Wha d'ya know?

A few years ago I saw (& heard) Coldplay play in Ottawa. The next day I read a review of the show in the paper and I was surprised - not because it was a favourable review, but because of how many of the details were misreported (e.g. misquotes). I'm not usually present where news worthy of media coverage happens - - but that time I was, and the reporting didn't match reality. Not enough to totally give a different picture of what went on . . . but enough inaccuracies to make me wonder. How much of what I read and hear and watch about things going on around the world are accurate? Is the information that's passed on to me solid enough to form opinions on?

This past weekend I watched an IMAX movie that the Ottawa Citizen gave 4 stars. (They gave Slumdog Millionaire 3.5 stars.) Imagine my disappointment when I witnessed some average oceanography (although in the IMAX format, anything can be pretty impressive . . . and give you motion sickness). It would be kind to call what I saw a cautionary tale about taking care of the environment. Less kind: thinly veiled global warming propaganda.

Another instance of me wondering how trustworthy my newspaper is.

The world is a fascinating place - and we have more and more access to information about it, and what's going on everywhere. What's going on on the other side of the planet is a lot more exotic than what's going on on my street. But is it more important? Depends. Is it more exciting? Maybe. Is it more meaningful? Hmmm. Is it more relevant to my life? Probably not.

Misplaced interest = knowing everything about what's going on in the world, but having no clue about the people and what's going on in my own neighborhood.

Cos maybe, after all, our sources of global information are getting it wrong anyway - or at best, dumbing things down. And . . . how can I understand the world without understanding my village?