If you haven't already heard, the Sikh Youth slate won yesterday, 13, 458 - 7, 257, in sports we call that a blow out, in Canadian media we call it a fundamentalist takeover.
I can see the interest that the media may have in such a thing, after all Sikhs ARE the face of Canada. We make up up an astounding 0.927% of Canada's population, and that's not even including all those living here illegally in Springdale and Surrey basements.
None the less the media loves us. More so they love to hate us. I probably wouldn't have looked twice or even noticed had I not read Jodha's post @ The Langar Hall, where he wrote a bit about the media interference throughout the election. Thinking maybe, just maybe it was an isolated incident, (after all, when has the media ever intentionally tried portray an entire community in a negative light?). I thought I'd do a quick scan of some of the major Canadian news outlets and see what they had to say on the matter.
To begin with we start with Global News:
Global doesn't even try to hide it. It's right there front and center, and if this was the Soprano's this is where Pauly looks at Tony, and asks "HA! Can you believe the balls on this guy."
The article reads a lot like listening to Iverson ranting about practice, except in Global's story they seem to have a real hard on for "fundamentalists". If you thought that was a bit one sided, then don't forget to check their actual video coverage on the whole ordeal.
Moving on, I checked out the CTV news website and was greeted by the article "Tradition trumps reform in Surrey Sikh election". Last I heard it was the old guys who lost and it was the youth who were coming in to reform things. Either way the rest of the article actually reads really well and I guess "traditional" is as good a word as any, but I won't dwell after all CTV's fundamental count was 0.
Next up was CBC who have come to have a weird love hate relationship with us. Considering the history that we have with them, it made for pretty anticlimactic reading and almost felt like a fair and an unbiased piece that one would expect from any self respecting news agency. While I won't hold my breath, it was a welcome surprise.
Moving onto the traditional news though, the Globe and Mail probably had the best of all the articles. Actually welcoming and covering the change, and making note of more then just the history that's plagued the Gurdwara itself. Finally someone in the news industry realized that this was about more then just dining furniture. Also to both the CBC and Globe's credit, they both remained scoreless with the whole "fundamnetal" count.
End of the day though, hating is all relative and to quote Humble the Poet:
but we talk about the haters
does that mean they hate the haters hate themselves hating, hater hating haters?
but don't don't they cancel each other out
but then the only hater is the hater....
