Here's to you, Mr. Medel

If you work in journalism it's only a matter of time before you have to write an embarrassingly cheesy story. As long as people keep building homeless shelters or finding new modes of transportation on which to cross the country for sick children it can't be helped.

CTV had a great example a couple months back when they did a story on some New Brunswick woman who went to Israel and took a picture of Jesus. Allegedly.

She shot some fountain and later discovered the photo came out with a bright halo-type blur in the foreground. Naturally she assumed the son of God was lurking around and chose to reveal himself via lens flair to a cheap Canon camera (which is silly. Everyone knows Jesus lurks around us revealing himself in high-pitched sounds only dogs can hear.)

I thought this was kind of cool because the same thing happened to me a few years earlier. It was St. Patrick's day I think. I took a picture of my friend Petra and later discovered she was partially obscured by a glowing, circular light. Like any rational person I realized that the wrist strap of my camera had flipped in front of the lens, caught the flash and reflected back. But had I known Petra and I could have gotten on TV by claiming Christ Almighty had come back to chill with us in lens flair form I definitely would have.

I think I deleted the original photo but here's a sort of similar example, it's really quite common.

From Left to Right: Heather White, wrist-strap Jesus, Myra Bloom

I know a lot of people are still mad at CTV anchor Steve Murphy since the whole Dion language-screwing incident, but on this day he possessed the acting chops of a chubbier Daniel Day-Lewis. Though this woman was stupid even by New Brunswick standards, he sat and nodded politely, even seeming genuinely interested.

Somewhere out there Stephane Dion was laughing maniacally (in french).

This week the bad story baton was handed to Chronicle Herald reporter Brian Medel, widely considered Southern Nova Scotia's Hemingway.

Tuesday's story by Medel (or whoever wrote it first. Medel is most well known for being a serial plagiarist who the Herald continues to employ despite laying off many of their best repoters a few months ago) was about a rural Nova Scotian guy who writes poetry about Sidney Crosby. Here's the lede:

"The 1970s produced Rhymin' Paul Simon.
The 21st century has Rhymin' Paul Blauvelt. He can't help it.
Watching Sidney Crosby stickhandle his way up and down the ice keeps this fan so captivated that he just has to express himself by writing poetry about it all."

Wow, kicking it off by calling the guy the Paul Simon of the whole 21st century. Simon of course being one of the greatest songwriters of all time and known for his beloved lyrics from the profound - "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the sounds of silence" - to the whimsical - "Who am I to blow against the wind?"

So no pressure. Let's see some examples, courtesy of Medel. From Blauvelt's poem You're The Man, Sidney:

"This goes to show that hard work pays off if one holds on to their dream
It wasn't anything shot of amazing watching the penguins gel as a team."

And from an earlier poem:

"I think God looked down on Nova Scotia from His portals up in Heaven.
He said, 'I'm going to send them a superstar who will wear the number 87.'"

OK, not exactly 'angels in the architecture' level stuff here, but at least they rhyme and have almost the same number of syllables. Maybe we need to see a longer passage to get the full effect. Here's an excerpt from the story of Blauvelt's poem National Treasure, Provincial Gem:

"If he steers clear of injuries
He will only get better with age.
It's time we got some profile
On the national stage"

and

"We've produced other great players.
Please don't take this the wrong way,
But you don't come across players
Like Sidney Crosby every day."

Rhyming "players" with "players" eh? Bold choice. So why is this stuff in our Paper of Record instead of on some junior high kid's Myspace page? I guess it just goes to show how irrationaly in love people are with Sidney Crosby.

There was that story during the provincial election campaign where politicians removed their campaign signage from beneath a "Cole Harbour: Home of Sidney Crosby" sign because some irate wacko put up a "respect our hero!" sign.

Used to be you needed to do something vaguely brave or heroic or at least be a volunteer firefighter to be called a hero. Now playing hockey apparently qualifies you. The Herald isn't even trying to disguise their desperate yearning to french kiss Sid. They're busy pimping their 12-page souvinir edition of Crosby's Stanley Cup parade complete with a poster and online video wrap-up.

They're even handing out Mission Accomplished signs at the parade. Sure, ever since George Bush the term has become a symbol of over-confidence and hubris. Why not just hand out photoshopped pictures of Crosby swimming in the harbour with Peter Kelly? But whatevs, Sidney Crosby!!

Just another great day for the media. As for Brian Medel and Paul Blauvelt, let's end off with some advice from Paul Simon:

"Want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen."