Print folks — the ones who pour their souls into writing newspapers and magazines, the ones who craft profound essays for blogs, the ones who toil in government offices and conjure up grand speeches — like to believe that words matter still. But, mostly, they don’t.

The people who put together TV newscasts, as well as the best news photographers, have known this truism for a long time, but they’ve kept mostly quiet about it. Perhaps they don’t want to hurt the feelings of their colleagues, who still vainly cling to the belief that the written word can move hearts and minds.

But the fact remains that for voters, for citizens, words don’t matter nearly as much as pictures do.

Bev Oda, now relegated to the place where much-detested politicians go to get forgotten, learned the truth of this back in February of this year. Back then, the opposition and the media were literally chasing the Ontario Conservative MP for answers in one of the serial scandals in which she became ensnared.

1. Lynn Crosbie isn’t running with the snarling, snapping media pack, which is what the best columnists should do.

2. She correctly notes that a lot of the personal criticisms Cruise has faced over the years originate in homophobia; and

3. She correctly notes that a lot of the religious criticisms he’s faced are plain old bigotry and hate.

Like Crosbie says, his sexuality and religion should not affect my views of Top Gun, for example.

Similarly, the service became a means by which we could subtly promote democracy, and the Canadian way of life, in far-flung corners of the world. In places like China, Russia and North Korea – where the Internet can be censored, but shortwave can’t be – RCI was heard by many. In post-Communist Eastern Europe, shortwave radio receivers are still the way in which many receive news from the outside world.

I know this from experience. When I was an election observer in Bosnia in 1996, billeted with a Serbian family, I was glued to my tiny shortwave radio at night. I’d listen to the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the news from back home, and I was always pretty grateful that RCI existed.

Our allies – the U.S., Britain, Germany, France and Australia – have all expanded their national shortwave service.