Media Monday Edmonton: Update #195

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

  • Heather Boyd’s report into accreditation of news media for the Province has been released. You can download the 122 page PDF here. The report recommends that the Province “avoid developing a specific government media policy” and that it should instead “be guided to various degrees by convention, common sense and a desire to keep access to legislative proceedings as open to as large a number of citizens as possible.” In the Executive Summary, the report states: “Most, but by no means all, of the people interviewed for this report felt that there are no circumstances whatsoever under which a government should decide who gets to ask it questions.” The government has accepted all of the report’s recommendations.
  • Andrea Sands is leaving the Edmonton Journal to work as a communications consultant for the Edmonton Public School Board. She tweeted that it’s not all doom and gloom for local journalism though. “There are some great new reporters coming soon to the Journal so I look forward to reading.”
  • The winners of the 67th National Newspaper Awards will be announced at a ceremony here in Edmonton on Friday, May 27. The bad news? There are no Edmonton-based nominees. The Globe and Mail led the way with 19 nominations.
  • Marty Forbes is working on a new podcast with Jungle Jim Jerome. Called “Jungle Talk”, the project is set to debut “in the next month or so.”
  • Marty also notes that Len Theusen is retiring after a long career in local media, at 630 CHED, K-LITE (Capital FM), and most recently as an account rep at The Bear. Here’s a photo from the recent celebration event at MKT.
  • Lots of online news sites have started banning anonymous comments, but should they? Karen Unland and Linda Hoang spoke to CBC Edmonton about the issue this week.
  • Episode 34 of the Seen and Heard in Edmonton podcast features Paul Matwychuk, “a writer, editor and film aficionado who compares and contrasts movies in the most erudite way on Trash, Art, and the Movies.”
  • Twitter turned ten years old today! Lots of people revisited their first tweets to celebrate, including Global Edmonton.
  • Danielle Paradis wrote about “the deluge of abuse against student journalist Kate McInnes” that came in response to a critique published in The Gateway of the 5 Days for the Homelessness campaign. “McInnes is determined not to be silenced. She’s written more than 50 pieces for the Gateway and plans to be an editor next year.”
  • Here’s a guest post at the Meet the Media blog by Debra Kasowski asking if traditional media are worth it. “Media shapes our lives and influences how we think which in turn influences our behaviour and attitudes toward issues and events,” she wrote.
  • Speaking of #MeetTheMedia, you can register for the event taking place on April 15 here. There are already 28 people signed up.
  • Edmontonian Lindsey McNell is a filmmaker, writer, actress, and director and last year she was selected to represent Canada at the Cannes Film Festival. She says Edmonton needs an advocate, like a film commissioner, to bring more attention to the industry.
  • Calgary journalist Andrew Ng, who worked in Edmonton from 2008 through 2013, kept a notebook of “just about every story…and every person” he worked on and talked to over a two-year period in our city. “It sits on my desk now as a journal of my career as a journalist.”
  • The next Edmonton Podcasting Meetup takes place on April 9 at Variant Edition Comics & Culture and will explore making your podcast audience happy.

Gibson-Block & Hyatt
Edmonton Journal on the Gibson-Block

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #194

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

Edmonton Sun & Journal

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #193

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

City Glow
City Glow, photo by Dave Sutherland

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #192

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

Moe Banga Swearing In Ceremony
Moe Banga doing his first media scrum as Ward 12 Councillor

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

  • In her latest social media notes, Linda highlights that selfie deaths are now more common than death by shark attack.
  • The CRTC announced on Tuesday that it has “received 12 applications to operate radio stations serving urban Indigenous Canadians in major markets.” Three of those applications are for Edmonton.
  • Sharon and I watched Spotlight on Saturday night and were happy to see it win Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay on Sunday at the Oscars. Definitely one to see!
  • So-called “Skinny” TV packages are here. We’re on Shaw, so I priced out their “Limited TV” plan plus some of the additional packages we’d be interested in. The total came out to be quite a bit less than what we pay currently (and I confirmed with support that for each of the channels in the add-on packages you get both the SD and HD variants, assuming they both exist via Shaw). So it looks like there will be a cost savings for us!
  • “For the first time in more than 40 years, the Stanley Cup playoffs may lack a Canadian team this season.” And that means Rogers Media could be forced to take a hit on advertising revenue.
  • Bloomberg TV Canada has announced the launch of Bloomberg North, a new weekday show featuring Amanda Lang, Pat Kiernan and Rudyard Griffiths.
  • The folks behind FiveThirtyEight say they are here to stay, and won’t end up like ESPN’s Grantland.

