TV news obviously hates older folks

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/01/2017 (3564 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A growing number of fictional readers are approaching me in public and asking the following hard-hitting question: “Hey, Doug, how do you come up with all those entertaining yet educational column ideas?”

Most of the time I just shriek like a little girl and run away because they have startled me as I stand mesmerized in the frozen-food aisle trying to decide which flavour of Häagen-Dazs ice cream to buy for lunch.

But the more I think about it, the real answer is that I come up with ideas by relying on old-fashioned journalism techniques, such as going to my office cubicle, sitting down and staring at my computer.

That’s exactly what I did the other day, which is when I noticed a letter propped up on my keyboard. It was addressed to our audience development department, but, scrawled on the envelope, was the following message: “Story suggestion for Doug Speirs.”

Inside the envelope was a shocking letter from Donald Taylor of Minnedosa, Man. Normally I would not identify the sender, but I am confident Donald Taylor of Minnedosa, Man., will not mind because at the end of his note was this P.S.: “If my name was mentioned it wouldn’t bother me.”

Well, let me just say, thank you, Donald Taylor of Minnedosa, Man., for taking that courageous stand. And thank you for taking the time to write to me about a troubling issue that is threatening the very fibre of modern democracy.

But I do not wish to taint your opinions on this burning issue, so I will allow Donald Taylor of Minnedosa, Man., to present his concerns in his own words.

“The last few years I have noticed on television news when they show someone in the news and their name and title appears under them, it’s ridiculous how short a time they allow the viewer to read their name and title — about two seconds,” Donald’s letter pointed out.

“They all do it — CTV, CBC, Global, NBC, CBC, ABC. I’m 72 and I don’t believe that younger people today are setting the pace by reading such titles and names in a second-and-a-half.”

Donald said he does not experience this problem when reading the prologues on old movies, such as Gone With The Wind, but it is a different story with TV news.

“I have a 19-inch TV so many names and titles are shown too small for me to read well (my eyesight is good). What’s with all the tiny letters and then to add insult to injury having them appear on screen no more than a couple of seconds? To see someone on the news and wonder about their name and title it’s very frustrating to put up with this nonsense on all channels.”

Well, I have to tell you, Donald Taylor of Minnedosa, Man., I have been wondering for years when someone would finally have the courage to raise the issue of TV stations making it (bad word) impossible to read the names and titles of people on the news.

If I am going to be blunt, I believe Donald Taylor has stumbled on a massive conspiracy. There are many reasons why the TV news giants do not want viewers to be able to read the names and titles of interviewees.

For starters, they do not want us to know that they have no clue how to spell the names and titles of the people they feature on the news. I can forgive this. When I interview someone, they will carefully spell their name and title, but all I hear is this: “Hi, I’m Carlos blah blah the vice-consul of blah blah in the Latvian republic of blah blah blah.”

But there is a deeper and more sinister reason that TV news displays names in such tiny letters and for such brief periods of time. The truth is, the people in TV news hate you, by which I mean us, the millions of dorky viewers who would never in a million years be cool enough to appear on TV because — and you know this is true — we have hideously awful hairstyles, whereas the hip people on TV news programs have professionally styled haircuts coated in so many layers of hairspray they can deflect bullets.

The real tragedy, Donald Taylor of Minnedosa, Man., is that TV news programs are not the only ones taking part in this massive and largely unreported conspiracy. It is like an iceberg, underneath which is a bunch of really tiny frozen letters.

Recently, for example, I have begun to notice that, when I visit a restaurant and attempt to order food, I am unable to read the menu. Why? Because the words on menus are written in letters smaller than the single-cell organisms we used to study in high school biology.

“I will have the cheeseburger,” is what I always tell the waiter, even if I am in a Chinese restaurant, because I have forgotten to bring a magnifying glass to read the menu.

Young people do not have the same problem. This is because they spend all of their time staring down at their smartphones, reading secret texts written in letters smaller than the hearts of Canadian senators, then tapping out hip replies with their youthful fingers, which are the size and shape of parrot beaks.

Clearly, the time has come for brave older Canadians — yes, I am talking to you, Donald Taylor of Minnedosa, Man. — to take a stand on this burgeoning controversy.

We are going to have to come up with an action plan, which we can send to one another via email. If this plan is going to work, we will have to write our emails in huge typefaces, because otherwise I will just end up ordering the cheeseburger again.

Thank you again, Donald Taylor. Next week we’ll bravely tackle another cultural crisis — all those random hairs sprouting from our ears.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca