on a golf cart after the photo session was over and that Obama almost missed it and had to run to make it. I think many Canadians would agree with Harper that the state of Canadian jounalism these days is low and it is high time for a return to the kind of professionalism that can discern between trivia and what is truly newsworthy. Most Canadians are not worried about a busy Prime Minister being a couple of minutes late for a photo op. They are more concerned about journalists who distort the importance of such things and prefer majoring on minors. Gerald Hall Parksville, B.C.