tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16979831.post115421782792063989..comments2023-09-15T08:25:52.357-05:00Comments on Designated Import: Canadians on the front lines of AfghanistanAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11380041867258824155noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16979831.post-1157089436083596332006-09-01T00:43:00.000-05:002006-09-01T00:43:00.000-05:00I have been very frustrated with the neews coverag...I have been very frustrated with the neews coverage of what's going on in Afghanistan. My dad is a Korean War Veteran. He has suffered his whole life because of it. I consider him to be a hero, however, he wishes that he would have died instead of all of the troops he lost. On top of that, it hurts him that Korea was forgotten. Now my son serves in Afghanistan. Not a Canadian, but an American. One of the times he was able to call me he started out by asking me if I had seen the news. I could tell something was wrong. I lied. I told him it was too early here and I hadn't had a chance. I had actually been infront of the tube all morning trying to read the fine print scrolling across the bottom, hoping to see something, anything. They don't seem to cover it, but on rare occasion you can see something roll by. That's one of those great 24 hour news channels. How demoralizing this will be and is to our soldiers. I used to find out what I needed on the internet. For some strange reason I can no longer access those web sites. Can't believe I found this. I want to scream. I want the war in Afghanistan to be more recognized.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16979831.post-1154384483264600402006-07-31T17:21:00.000-05:002006-07-31T17:21:00.000-05:00I can't really comment, as I can't see Canadian me...I can't really comment, as I can't see Canadian media coverage. The battle was chronicled in <I>The Globe and Mail</I>. Was it covered in other papers, too?<BR/><BR/>The perception among soldiers is that they're doing good work — fighting the Taliban and Al Quaida — yet more television and newspaper coverage is given to protests against the war. Four or five positive articles starting on page five don't have the same impact as one article on the front page.<BR/><BR/>Of course, soldiers don't understand the newspaper business. They miss the fact that the first three letters in "newspaper" make up the word "new". Endless, similar stories don't make it into the papers; change does.<BR/><BR/>Still, if I were a soldier I'd be upset if the largest battle since the Korean War was given nary a mention by <I>The Toronto Star</I>, the nation's largest paper. (Not saying that the <I>Star</I> didn't cover it, just that I can't see it making as big a deal of it as <I>The Globe and Mail</I>.<BR/><BR/>By the way, how has <I>The National Post</I> covered the story? I see that <I>The Post</I> is now owned by CanWest Global, and that the paper is printed at <I>The Star</I>'s Vaughan plant (which I toured when I started working for <I>The Star</I>). They used to be printed by <I>The Hamilton Spectator</I>, but <I>The Star</I> bought the <I>Spectator</I> while I was still there. There was some question where Conrad Black would get his paper printed, since he'd rather bite his own head off than pay <I>The Star</I> to print it. I see he got around that by selling the paper...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11380041867258824155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16979831.post-1154367276976444032006-07-31T12:34:00.000-05:002006-07-31T12:34:00.000-05:00Very interesting account; thanks for posting it. W...Very interesting account; thanks for posting it. With all due respect to the author, though, I think he's being unduly harsh on the Canadian media. The battle he describes was chronicled on an almost daily basis in <I>The Globe and Mail,</I> and this paper and the CBC seem to run Afghanistan-related stories on a daily basis. (A search on "Kandahar" in the CBC's website returns nearly 1,300 hits for a two-year period.) I can't speak for the rest of the media since I tend not to pay much attention to them, but the same search at the <I>Toronto Star</I> generated about 1,100 hits for the same period.<BR/><BR/>And I can't blame Blatchford for her departure from what sounds like a real hairball of a situation. I don't think I'd have wanted to stick around either.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com