No News?

Every morning while eating breakfast, I turn on my tablet and read the CBC news. Some mornings the top 10 new stories of the day are not that interesting. For example there was a bit of a dry spell when the Olympics were happening  (it is worth noting that the top ten stories seldom includes news from the Paralympic), but usually there are three or four items that are both interesting and informative.

While it may be somewhat unfair to make too many assumptions from the news items that are presented, I think if nothing else, which topics are chosen accurately reflect the editors perception of either what is important to readers or the length of their all too short attention span. A week ago the top story was what was happening in the Ukraine. Today there was nothing. Nothing. Which of course, leads me to wonder what is going on both in that country and in the minds of the editors.

There is no doubt that the situation in the Ukraine is very complicated. I suspect that for even people who live there it is confusing. Russia, like all imperialist powers, cannot seem to give up that sense of moral superiority that allows them to make absurd statement with absolute conviction ("we are just protecting our nationals who live there") while the whole world knows that it is just about protecting their access to  warm ports etc. for their navy. But is there a majority of people in some parts of the country who want closer ties to Russia? Do they have the right to separate from the rest of Ukraine? Ask a separatist from Quebec, or a Scottish Nationalist or a Basque.

It appears to have been a "peaceful" invasion. That is there has been no one killed. But none-the-less it has been an invasion. And of course other than some figurative sabre rattling, no one has done anything about it. And unless Russia does something incredibly stupid like shooting hundreds of civilians where there are western news cameras, I would bet dollars to donuts that no one will. After all we have not done anything substantial to assist the Syrians. Neil Macdonald, CBC's Senior Washington Correspondent wrote a great article a few days ago pointing out the hypocrisy of other world powers (most of who have also been imperialist in the past and at least one remains so) of complaining about Russia's activities.

I am not saying the "West" should do anything. I honestly don't understand all of the issues enough to be sure.  Before we can make decisions we need good reporting from unbiased sources (the CBC reporting has felt somewhat biased in terms of leaning towards the west). We need to have access to that information all of the time, not just when editors think we want it or can "handle it".

It is insulting for the editors that I either have the attention span or the intelligence of a gnat. We the public deserve better than that.