By Jim Hagarty
2005
Allan Cutler, the Canadian civil servant who tried to blow the whistle on a major government scandal years ago and almost lost his career for having done so, made the news on Tuesday when a commission looking into the affair concluded he had been mistreated by his superiors.
So journalists were all over him. He was described in a Toronto Star article as “beaming.” So far, so good. Then things took a turn for the worse.
“l never in my wildest dreams thought this sort of thing would happen. It’s rather nice,” said the balding, bespectacled ex-bureaucrat, according to the Star.
Balding, bespectacled.
Not broad-shouldered, heavy-chested, dark-complexioned, thick-muscled, firm-jawed, flat-stomached, nattily dressed …
Balding, bespectacled.
The poor man, who’s gone through almost 10 years of bureaucratic hell, is described to the world by his deficiencies, instead of his strengths. He is obviously a man of great character to endanger his own livelihood by refusing to sign off on corrupt sponsorship files and yet, though the story does show his gallant side, he’s also described, for the sake of realism, as a man suffering from hair loss and poor eyesight.
Balding and bespectacled.
Why this matters to me is this: I am balding and bespectacled.
And I detect a deeper media bias behind the Star’s description of Allan Cutler. What was the writer trying to say? That the typical male bureaucrat is balding and bespectacled? Or that Cutler is, in essence, kind of nerdy? The kind of guy who gets sand kicked in his face at the beach and doesn’t protest?
But what a great story. For once, the nerdy guy kicked some sand back.
l think if we’re going to do the describing thing, that journalists should at least do it consistently with everyone they write about.
One guy, for instance, might be big-eared and runny-nosed, another large adam’s appled and hairy earlobed, a third rotten toothed and squeaky voiced.
There are people out there, as you read this, whose full-time jobs it is to sift through all the media accounts that pertain to their particular group and ferret out what appear to be all the blatant and subtle prejudices that pepper some journalists’ writings and broadcasts and harm the members of the group by keeping stereotypes alive and well. They watch the way words are chosen and even count the number of times positive words are used in connection with them and how often negative ones appear. If the negative outstrip the positive, the media is called on it.
But who is looking out for the balding and bespectacled? I doubt if we can qualify for a government grant to establish any sort of media watchdog of our own. Overshadowed by sexier injustices, we are left to suffer at the hands of insensitive Canadian reporters.
So, in the absence of anyone else volunteering to get the bald, er, excuse me, the ball rolling, I guess l will take it on. Maybe l can talk Allan Cutler into helping out.
And, for the record, we are not really balding; we’re just minimally follicled. Not bespectacled, but stylishly sight assisted.
And most of us, like Allan Cutler, are the real heroes of our time.
