Metro says reports of graffiti went up by 237% between 2019 and 2022, notably in Ville‑Marie and the Plateau. Journo rounds it out with the inevitable Ensemble pearl‑clutching about how dreadful everything is.
I’m becoming curious how this works. Does Ensemble bombard all editors with demands that their view be heard? Are all journalism students so inculcated with the concept that their articles must include “balance” that they shove it in, even when the “balance” is content‑free and includes no insights or solutions?
Also, I notice here something I’m making an effort to notice, which is that a lot of stories are now being written about various local conditions and situations while totally ignoring the massive fact that we’re gradually emerging from three years of a pandemic – a pandemic which is not over, even if the worldwide emergency has been declared done by the WHO. People are already forgetting the huge wave of social stresses we’ve just lived through, and that you can’t fairly analyze a lot of situations without taking it into account. Like, for example, how it might bear on people expressing themselves through graffiti.
MarcG 08:19 on 2023-05-15 Permalink
To your first question I think that ‘content’ is the key word, not ‘balance’. They include it because it adds easily to the word count.
To the second point I think we’re looking at society-level PTSD denial.
Chris 09:49 on 2023-05-15 Permalink
“>…we’re gradually emerging from three years of a pandemic…
I notice you’re speaking in the present tense. Different people of course emerged at different rates, some long ago, some haven’t yet. Which means different people are at different points in the stages of grief. But the bulk of people, from what I see around me, have processed it already.
MarcG, in denial of what? I doubt anyone is in denial that pandemic curfews, unemployment, and idleness could result in more graffiti.
Perhaps the article didn’t speculate as to causes for the increase simply because there’s probably no hard evidence for any hypothesis, so they chose just to stick to the facts they could report (and opinions of politicians, idiotic or otherwise).