A great year-end idea

The season of news media year-end lists has arrived again, just in time to fill space in all those late December editions when there is no real news around. Newsmaker of the year, athlete of the year, intriguing person of the year, and so on, and on, and on. Still, everybody loves lists, so here's our modest contribution: A nomination for non-news story of the year, a category whose time has truly come. A top-five list of candidates was posted earlier this month here, and all the picks make sense. In Canada, though, nothing can top the nearly endless reports on the likelihood of another federal election. By my count, there were at least three major rounds of speculation in the Canadian media this year about the Harper government falling, or pulling the plug, and sending us all to the polls again. Little, or nothing was reported on how voters felt about this possibility, but the politicians clearly sensed the public's unhappiness with this prospect because in each crisis, they ended up stepping back from the brink, for fear of being punished. This left all those national press gallery election-mongers looking pretty foolish. That's pretty much the definition of a non-story. So, to all you hawks in Ottawa, please accept the first Chicken Little Award, with egg yolk custer, for your all your fine work. Next time, try asking somebody outside Ottawa if an election actually makes sense before you jump to the conclusion that there is going to be one.