Got My Maple Leaf Flying Proud

Sometimes you just have to call people out on irresponsible reporting. Now I like a drama or two, have been known to check out the latest celebrity gossip online or in ragmags, but when something is patently wrong {& deals with Canadians} it pisses me off.

Case in point:

Sympatico's celeb webpage has a new section called "Dramarama" written by Ryan Porter. And usually, it's pretty entertaining ~ facts surrounded by some LOL snark. But yesterday I found this :

Dealing With Canadians
Howie Mandel is going to learn to deal with Canadians. The game show Deal or No Deal is coming to Toronto to film five episodes in January. So if you're a prodigy when it comes to taking wild guesses, check back with me in a couple of days and I'll tell you how you can be on the show, or at least sit in the audience and fake clap a lot. They should just do an all-Canadian version. I nominate Rick Campanelli to be The Howie. He's good at looking interested in boring situations.

Now this is wrong. Howie Mandel was born & raised in Ontario, so it will already be an 'all-Canadian version'. So I emailed Ryan Porter, who apparently is a young whipper-snapper who doesn't remember who is from where, doesn't remember Howie Mandel's rise to fame, & doesn't always do research on those he writes about, and I said:

Considering Howie Mandel is Canadian, I think he already knows how to deal with us.

To which Ryan replied {within 24 hours, which is commendable, cuz that never happens}

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I just wrote that section really horribly. I went back and fixed it (I hope!).Ryan

So the section is not re-written yet, and now there's a new news article entitled "Howie Mandel is bringing his gameshow megahit 'Deal or no Deal' to his native land" which contradicts the other stuff. Which makes me laugh, cuz it's part of the same webpage!

Now I'm not "outing" Howie as a Canadian. Throughout his career, he has been very open & honest & proud of where he was from. This is information that anyone can find out with a few keystrokes. And I'm not ragging on Ryan Porter {much}. Most of what he writes is, as far as I can tell, factual. I just want people in the "information & entertainment" business to do their jobs well. And damnit, Canadian columnists MUST know which celebrities are Canadian, were Canadian or have a Canadian connection. That's just good patriotism. And good reporting.

Alas, after researching online, I couldn't confirm whether Ryan Porter was a man or a woman, so I've taken an educated guess. You can't go by traditional use of names these days.