During the summer the CTV evening news reported that two young adults would soon lose their virginity online. News-person Tony Parsons then proceeded to give the URL* so we could all join in on this special moment in internet history, an event which surely would have surpassed the recent online birth for hits.

Now was this reporting? Was this crucial to our lives, or was this a public interest or 'society' story?

I suppose the real question is how many pubescent pud-pullers embarrassingly witnessed this "newscast" over dinner with their families, and immediately had the URL scorched into their budding pornographic minds.

In trying to determine what I thought about this, I considered what exactly was being broadcast. Free advertising for live sex-acts comes to mind.

I think an analogy could be made here- endorsing a sex site to an all-ages audience is the equivalent of reviewing pornos in their arts report.

The mandate of the "news" is to broadcast current affairs of the community, the country, and abroad, without bias. Yes, this sex site was a current event, and it may have been of interest to many people, but the media always has an angle. They show us the "bad" things in the world in order to keep us "well informed"; but when the media promotes a current event (non-news story), aren't they, whether they intend to or not, endorsing this event? Isn't the media telling us to check out this act of consensual sex being broadcasted to the world?

I think an analogy could be made here- endorsing a sex site to an all-ages audience is the equivalent of reviewing pornos in their arts report.

All of this doesn't even touch upon Bill Clinton's sexcapades, mostly because I don't give a damn about his personal affairs. However, it all comes back to the age old question- what is the role of the media, anyways?

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