Mean Texts II
Reaction to our first CJBK Mean Texts video was terrific, so we are back with a second instalment. …
Social Marketing
I’m No Lady
On Sunday, I received a forwarded email from the head of a racist/white supremacist political party who shall go unnamed. (I don’t want any link to their name on this site.) The President of this awful group was advising members about how to deal with radio talk show hosts. He basically said that talk show hosts are puppets for corporate masters who want to ruin the white race by promoting race-mixing. It was incredibly insulting to broadcasters. It advised the faithful (racists) to see through us and keep calling, using fake names, to get on the air and spew. …
The Reality of Fake News
A couple of weeks ago, The Toronto Star’s Public Editor nailed it in an editorial on an issue that’s been bugging me but I didn’t quite click the Lego pieces together as well as she did. The gist is this: there’s a misunderstanding about what fake news is. …
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Spam I Am
It’s been some time since I last shared some of my favourite spam. Spammers are getting craftier about trying to slip past the gates of my website comments and onto the live pages. They’re easily identified by their names and fake email addresses, terrible grammar and awkward phrasing. But the fake praise they pile in a heap is worth sharing! …
Tables Turned on Meanies
Imagine if someone was let into your workplace specifically to tell you what a bad job they thought you were doing. They responded to your every move in a negative way and repeated, often using foul language, how unqualified or unfit you were do be in your position. They made blanket statements and assumptions and battered you with their verbal assaults. Imagine also that you had no idea who they were. Their identity was hidden. That’s what it’s like to be a host in talk radio. …
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Sketchy Giveaways
Four framed sketches of well-known places in London, rescued from a junk pile when CFPL moved from the Free Press building to City Centre many years ago, recently came off my studio/office wall and had no place else to go. They’re not signed, which is unfortunate, because they’re beautifully drawn. …
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Blue Monday
This is it. It’s the third Monday in January, the day of the year when our emotions hit rock bottom and we’re at our most depressed. The idea is that the holidays are over and the flurry of activity suddenly stops. Christmas bills start coming in. It’s cold and the sun doesn’t want to show itself. If you’re feeling this way, you’ve got lots of company. Mental health experts estimate up to 10% of Canadians get the genuine winter blues. …
Sad Sinking Sears
Soon, Sears points will be offered on a carton of eggs and a block of cheese. The struggling retailer is getting into the already crowded grocery game. It’s an admitted act of sheer desperation to save Sears but they don’t have a product problem, they have a marketing problem. …
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Site Rules
For me, last week’s celebration and goodbye for Erin Davis was also a mini-reunion with many of my former colleagues. For more than three years – although it feels like the blink of an eye – I was the newscaster on the CHFI morning show and, for a time, filled in for Erin as cohost when she was on vacation. After I moved down the hall to 680 News, I still saw those great folks all the time. …
Go Fund Yourself
How did Go Fund Me and other crowd-funding websites become about securing some extra cash from strangers? They used to have legitimate reasons such as raising money for non-profit ventures. Then some guy crowdfunded his potato salad as a joke and people gave him $50,000. Now you can start a fund for just about anything. …
Attack Ideas and Not People
Perhaps you’ve read a self-help book or two about how to argue. Maybe you’ve taken a class or been in marriage counselling or took another type of conflict resolution lesson. So, you know that the number one rule is to focus on how you feel, and not to attack the other person. And you separate the behavior from the individual. “I love you Timmy, but I don’t love that you hired that hooker!” …
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Uniformity
I can’t count how many times I’ve forgotten what I wore to work earlier in the week. Or the day before. Or earlier that same day. Sometimes I have to check the laundry basket to confirm it. It’s partly because of chronic fatigue. I could organize my closet in such a way that my outfits would rotate evenly, but I don’t. …
The Last F***ing Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need
The gist of the latest darling of the self-help world’s advice is just stop caring about things that don’t matter. Um, I mean, stop giving a f***. …
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Did You Adult Today?
Adulting is now a word. And adulting is hard. How does one adult? You did it today. You got up and faced Monday despite not really wanting to. That’s adulting. …
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The Ointment Fly
Recently, someone in our industry died and social media was filled with tributes to him. From my first introduction to him in the early 80’s, to our last encounter at Rogers radio in Toronto, I didn’t have a good experience with this person. Ever. So I simply stayed out of it and didn’t comment. It was as if they were all talking about someone I’d never met. …
Judging a Book
One thing I’ve never been called, is a best-selling author! I have written four books and they’ve all had varying degrees of minor success. My most popular book, The Naked Truth, continues to sell a few dozen copies each month. Every author dreams of best-seller status, but a book marketer in Texas decided to expose the notion of what that means these days. …
What’s In the Middle
This week, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. burned up the Twitterverse with a post about his favourite sandwich. You remember Elvis’s ‘nana and peanut butter? Try banana and mayonaisse on white bread! …
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