McHale's Media Antics (National Post)

John Oakley on the Media Antics of Gary McHale and George Smitherman

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/02/28/john-oakley-on-the-media-antics-of-gary-mchale-and-george-smitherman.aspx

Posted: February 28, 2008, 3:41 PM by Daniel Goldbloom

John Oakley

Increasingly, it seems, these days when someone sets out to address a contentious issue they resort to questionable media stunts. If you want to get ink, you’ve got to have a hook. On Sunday, Richmond Hill businessman, Gary McHale, not satisfied that the OPP have enforced the rule of law in the Caledonia standoff, takes his protest directly to the front yard of Commissioner Julian Fantino in Woodbridge. In the legislature, meanwhile, provincial Health Minister, George Smitherman proposes to wear an adult diaper, “as a matter of conscience”, he says, to get a firsthand sense of whether stewing in “three-quarter soaked” Depends really is an undignified hardship faced by our elderly in the province’s nursing homes. (With unintended irony, he promises to get to the bottom of this). As misguided as both men are in their theatrics, the resulting media attention will justify their dog and pony show because, at the end of the day, the public, as much as the media, are enguaged by stories that involve grandstanding, rather than getting bogged down in detail and facts.
John Oakley can be heard from 5:45 a.m.-10 a.m. EST Monday to Friday on AM 640 Toronto Radio