As one would expect, people being people, several of them went out of their way to bring the less than complimentary article in the February 22 2007 UCFV Cascade about the Salvation Army to my attention. They seemed very disappointed by my reaction “The future of journalism is sooooooo dim!!”

Ironically the February 26th edition of the somethingcoolnews.ca would contain an article by me on the terrible reporting I saw on Global’s Noon Hour News. This was not the first piece/letter to the editor I have written on this topic and given the flood of just plain BAD journalism these days it will be far from the last – as evidenced by this piece.

Those who have witnessed my reaction know that I find the fact we are being inundated with shoddy, deficient reporting at a time and on topics were full, accurate public knowledge is needed in order to make intelligent decisions extremely aggravating and very, very frustrating. A public constantly misinformed by the media presents an educational challenge that must be overcome before we can begin to address our society’s problems. Another layer, another barrier added to beginning to solve complex pressing social problems such as homelessness, addiction and poverty. This deluge of outright terrible journalism is adding to the problem at a time we desperately need accurate, thoughtful and insightful journalism to give people facts and a true picture of the state of affairs.

So I write to the reporters and editors to express my thoughts not so much because I expect them to change (although one can always hope) but to relieve my frustration and because if we, the victims of this inferior journalism, do not protest we surrender all hope for decent reporting. I really have no expectations of reply or that they will publish these critiques, but then with the internet there are venues to share it with the public and faithful readers. I must acknowledge that the Abbotsford – Mission Post did publish my letter to them – unedited and in its long entirety. Based on reading it weekly the post seems to be trying to live up to its rather lofty stated Editorial Policies.

Unfortunately for readers and those who pay for the publication the UCFV Cascade seems to have no such lofty editorial standards or policies. From Ms Bois article it would appear their requirements are a) it fill the blank space on the page; b) it permit the abuse of one of the target’s print ads to fill an even bigger blank space on the page and c) it permit the placing of a flashy, eye-catching “expose” insert on the front page in a desperate bid to “move the paper off the strand’. Just as an aside vis-à-vis the “expose” it would appear that either the Cascade lacks a dictionary or perhaps just anyone capable of using a dictionary.

Personally, if I had been editor the space would have remained empty with the caption: “Our apologies, the article scheduled for this space was unfit to print”.

For obvious reasons of common sense there is a policy of no dogs on the property, especially necessary in light of a cliental under the influence of behaviour changing substances. Ms Bois may choose to argue that the dog is “a nice gentle animal”. This is the type of quote that hacks in commercial, “if it bleeds it leads” journalism always hunt someone down to say after a child has been savaged by said “nice doggy”. With the state of journalism these days if you cannot attack your target for causing a vicious dog attack, you can always criticize their anti-dog policy.

Unfair but then fairness was notably absent from this article. Fairness would have required that she make it clear that the whiner was not refused food as implied, but was given hearty soup, bread, dessert and pretty much a bottomless cup of coffee. Several times a week there is a meal provided for a $1, giving those on very limited budgets a chance to purchase a change from soup. In fairness to everyone, if you choose to spend your money on other things than the meal you get soup.

When personally lacking the dollar, through my own choices, I never felt/feel slighted, it was and is fair. Fairness also causes me to sympathize with the volunteers if, after 20 people have spent several minutes each arguing they are so special the rules apply to everyone but them and then cursing them as terrible human beings when they enforce the rules, if a volunteer gets a little snippy. In fact I often find myself apologizing for the oaf’s behaviour and thanking them for volunteering since I appreciate that without the volunteers the meals, the café and many other services could not function. They voluntarily give their time and far too often I am left wondering just how crazy they are to continue to volunteer given how often they are verbally abused by clients.

They are human beings and so yes politeness, asking instead of demanding, please, thank you and just plain good manners can result in them preferring to help, even go out of their way to help, a person demonstrating basic civility over a person screaming obscenities in their face while demanding T-bone steak for dinner, that their every demand be immediately met and asserting that they are the point around which the Universe must revolve. Karma: good behaviour is rewarded, bad behaviour has a cost. Excuse me if I do not find this Balance upsetting.

Although, considering Ms Bois contacted her target just before the Cascade’s deadline expecting them to drop everything and meet her needs NOW, she may not even find “the universe revolves around me” attitude anything but normal behaviour. No, blithely tossing off “Unfortunately my attempts to arrange … did not succeed” is not acceptable journalism when it a) involves a deadline that is for the writers convenience and is unrealistically short and b) there is no reason to rush the story into print.

But then this attack was not about being balanced. If it was Ms Bois would not be demanding special treatment for some (exemption from the dog ban, accepting 75 cents for $1 meal) while taking away the rights of others (the right not to be bitten by a dog or even having to worry about that; that everyone pays the $1 you did for your meal) and then a few paragraphs latter accusing the target of giving special treatment to some. Either argue for or against special treatment but be consistent and include an explanation for why the special treatment. I for one would be interested to know upon what basis Ms Bois thinks it equitable or ethical treatment to charge those who spend their money on things other than the meal less than those who save up to treat themselves to the meal as opposed to the plainer soup that everyone can have.

I do concede that Ms Bois was very consistent in whom she spoke with, searching out those who have a bone(s) to pick or conflict with the target organization of the article and avoiding anyone with positive experiences or things to say. This kind of unbalanced, negative research is what spreads misinformation and establishes stereotypes such as all homeless are lazy drug using bums. The lack of balance and its focus on the negative also leads to the kinds of gross factual errors the article contained.

