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EDITORIAL: President Trumped

With her impassioned acceptance speech during the Golden Globe Awards earlier this week, Oprah Winfrey managed to pull off something considered unthinkable just a day earlier.
10136410_web1_170425-PQN-M-PQN-Commentary

With her impassioned acceptance speech during the Golden Globe Awards earlier this week, Oprah Winfrey managed to pull off something considered unthinkable just a day earlier.

For one breathless and heavily dissected new cycle, she managed to knock U.S. President Donald Trump out of the headlines.

Maybe that’s because, as pundits immediately latched onto, the speech sounded presidential. Which is a description rarely applied to the Twitter storm emanating from the White House, or Trump Tower, or Mar-a-Lago resort, or whatever golf course the actual president is stomping across at the moment.

Putting aside the wisdom of elevating — or demoting? — yet another media mogul to the “highest office in the land,” we’re just disappointed in how easily Oprah’s Golden Globe speech overshadowed the postponement of an equally anticipated awards spectacular.

President Trump had promised the unveiling of his Most Dishonest & Corrupt Media Awards, to recognize the most egregious peddlers of “fake news” in 2017, on Monday, Jan. 8. The Fakies, as they were quickly dubbed, had created a buzz of anticipation, as well as a cadre of journalists and late-night talk hosts who promptly lobbied for one of the awards in snarky social media posts. Stephen Colbert even purchased a Times Square billboard to pitch his case for a Fakie.

Alas, shortly before Oprah accepted her statuette and trumped the tweeter-in-chief, the president — what else? — tweeted that the Fakies would be postponed until next Wednesday, Jan. 17.

The B.C.-Yukon Community Newspaper Association, of which The NEWS is a member, is currently accepting entries into its own annual awards, for the best community news coverage in the province for 2017. There’s no truth to the rumour it includes an award category for fake news.

It’s unlikely President Trump will single out this newspaper or any other Canadian media outlet for one of his Fakies. Actually, we wonder how a guy whose attention span has been described as non-existent for anything that doesn’t have Fox News crawling across its screen even came up with his short list of nominees.

What we do know is that whatever Trump does, whenever he does it, will draw the laserlike focus of the U.S. and world media. Whether Oprah’s speech portends a run for office or is just another bit of “fake” expectations, the distraction was welcome.

— Parksville Qualicum Beach News