Not a new phenomenon, just edging further down the slippery slope, away from quality information and towards oblivion.

I concluded that CBC news was on its way to becoming a lost cause when years ago Peter Mansbridge started replacing "the" with "that" in opening sentences of news items. Like, "when we come back, more about that forest fire north of The Pas." Really even before that, when they started putting ads into the news. Remember when there used to be 20 minutes of solid news, and then a big hoopla when they decided to put ads 10 minutes into The National? The start of selling out.

Some of the local (radio) news is still decent; I rarely see TV news, partly because I rarely watch TV that isn't DVR-ed so I can skip the commercials, so my programs never end at the top of the hour. But face it, a big corporation is not where one finds much beyond the corporation's own truth. CBC was nice while it lasted.

About US entertainment gossip posing as news--well Uncle Sam wanted to annex Canada back in the mid-1800s but Confederation and building of the CPR snafu-ed that, so maybe now finally they've figured out how to get their wish: First numb the minds...