Image Credit: The Canadian Press

By James Peters

Two & Out

PETERS: Trudeau’s beard and muskrats — the importance of the kicker

Jan 10, 2020 | 11:23 AM

FOR MILLENNIA, the action of letting their shaving habits lapse has resulted in men growing beards.

It is within that context that a news story about a man growing a beard may seem out of place. But here we are.

Our prime minister, Justin Trudeau, stopped shaving during a recent holiday and has re-emerged with hair on his face.

That mere fact made the news rounds this week, with some outlets even diving deeper to speculate what finely calculated and vetted political strategy might be behind the growing of the scruff.

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Calgary Conservative MP Michelle Rempel was among those chastising news outlets like Global for running with the beard story.

Also this week, local news outlet InfoNews ran a story about a woman seeing a muskrat in her driveway.

That was it. That was the whole story.

It came with a picture and a description and little else.

You may not see the relationship between these two stories – besides some snarky allusion to rodents.

What they have in common is they are both what we call in the broadcast business “kickers”.

That is, light-hearted, relatively shallow stories. They could be funny, but they definitely don’t carry the same gravity as the stories journalists spend the vast majority of their time working on.

That doesn’t mean kickers are not worthwhile.

In fact, they’re sorely needed, especially in times that can seem very grim.

Imagine life without kickers.

News stories would be all doom and gloom with no levity.

When we are dealing with a conflict in Iran and fires in Australia and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and deepening partisan divides in North America, it’s necessary to take a breath and deal with something less consequential – something that eases the weight of our growing existential dread.

If it’s the prime minister’s beard or a random muskrat or a UFO sighting or whatever, it’s welcome.

It’s a momentary sigh of relief when the news of the day has the world holding its breath.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.