The dawn of a new year is the usual time for newspapers to run year-end reviews and the usual lists by editors of the top stories of the year gone by.
I've written up more than my fair share of such stories lately. Let's face it, these stories are done for one reason and one reason alone: to fill space in the paper. After all, the staff needs to be with their families during the holidays, too.
Typical is the annual Canadian Press naming of News Story of the Year, Newsmaker of the Year, Male and Female Athlete of the Year, Sports Story of the Year and so on.
I have to say - I hate these lists. To me, it doesn't ever seem as if much thought is put into them. A monkey in a tree could come up with these selections.
I hate them because the final selections usually pale in comparison to the major world events going on elsewhere on the planet. Every time an announcement is made in one of these categories, I would ask myself: "is this really the best they can come up with? Is Canada that short of news?"
And then I would realize: yeah, this really was the top news in Canada. They talk about slow news cycles, but Canada is a slow news country.
Which brings us to Luka Magnotta, an individual who has done more to damage Canada's good name in the world than anyone else in 2012.
Magnotta made international headlines not only by committing murder, but by carving up body parts and sending them to the offices of Canadian political parties.
That, and his accompanying social media efforts, earned him the moniker "the Canadian Psycho" in the international press. In response, news editors across Canada have named the evil Magnotta as the Canadian Press's Newsmaker of the Year.
This choice created a storm of controversy, with many taking to social media to denounce the choice. One man who has been a newsmaker in his own right over the years, Liberal leader Bob Rae, declared the choice to be "disgusting."
I have conflicting thoughts on the matter. The first is that it seems to me many have this assumption that being the "Newsmaker of the Year" ought to be treated as some sort of honour bestowed on someone making a worthy contribution to society.
I don't see it that way. This isn't the Citizen of the Year we are talking about, or even the Nobel Prize. This is Newsmaker of the Year, and usually the news that does get made is bad to begin with.
Most of the news out there is death, destruction and criminal activity. There is the old saying: "if it bleeds it leads."
The cold hard truth is everyone in Canada was talking about this Luka Magnotta story this year. I think these editors were treating this title as less of an "honour" and more as a statement, a recognition of what was newsworthy during the past year in Canada.
But then we come to the proverbial "on the other hand."
It is this: newspapers, and news organizations, have a social responsibility to the readers who consume its journalistic efforts. The argument can be made - a compelling one - that providing any recognition to crazed murderers is bad policy in this day and age.
Indeed, the recent trend in society has been to go the other way, and not provide these criminals with any more notoriety than necessary.
During the past couple of years, we have seen some violent mass shootings in places like Tucson, Aurora and Newtown.
After those massacres, public officials have gone out of their way at press conferences to refuse to even acknowledge the names of the killers in public. The idea is to lessen or deny these murderers any of the notoriety or attention they might have sought by committing these criminal acts.
Unfortunately, news editors across Canada didn't get the same memo.
Now, they have bestowed Newsmaker of the Year recognition upon a disgusting murderer who carved up people's body parts and sent them off in the mail. This, on top of all the other sensational coverage they've bestowed on him already.
In fact, it's not the first time these editors in Canada have done this. That horrible murderer and rapist Russell Williams was also named Newsmaker of the Year in 2010.
The more I think of it, the more convinced I am that Rae was absolutely right on this one: handing out Newsmaker of the Year titles to murderers simply goes too far. The title may not be an "honour" in the ordinary sense, but simply recognizing this individual for his disgusting criminal activity is offensive.
It only serves as encouragement to other deranged, attention-seeking individuals to do the same thing and commit criminal acts to get attention.
Moreover, it's clear the general public, who are the consumers of the journalistic output of the news business in this country, think this recognition isn't right. It makes people feel less inclined to pay money for these newspapers or pay their cable fees for news channels.
News editors across Canada need to do the right thing by its consumers. In the future, the criteria for Newsmaker of the Year must exclude those who commit heinous criminal acts.
I'm not suggesting those receiving the recognition should be saints; they can be controversial figures or those who rock the boat. After all, controversy is newsworthy.
But please, for the good of our society: no more murderers. I want no more criminals named "Newsmaker of the Year."
That should make for a good New Year's resolution.