Perhaps it was simply laziness that prevented a simple google search or a search of local newspaper articles would have turned up: a) reports on the extreme weather plan, resulting in the shelter stuffed to overflowing b) articles and letters about how full the shelter is and the large number of people turned away because the shelter was already not only full but overfull.

Even simpler would have been a little footwork. It is not as though the target organization is clandestine or hard to find. Giving the writer access to the best evidence of all, personal observation. Drop in and observe, better yet volunteer to see just what they face day-in and day-out. Of course this course of action would have entailed the high risk of meeting those who have good things to say or seeing some of the truths staff and volunteers see, face and deal with daily.

Perhaps it would seem that basing a judgement on the future of journalism on this one article is against common sense, unfair and unbalanced – but entirely in keeping with Ms Bois reporting. Sigh. The future of journalism is so dismal. I should have expected something along these lines after all, to adapt from the Tao of James, “When you think you have reached rock bottom journalistically with articles that were unfit to see the light of day, someone will write an article to prove you wrong.”

The changeeverything.ca website had a poll on environmental change and tipping points which got me wondering if societies have a tipping point. Is there a point at which the imbalances within a society become so pronounced that a massive rebalancing with its attendant “natural disasters” is unavoidable?

At this point in considering this question I am not exactly sure what such a rebalancing would look like, but it would undoubtedly be chaotic with a frightening potential for violence.

In previous generations there was the promise and real opportunity of improving ones life, especially for your children. This current generation will be the first generation getting less from their parent’s generation than their parents received form the grandparent’s generation. Where once the future held the promise of the stars, for current and future generations it now promises only a shrinking world and increasing competition for evermore scarce and costly resources.

There are also the far-reaching economic, environmental and sociological effects of climate change being bequeathed to the future.

A fair and balance society would have the flexibility to deal with and adapt to the changing world, to the stresses and strains of a diminished and diminishing future. Unfortunately our society and social structure has become imbalanced as never before in our history as a nation. What is it that leads me to conclude our society is so out of balance that we, as a society, need be concern about redressing the balance before anarchy erupts in the form of class warfare?

The wealth of the nation has become concentrated in the hands of a small percentage of the population and that concentration continues to increase.

Upward mobility is fast becoming a concept of the past except for a lucky few who in effect “strike it rich”. Prior to this time hard work and effort held out the promise of an improved economic situation. In Vancouver today there is an entire group of workers who even though working full (or over) time cannot afford housing the city they work in. This is also holds true in Abbotsford where I am aware of those forced to live homeless by hard, cold economic reality. Their housing and other choices narrowed and complicated by the fact they are working full time.

Other working people find themselves being ground down into homelessness and poverty by groaning debt loads. Yes a portion of that debt burden is often the result of poor money management, but all to much of it stems from the onerous cost of housing.

Despite our pretence of being a classless society we are becoming a class society – an economic class society.

I. The privileged moneyed class whose power is a function of their control over the wealth of the nation.

II. The operating class, those whose education, skills and talents are needed for the operation of society and by the moneyed class.

III. The working class, the drones who perform the day-to-day labour required to run society. Kept in a kind of debt slavery but their large, sometimes overwhelming debt owed to the moneyed class.

IV. The throwawayclass. The boogeymen and women whose spectre is used to keep the workers in line. Increasingly these days the very real fear of falling into this class serves to drive and distract the working class drones.

Just a few decades ago the distribution of people from poorest to richest was more of a continuum: poorest ………………………………………….richest.

The above continuum held the inherent promise of an ability to move upwards (or downwards) along the continuum. During the past few decades this continuum, with its promise of moving up the continuum, has begun to break-up and form “economic planets” around points I – IV above. Like the planets of our solar system these “economic planets”, or classes, are separated by wide distances with their current orbital trajectories taking them further away from each other over time.

The old adage “The rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer” has never been truer. Except that currently “the poor” has expanded to include the working class, not just those living in poverty. Even the most basic shelter has become so costly that our streets are being inhabited by people working full time, even overtime, but still unable to afford shelter.

The middle class as we knew it is an endangered species having all but disappeared. Along with this many are facing the disappearance of retirement, facing the need to continue working or face the real risk of a descent into poverty, homelessness and finding themselves joining the growing ranks of retirees depending on the Salvation Army and their local Food Bank for their daily bread.

We have become a society of economic classes with the differences between these economic classes growing. As the separation between the classes grows the economic fairness, indeed the fairness of our society itself is decreasing at a faster and faster pace becoming more pronounced and in your face day by day.

How much unfairness can our society contain before it begins to come apart at its seams, along the splits between the classes? At what point does society have lost so much cohesion that it begins to fly apart?

At a time when circumstances in the world are placing increased strain on Canadian society, when we need to pull together as a society and country as never before, we are becoming less of a society – indeed in many ways less Canadian.

These increasing internal and external stresses are beginning to tear at the fabric of our society, pulling us apart. If we sit around ignoring this reality because it is uncomfortable and unpleasant we will find our society has become uncivil to the point where a form of civil war between the classes inescapably breaks out.

A rebalancing of the economic class structure we have allowed to be born will be uncomfortable, especially dealing with wealth concentration where the wealth of Canada needs to be spread more fairly throughout all levels of Society. Will we achieve this rebalancing in a Canadian manner or wait until chaos erupts? How close are we to the societal tipping point? Have we passed the point where we can have any control over the rebalancing of economic and societal fairness? Is economic warfare between the classes now inevitable?