Yesterday, reporters from throughout the Metroland chain of community newspapers, including The Mississauga News, spent a day attending seminars at Sheridan College on the “new news culture.”
There was a lot of talk about convergence, interactive journalism, blogging, podcasting, the attention economy (how to target your core audience and deliver what they want and attract the advertisers to support it) etc., etc.
All of which is a response to the age of the Internet and the fact that younger audiences, the one advertisers really want to target, are increasingly getting their news from the web, not newspapers.
Sherine Mansour, a former broadcast journalist who teaches in the media department at Sheridan, told us that citizen journalism is here to stay whether we like it or not. The net has let the news cat out of the bag and now anyone and everyone, professional and amateur, can report on what is happening, with or without a particular point of view.
“If you give citizens control of the media, they will use it,” Mansour said. “If you don’t, you will lose.”
She quoted extensively from an on-line manifesto from Jay Rosen on behalf of, “the people formerly known as the audience” to demonstrate that the shift in power is already here.
Rosen writes: “Once they were your printing presses; now that humble device, the blog, has given the press to us. That’s why blogs have been called little First Amendment machines. They extend freedom of the press to more actors.
“Once it was your radio station, broadcasting on your frequency. Now that brilliant invention, podcasting, gives radio to us. And we have found more uses for it than you did.
“Shooting, editing and distributing video once belonged to you, Big Media. Only you could afford to reach a TV audience built in your own image. Now video is coming into the user’s hands, and audience-building by former members of the audience is alive and well on the web.
“You were once (exclusively) the editors of the news, choosing what ran on the front page. Now we can edit the news, and our choices send items to our own front pages.”
All of which is threatening and exhilarating in equal measure.
One of the ideas floated Mansour mentioned as an interactive exercise really was intriguing: giving candidates their own blogs on your newspaper web sites and letting them have at it.
Why not? Shouldn’t elections be the ultimate showcase of citizen participation?
Most newspapers, limited by space restrictions caused by their slavish dedication to the bottom line, can’t or won’t provide adequate coverage of the candidates and issues anymore.
How about blogs being set up on the web pages of The News for the municipal election Nov. 13? Candidates could elucidate on the platforms they can only sketch out in election brochures. They could be asked to respond to questions posed by the paper, or citizens, who could query would-be councillors and trustees on their qualifications or anything else that strikes their fancy.
A moderator of some kind might be required to keep order and try to sift out the lobs and the bombs and delete the slanderous slings and arrows.
Since all-candidates’ meetings seem to be few and far between these days, doesn’t it make sense to move that function to a natural platform in a spot where people already find their breaking community news?
It could be an ideal forum for civic engagement and citizen journalism.
Comments (2)
Its a good idea except that candidates are increasingly running their own blogs on their campaign websites as part of a campaign. Probably the most famous Canadian case is Halton MP Garth Turner's blog www.garth.ca/weblog
it's blunt opinions has become a must-read for ottawa reporters and political bloggers (and a pain for the tory whip)
My own opinon on the role of media orgs is that to keep themselves relevant they will have to reinforce the one core thing they offer that most bloggers can't..... news.
Since most bloggers hold down full time jobs they can't cover a GO transit announcement or a court preceding.
Neither do most of them have the time or resources to write an investigative report on the health care system or interview a family of AIDS victims in Uganda.
Opinion and analysis will still have its place in media, (although the influence of columnists will never be be restored what it used to be) but timely original news reporting reported in Print, website and blogs is what is going to
seperate "journalists" from bloggers over the next few years.
Posted by OJ | August 25, 2006 9:16 PM
Posted on August 25, 2006 21:16
Aloha, John,
GREAT article in your Blog on Blogs!
You wrote:
"How about blogs being set up on the web pages of The News for the municipal election Nov. 13?"
John, you shouldn't dangle a FAT JUICY WRIGGLING WORM in front of us fish like that unless The Mississauga News is serious about such an opportunity.
You wrote:
"Candidates could elucidate on the platforms they can only sketch out in election brochures."
"Election brochures"?!
Just ponder the obscene inequity that exists between Incumbent and challengers. Most challengers won't have political contributions (AKA Corporate Backers) and will have to shell out of their own pockets for brochures, flyers or election signs.
At the extreme end of the spectrum, you have mayoral candidate, Don Barber, who hasn't even the luxury of money for campaigning! HIS personal money has to go into defending himself in court against his own municipal government!
(HAHAHAAHH! I tell ya, John, anyone who says municipal governance is boring just ain't payin' attention!)
You wrote:
"They (candidates) could be asked to respond to questions posed by the paper, or citizens, who could query would-be councillors and trustees on their qualifications or anything else that strikes their fancy."
I have two questions. If I were an Incumbent, why would I participate in a Blog to answer such questions when I know the odds are MASSIVELY in my favour that I'll get re-elected simply by smiling? I mean, Good Gawd, John, why would an Incumbent --who knows that only 23% of Mississaugans even bother to vote-- bother to Blog? Especially if it opens him up to messy issue-questions posed by the paper and *gasp* (far worse), citizens?
Incumbents instinctively know that Informed Citizens are a Nuisance! And YOU'RE a Nuisance, John, because your Blog helps inform citizens by heads'ing them up on municipal issues!
You wrote:
"A moderator of some kind might be required to keep order and try to sift out the lobs and the bombs and delete the slanderous slings and arrows."
No kidding, eh? Personally, I'd LOVE to experience the City-Wide Mayor candidacy Blogs. Don Barber's Blog vs. Mayor McCallion's (Lord Love Her) Decline-to-Condescend-to-Campaign Blog. MAN, that Blog-Duo would be worthy of the Jon Stewart Daily Show (note spelling of Jon Stewart)
You wrote:
"Since all-candidates’ meetings seem to be few and far between these days, doesn’t it make sense to move that function to a natural platform in a spot where people already find their breaking community news?"
re: "breaking community news", think how great it is when that breaking community news is online! Or when your community newspaper has blogs that allow for citizen-readers to comment like yours does! Far as I can tell, only The Mississauga News provides such a participatory venue.
(Why people can even keep up with your Blog while on vacation thousands of miles away! Imagine that!)
You wrote:
"It (candidate Blogs) could be an ideal forum for civic engagement and citizen journalism."
Not quite, "ideal", John, because it would require that a candidate feel comfortable with keyboard and Internet. But as you pointed out, "all-candidates’ meetings seem to be few and far between", so The Mississauga News-based candidates' Blog might be the only all-candidates forum available.
Your suggestion opens up exciting prospects of Democracy actually breaking out in Mississauga. On the downside though --Democracy just might actually break out!
That spectre raises the obvious question. Is there someone stout-of-heart and thick-skinned enough AND committed enough at The Mississauga News to be The Moderator of this brave new social local experiment?
Last. Just so you know, I remain steadfast in the belief that the Mississauga municipal election is simply a "ritualized drama of mutual pretense" at least for those voters "In-The-Know".
Signed,
The Mississauga Muse,
PS. I leave you with two quotes:
"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves" --Edward R. Murrow
"And, befitting of sheep, they won't even notice" --The Mississauga Muse
Posted by The Mississauga Muse | August 25, 2006 3:46 PM
Posted on August 25, 2006 15:46