The Bruce Report

I have no personal beef with the Globe and Mail’s daily pre-Olympic coverage. If it wants to make a complete imbecile of its corporate self, who am I to stand in its fawning, self-important way?

            But a page three feature on torch relay snowsuits? Come on. Was that really necessary? So thinks Amy Verner, the fashion reporter who scribbled this gem in the February 1st edition: “More than 130 recycled pop bottles went into making each uniform”. And this: “Because the uniform is unisex, many girls cut the standard round-neck t-shirt collars to make them more flattering.” And this: “The yellow patches are problematic when it comes to dirt.”

            You don’t say? Or, more accurately, I wish you wouldn’t. Anymore.

            The otherwise venerable newspaper, which employs some of the sharpest journalists in the country, raised more than a few eyebrows last year when it assigned its editor-in-chief John Stackhouse and three columnists, Gary Mason, Roy MacGregor and Stephen Brunt, to carry the Olympic torch and then record their thoughts for posterity.

            Here’s some of what Mason wrote in his ode: “The torch lit an Olympic spark in me. As I started running, it felt, well, strangely wonderful. Around me were Canadians of every description: babies in strollers, teenagers in early Halloween garb, seniors draped in flags. Their cheers were deafening.”

            Were they, Gary? Were they really. . .you know, deafening?

            But the more interesting question was why these guys were pimping themselves out to the games’ organizers and sponsors to spread the canned messages of patriotism, duty and camaraderie.

Brunt told critics to take a pill, pointing out that this was all “part of the machinery of the Olympic Games. . .I hate to break people’s hearts and tell them there’s no Santa Claus.”

            Yeah, and we know it doesn’t snow in Vancouver, either, and those ski moguls are actually made of straw. But does that mean we must be constantly reminded that money, not athletics, makes these games go round?

Canadians are not naïve. Still, most do expect a certain dispassionate impartiality from journalists (even commentators). Otherwise, how can they trust what they’re reading is factual or honest?

What if, for example, Gary Mason felt differently than he apparently did about his torch run? What if all the babbling babes and teary grandmothers left him cold? What if he had, instead, recorded his thoughts this way: “The torch sparked a royal pain in my derriere. As I started hobbling, my sciatica began acting up, and I wanted to scream at all those fools blocking the road to get the hell out of my way before I shove. . .”

Well, you get the sentiment. But do you think you’d ever get to read it?

As William Houston, himself a former Globe columnist before drinking the early-retirement Koolaid recently, aptly observes on his blog, “The relay is, after all, an IOC marketing initiative. And the Globe [staffers] will be in Vancouver covering the Games. Just how independent will they be after joining the IOC promotional machine? Journalists are supposed to keep their distance, to be separate from the issues and events they cover, but the torch relay isn’t in any way separate from the Games. It’s part of the Olympic package.”

So, it seems, is Canada’s national newspaper which, in addition to its breathless feature on snowsuits yesterday, published an eight-page section (not “special report” or “advertising supplement”) entirely devoted to “Vancouver 2010”.

Perhaps it’s too much to expect the old separation of journalistic church from corporate state anymore. Maybe we’ve travelled too far down the road of multi-media mergers and acquisitions and Web 2.0 synergies to ever go back. I don’t know. Can Amy Verner’ headline writer shed some light on the matter?

“So far, all eyes in the relay have been on the torchbearer’s uniform. But behind the scenes, the 200 members of the VANOC, RBC and Coca-Cola torch relay teams sport their own official garb.”

You don’t say?

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