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O, Canada...

I don't revel in the misery of others. I watched the footage of Caroline Marcil on TV One's late night news broadcast. Caroline was asked to sing the national anthems at an exhibition game between the Canadian and U.S. national teams in Quebec City. Two lines into The Star Spangled Banner, Marcil appeared to forget the lyrics and left the ice briefly. When she returned with a lyric sheet in her hand, she slipped on the ice and fell hard. By then the crowd was booing loudly. Totally humiliated, she gave up on the performance. The game went ahead without the singing of anthems.

I felt bad that we subject someone who obviously has talent to international humiliation by media. The sniggering of the show's minor talent hosts was worse than the item. I felt embarrassed for them. I fail to see how Kate Hawkesby's talent for reading from an autocue and being a fashion manque would ever work with The One & Only framework. Perhaps the Brazilian channel Globo have got it right by introducing computer generated news readers.

Caroline Marcil went on to perform the anthem perfectly on live U.S. national TV (Good Morning America). I hope she can convert her slip into a positive outcome.

It shocks me that New Zealand media take such pleasure in constantly reducing our culture to some low common denominator.

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