Fredericton – A parody of Irving’s Fredericton newspaper, The Daily Gleaner, appeared on doorsteps and coffee shops throughout the city on Monday, May 27.
The Daily Glove Puppet appears to poke fun at the absurdity of New Brunswick politics and the province’s corporate media. The parody is apparent upon reading the front page where dyes are added to industry smokestacks to mimic the romance of the Northern Lights, and a pigeon hit to the head leads the Premier to declare New Brunswick a “shale gas-free zone.” The newspaper’s tagline is “up-to-date news when we feel like it.”
Wanting to know more, the NB Media Co-op tracked down the paper’s roving reporter at Lunar Rogue on Monday afternoon where the puppet was seen sipping a drink.
NBMC: What is your name?
Daily: Daily. It says so right on top of the paper.
NBMC: Of course. Are you responsible for The Daily Glove Puppet?
Daily: As much as anyone with a hand up their butt can be held responsible. Yes.
NBMC: What experience do you have wading into the news business?
Daily: Wading? Who wades? Me, I just hopped right in from out of the swamp. Have you ever been in there? Lots of slimy and gooey things in there. Out here the slime’s nothing compared to in there. Ribbit.
NBMC: Tell me about your journalist training.
Daily: I just finished ‘Puppeteering for Dummies’ and I learned that rule number one is never use brightly coloured strings. See? See? No strings! If you feel the top of my head, though, there’s a bump there where they used to be attached. Here – feel! Don’t be nervous -frogs have no teeth.
NBMC: What does The Daily Glove Puppet offer to the media landscape in New Brunswick?
Daily: Did you know that humans process motion in their brains but we frogs have little motion detectors right in our eyeballs? If something moves, I’ll see it long before you do. I’m on it. Ribbit. Nothing will get by me. Ribbit. It takes a puppet like me to cover the province. Ribbit, ribbit.
And then the gray tree frog puppet hopped off the barstool and right out the door, leaving this NB Media Co-op reporter with a trail of frog slime and the beat of some forgotten song in her heart.
