News and Music (2025)
Original text in English (if you are reading it in another language, it is an automatic translation).
I was listening to CBC’s The National the other day and was struck once again by the way some news segments are set to music. These expository reports are presented as longer pieces in a documentary style and draw on that genre to create musical atmospheres designed to move us in a particular way. I find this irritating, misleading, and frankly unnecessary. Do we really need an ambient soundtrack to accompany the unfolding story in Sudan? What purpose does the music serve? Is our attention span now so short that we require entertaining gimmicks to stay engaged for a five-minute segment? I think not!