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #191

Congratulations to Moe Banga on winning the Ward 12 by-election this evening! You can see the full unofficial results here. The official results should be released later this week, with the swearing-in ceremony taking place Friday afternoon.

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

Protection measures in place early to prepare for wildfire season 201
Protection measures in place early to prepare for wildfire season, photo by Premier of Alberta

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #190

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

More than $10 million in funding announced to support non-profits, jobs provincewide 110
Ricardo Miranda, Minister of Culture and Tourism, announces $10 million in funding to support non-profits, photo by Premier of Alberta

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #189

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

Petrochemicals Diversification Program 669
Minister Deron Bilous speaks to the media at NAIT last week, photo by Premier of Alberta

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

  • In Linda’s latest social media notes, she links to all the Twitter news and points out that Instagram now lets you toggle between different accounts.
  • Here’s a memo sent to Postmedia staff last week by CEO Paul Godfrey in which he wrote “the Toronto Star has made several scurrilous claims about our company, its investors and our products.”
  • For a somewhat more optimistic take on the state of the newspaper business, check out Stephen Kimber’s piece for The Walrus. “The more I see what’s happening with the newspaper business, the more I’ve begun to believe it may simply be necessary for the old to implode in order to make psychic and fiscal space for the new and, hopefully, better.”
  • Should the feds step in to “help democracy’s watchdogs”? That’s what Nick Fillmore argues.
  • In the Globe and Mail, Peter Miller argues that the “CRTC’s ruling on Canadian ads during the Super Bowl is a fumble” and suggests that the regulator should reverse its decision on simulcast. I do agree that getting access to the American ads is much less of an issue now (they were online right away) but I still don’t think many will support his stance on this issue.
  • I have to admit, I haven’t really been following the Ghomeshi trial. But so far at least, it doesn’t look good for his accusers.

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #188

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

Reimagining Urban Life: Jeff Jarvis
Jeff Jarvis at the World Economic Forum. He wrote that this was the post-Snowden Davos.

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #187

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

New Edmonton Journal
Former Edmonton Journal editor-in-chief Margo Goodhand who tweeted fond memories and praise for each of the staffers who lost their jobs

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

  • Rogers Media today announced that it is cutting 200 jobs across its television, radio, and publishing divisions. No word on the local impact yet. The cuts are slated to take place in February.
  • Here are Linda’s latest social media notes. Congrats on #100 Linda!
  • The Canadian Association of Broadcasters CEO Radio Council is launching a new “radio marketing and advocacy bureau” later this year.
  • Frontline, a program series “that trains and supports writers who are exploring, testing, witnessing and reporting back on some of the most current and pressing issues of our time,” is offering a two-week residency at the Banff Centre for writers focused on environmental reportage.
  • After a tough week for media in Canada, Marsha Lederman wrote in the Globe: “So if the day comes when media organizations are no longer paying journalists to dig up these stories, what will these sites do for material?”
  • Also in the Globe, Simon Houpt wrote: “City newspapers aren’t just pillars of their communities. Ideally, they are the connective tissue of the body politic, as well as its first response to nascent cancers.”
  • Newspapers aren’t the only ones being affected by the shift to digital: “Nearly half of the country’s local TV stations could be off the air by 2020 without a boost in revenues to pay for local programming, the national broadcast regulator has been told as it prepares to open public hearings into the viability of local TV.”
  • This piece by Dave Winer covers a lot of the reasons that I’m uneasy about Medium.

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #186

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

Touring a government-supported affordable housing facility in Edmonton 271
The local media interview Amarjeet Sohi, Sarah Hoffman, and Ben Henderson, photo by Premier of Alberta

And here is some slightly less local media stuff:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.