News report gets bad review

And Spruce Capital Feeds sells its horse in the sky. Read to the end for a moose and a meme

December 12, 2023

Yesterday one of the admins of Hell Yeah Prince George posted this about a recent report on a food inspection that was published in the Prince George Citizen:

First, let me make it clear — this post is not about the restaurant. I’ve eaten there, I’ve enjoyed it, I’m sure I’ll eat there again as I have at other restaurants that have had poor health reports and later fixed them — as this particular restaurant has, which I know because I read about it in the Citizen.

No, the thing that gets me about this post — and many of the comments that followed it — is how at the same time they are urging people to support local businesses rather than tear them down a lot of the same people are tearing down a local business which happens to be the newspaper or, even more ironically, the media as a whole.

So just to review the facts of what happened.

  1. Health authorities are given the job of inspecting restaurants for proper hygeine, cooking and food storage techniques. They post their findings publicly.

  2. The Citizen has, for years, been posting write-ups about those inspections — both when there are negative ratings and when those ratings improve (or not) after follow-up inspections, in bulletin-style reports.

  3. That is exactly what happened here — they published a short report about the initial inspection and a followup report when it happened. The headline didn’t even mention the restaurant name. This is, again, sticking with the formula that has been in place for years. Here’s the report’s in question headline:Here’s one from earlier this year:Here’s another:Heck, they even use the same generic image on every single one of them:

Now, you can debate whether these reports should be published, by Northern Health or the Citizen, if you like — I certainly sympathize with people trying to run a business having their failings made public — though I also understand that people may wish to know, for example, if staff aren’t sanitizing their hands or food preparation stations, which was also happening in this case (and, again to emphasize, that issue has since been fixed). Everyone will have their own opinions on this, and that’s fine, but let’s at least establish a baseline that the practice of reporting on these restaurant inspections has been in place at the Citizen, for a long period of time and they follow a consistent formula of generic headline, generic stock image of restaurant, straightforward report on inspection findings, and a similarly straightforward report on the followup inspection, when it happens.

Now, let’s go back to this post in Hell Yeah Prince George and see how people are treating not just the Citizen, but the media in general:

There’s also references to the paper deciding to make it a “major news story”:

This is one of those things that kind of drives me nuts in the internet age. There was a time when media outlets really could at least try to decide what would be a “big” story and what wouldn’t be. The big stories would run on the front page with the big headlines or at the top of the TV newscast. And to a certain extent that still exists, but have you seen a front page of a newspaper lately, or tuned in to a TV newscast? If you’re like most news consumers, probably not (although you are also people who read this newsletter, so who knows?). For the most part, every story is just one piece of content swooping past readers on aggregation apps or whatever social media feeds still let you see news, alongside memes and photos and whatever else, or if you happen to visit an actual media page, just a list of stories in reverese-chronological order.

So what is it that made this a “big” story? It’s not how the Citizen decided to make it “blow up” by how they presented or packaged it, because they have presented and packaged a good dozen of stories in almost exactly the same way over the past year. No, it was a big story because people read it and people shared it. Why? I don’t know and I won’t try to guess. But I do know it was one of the most-read stories on the Citizen page for a couple days because, for whatever reason, people wanted to read it. This was a decision of the community, not of the Citizen — or “the media” — to try and make it a bigger story than it was. I’m sure the few reporters left at that paper would have been equally, if not more, happy if the audience had decided to make one of their more deeply-reported stories trend. But the audience decided this formula-following bulletin-style story was something they cared about, so that’s what happened.

AGAIN, I think it’s fair to debate whether these inspection reports should be publicly posted at all, just as I think you can debate whether police should release the names of suspects before they get a chance at a trial or if teachers should get their names published if they commit non-criminal offenses. Everyone will have their own view, and the debates happen in all sorts of newsrooms. But what bothers me is seeing how many people are comfortable deciding “the media” is bad because of a made-up version of how this story was covered by one newspaper that has been consistently reporting these sorts of stories in the same way for a while, and equally printing the follow-up reporting, as well. It’s fair to debate what happened, but let’s debate what actually happened. That’s all.

I feel really bad for this trucker

Highway 97 was closed north of Prince George for about nine hours yesterday. One person was taken to hospital in stable condition, thank goodness for that, but it was clearly a bad crash and RCMP and DriveB.C. emphasized the road would be closed for a long time. But as evidenced by the highway cams, some people waited:

And waited…

And waited…

Until it reopened and they continued their drive. I really hope they were only on their way to Bear Lake or maybe Mackenzie and not further on.

Spruce Capital Feeds is getting sold

Thanks to reader Heather for alerting me to this. Spruce Capital Feeds, who have giant billboards advertising the fact they sell boots and have radio ads urging people to look for “the horse in the sky” has been sold off:

May be an image of lumberyard and text

It is with mixed emotions that we announce to you today that Spruce Capital Feeds has entered into an agreement to sell our retail Ag business in Prince George, BC to Four Rivers Co-op.

This business is so important to us, and we are proud that it has become a staple for work wear, western wear and ag customers in our community over the past 50 years. This was not a light decision for our team and we are excited to welcome the challenge. We would like to give the most sincere thanks to to our loyal customers that have become friends and family, the clubs and organizations we have worked with, and absolutely everyone who has dealt here throughout the years. We would not be able to do this without the support from our community. As always, don't forget to look for "The Horse in the Sky."

The post goes into the details of why they made the decision they did and what comes next. I am not a regular shopper at Spruce Capital Feeds (not exactly its target audience) but it is one of those places that seems to just have a bit of everything based on what its customers have requested over the years and keep coming back for, and I certainly hope that feel remains under the new ownership. I am glad the horse will still be there.

Don’t make me tap the sign again

Look, I’m going to hold off on most of my budget stuff until next year but the city posted a warning that there will likely be a tax increase again, with people complaining about it. Putting aside the fact that we all knew this was coming years ago when a majority, but all, of council decided to simply throw all of its available one-time COVID-funding money at the structural problem of the city spending more money than it brings in, I am again compelled to post this simplistic, yet accurate, formula for what it takes to live in a city:

Quick news:

May be an image of 6 people and text that says 'Welive We live in Pg BHones Be Honest I'm being honest Where do we live? We live up the Hart There you yougo.. go..'

Today’s song:

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