f !WIMT8YFMPRER% WEJtfEW1Y, MAY a 390,PADEI PAGE SEVEN VÃ"INN Til WONtLNFmm JICI/ CF $AUQICE' RI,91 not always a nice,,worldh A political demonstration i Trontoturns ugland --~ huides fyoung people storm up onge Stree., The media pounce like they wuz lickin' their chopa s~ /r for tis ine i Nova Scotia explodea, kiUling il . minera and -trapping 15 others. The ît eels. its citizens lu shock. Within houra, thé media descends like drunka at a free bar. Yet another young woman disappears. For weeks, the media follow the story, detail by gruesome detail. Acroas the nation, around the world, eventa tumble on one another like socks in a dryer., Media: Newspapers. (Firat of the modem media).7 r Television. (Favourite of ail.) Radio. -(The faatest.)- In physica, there is a principle that taika about the____________________________________l limit of what you can measure. Physicists can measure the speed or' a sub-atomic particle. Or, they can measure the position of a particle. But they can't measure both at the same time. on the road on a sunny mornig pointing the hair dryer> rtlour car. But ^by doingr se, she knocks your car four mlsover and one mie back. You get nailed for speeding but tbey can't find you te deliver the. ticket.-4 ï Leading to the deep bit of philoaophy: any attempt te measure something hanges the something itself. I the sixties, wt university protesta and anti-wa parades, .organizers soon noticed how participants acted differently as soon as TV cameras arrived on the scene. Whole careers have been forged by presenting and organizinglevents te attract media attention. Here's a horror scene, recounted years later with revulsion: a house fire in a amali community. A crowd gathers. Police and firefighiters control the 'crowd, ! ~ ~ btlthe blaze..A an upper window, 'visible te Hai,a child* acrearns in terrer The crowdreacts with chucides an smartassd commenta. WHI'BYw GSOHOOLCADETSAT v..DAY CLBRATION, MAY 8 1945 The witness, a yeung girl, runs home revolted by 'lierne adbe, too young yet to go to war, are lined pl front of the Cenotaphi as 'Victory in the crowdreaction. Europe, in the second world war was celebrated. Te students of Whitby achoolshad ýa, Sure, news emente, wiil always attract crowds., And holiday.and ail marched to the Cenotaph. the -media will report events that attract attention. . aIw &ivPoto (There'd be little poit in reporting something if nobody weuld read, watch or listen.) werld we have wreught. The media, like any other institution, bears close watching by informed citizens. But the same media some weuld-like to blame for eveuta we would rather diddt, happen, is the same media that cari bring us 100 YEARS -AGO some uuderstanding >fio= the Prda. ay 1.% 1892 edition of the When hooligans riet on the street, we watch ftom * ..Madoldhseece 6-ot lgEMbsie iBroki tr orteVcoi 0- living rooma, horrified. W.mdnlha rcda 0fo igoi eiehBSknsueerteema Wheu minera die, we watch, stunned. e onHm*ognu cf WhitbY' one Peter Sy was bon.be on May Mie When women disappear without a trace,, we watch father was65 years old and bis mother, 27. more caefuly those we love. Humphrey Coffey was arrosted for ' firtos drivg. Sometimes ites net a nice world eut there. But itfs * Fve or six Oshawa boys came te Whitby one night te get >drnk and decided te have a te only one we got. hore race on the main street. jL ,., 'Il