Barrowman the outspoken...

[fajrdrako]

I love the way John Barrowman says what he thinks. The Sun has tried a little rabble-rousing by making a controvesy out of what he was quoted as saying in Doctor Who Magazine, stirring up the notion that his comments were inappropriate.

Personally, I like it that "John also spoke of how he fancied former Doctor Christopher Ecclestone and 'sexy' current star David Tennant." Well - yes! The man has taste. Of course he fancies them, as do several zillion other fans and (no doubt) acquaintances. (Form a queue on the right.)

Controversy presumably means sales for both The Sun and Doctor Who Magazine, and publicity for Barrowman - not a bad thing. On the obverse side, seems to me that playing this up as a bad thing caters to homophobia, which is a shame. Would anyone complain if Billie Piper called them sexy? Well, no - she has, and they didn't. So it goes.

Comments

[femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com]

The sun has it's head stuck so far up it's ass it's laughable.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

We have a local daily publication called The Sun, and it's even more stupid. It's a certain regrettable side of journalism that seems to exist everywhere.

[femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I find myself interested in how such bollox can sell...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

People love to be scandalized, even when there't nothing to be scandalized about. Innuendo is fun. Controversy is fun. Gossip is fun. So this sort of thing sells well.

[femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com]

I am ashamed of us as a race... geez. Such rubbish sells so well and yet good writing is hard to get hold of.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Just look at the lists of books on the best-seller lists, or the paperbacks being sold at the bus depots. Not just bad writing, but unintelligent thought.

Still: if the formula is that "90% of everything is crap", then there's still that 10% of good stuff we can treasure. And foster, as long as we can tell the difference.

[femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com]

That's true....

I keep saying...

[dewline.livejournal.com]

...that Ottawa needs a third, centre-left paper to editorially counter and kick-start both the Citizen and Sun into doing their best rather than their worst.

Re: I keep saying...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That would be a terrific thing for Ottawa. Are you too young to remember the Ottawa Journal? Back in those days I preferred the Citizen, but thinking back, both papers were better than the Citizen now is.

Sadly, this is an age in which print journalism is struggling to survive and tends to go various routes to do so: (a) sensationalism and mindlessness like the Sun, (b) free advertising-based handouts like the Metro, (c) respectable conservatism like the Citizen.

All are unsatisfactory.

A Good Third Ottawa Daily...

[dewline.livejournal.com]

...would, I hope, steal blatantly from the Toronto Star's Atkinson Principles (http://www.thestar.com/aboutUs/atkinson) while still operating as an independent paper. It shouldn't be owned by any chain.

Re: A Good Third Ottawa Daily...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I believe chain-newspapers are a really bad thing. I understand why it is economically efficient to operate that way, especially for those making a lot of money from newspaper production, but it's not a good thing for the product or the readers.

As to the Journal...

[dewline.livejournal.com]

...it doesn't predate my birth, but it does predate my arrival in Ottawa as a full-time resident. I've heard of it, seen the building it used to work out of...and I wonder what I've missed.

Re: As to the Journal...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was just another newspaper, not particularly remarkable, but it was from the days when journalistic integrity seemed more generally prominant than it is now, and there were fewer media venues for news, so papers were more inclusive and less prone to games and trivia.