GTA Trendwatch #5: Deadening trees

Going into the 21st century, the media had become its own favourite topic. But who would’ve imagined, five years later, that even the mightiest of old-fashioned broadsheets – which cleverly underwrites this website – would be chronicling its own endangerment? While all this flux should prove pretty thrilling for those who land on the right side of a rethink, the GTA somehow continues to generate a weekly slew of words on newsprint, too. Nonetheless, the increased amount of invasive advertising via trash bins, public restrooms and spam voicemail must indicate a diminishing appetite for marketing messages planted alongside stories about what happened yesterday. The launch of Dose was accompanied by all sorts of CanWest buzzblather concerning "multiple platforms" and "user-generated content", but it quickly proved an inconsequential hybrid of alt-weekly and lad mag. (A more entertaining source of bi-monthly smudge, the no-budget Toronto Special, puts the "hyper" in hyperlocal journalism in the form of alarmist retro-tabloid.) The fantasy of a critical mass of citizens hovering over their keyboards, waiting to produce a new and improved version of the daily news, has turned out fairly hollow around here. Mercifully, what’s emerging are fresher methods of professionalism, where audiences have a greater capacity to influence the finished product, or tune out altogether. And those of us addicted to the incessant information flow should remember that if you switch things off for a bit, the news cycle will be there when you get back. Problem is, it’ll never remain exactly the way you left it.