To the surprise of no one, the great Canada Now experiment will be tossed on the ash heap of Corpse history in February.
Instead, supper-hour newscasts will be local and one hour in length.
Now, in the CBC story I heard on The World At Six, there was mention of myCBC.
In the CBC.ca story, there is some expansion on that concept, along with the mention of "civic journalism":
Regional TV newsrooms are not being offered new resources, but will be putting together a one-hour newscast using staff they already have for their half-hour supper show and nationally produced items that cover national and international news.
Resources from the nationally televised Canada Now program, produced in Vancouver, will go toward a new pilot in "news integration," which will combine resources to cover stories on TV, radio, the internet, wireless and other technologies.
Canada Now host Ian Hanomansing will anchor the hour-long show in Vancouver.
CBC bureaus across the country will be revamped following Vancouver.
"What we want to build here is the local news service of the 21st century -- a news service designed from the beginning to run on all platforms simultaneously," CBC President Richard Stursberg said from Vancouver during the presentation.
The new integrated service is being called myCBC and will include more opportunities for viewer, reader and listener comments and for users to select the news they want.
'Civic journalism' to solicit public input
Vancouver will also be the first CBC news bureau to pioneer "civic journalism," in which citizens can upload video or images of news events to the CBC.
The CBC has yet to determine how it will vet and use images and information from its viewers and listeners.
However, the BBC and CNN have already begun to experiment with this form of citizen journalism. The BBC, for example, used images forwarded by cellphone users to broadcast up-to-the-minute information of what was happening in parts of London during last year's bombings.
Vancouver could launch new technologies in civic journalism as early as April 2007, with a formal launch planned for September. They will be introduced across the country after being tested on the West Coast.
While it's not my job to advise the Corpse (I work for CTV.ca News), they may have civic and citizen journalism confused.
Allow me to refer you to the Pew Center for Public Journalism.
Here is a portion of a speech that executive director Jan Schaffer (who I've heard speak in T.O., and who is very cool) gave in Brazil two years ago:
Civic journalism aims to help return journalism to its core mission -- to give people the news and information they need to do their jobs as citizens. ...
Civic journalism has focused not only on some problems of journalism, but also possible solutions.
It has sought to:
- Restore good journalistic habits.
- Build connections with readers.
- Get better stories.
- Build better citizens.
It's no longer enough for journalists themselves to think they are doing a good job. Readers have to agree that a free press plays an essential role in our democratic society for journalists to merit their special place....
Among the questions civic journalists asked: Were we creating a nation of spectators watching a daily civic freak show instead of a nation of citizen participants engaged in the issues and the choices that must be made in a self-governing society?
Civic journalists wanted to see if it was possible to:
- Retain the media’s watchdog role, spotlighting corruption and injustices.
- Abandon the attack dog role that seemed to be just creating a lot of noise in a very noisy media environment.
- Add the duties of a guide dog – we say “seeing-eye dog” -- helping people figure out what kind of roles they could play in a democracy beyond simply casting a ballot.
In other words, could you hold citizens accountable for doing their jobs as citizens, much as you would hold public officials accountable for their actions in public office?
Some ways civic journalism has worked is through newspaper-organized discussion forums in communities and adult education programs.
But the CBC initiative seems to be about involving citizens in the newsgathering process, something known as "citizen journalism" -- a term that grates on me (see posts passim).
Now, in a Wikipedia posting on citizen journalism, the following observation is made:
Citizen journalism should not be confused with Civic Journalism, which is practiced by professional journalists. Citizen journalism is a specific form of Citizen Media.
It goes further:
In a 2003 Online Journalism Review article, J. D. Lasica classifies media for citizen journalism into the following types: 1) Audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras, or local news written by residents of a community), 2) Independent news and information Websites (Consumer Reports, the Drudge Report), 3) Full-fledged participatory news sites (OhmyNews), 4) Collaborative and contributory media sites (Slashdot, Kuro5hin), 5) Other kinds of "thin media." (mailing lists, email newsletters), and 6) Personal broadcasting sites (video broadcast sites such as (KenRadio).[2]
The roots of civic journalism go back to the early 1990s and was primarily aimed at newspapers.
The emergence of citizen media post-dates the development of the Web. A landmark event, in my mind, was the early 2000 start of OhMyNews in South Korea, an online news source that runs on the efforts of several dozen professional journalists and tens of thousands of citizen contributors around the world.
To read more about citizen journalism, I would highly recommend the 2004 book by Dan Gillmor called We The Media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people.
Now, citizen journalism and civic journalism, while not the same thing, can work towards the same goals.
But I'm always afraid that when decision-makers throw around buzzwords they don't fully understand, things don't work out as well as hoped (I'm trying to be diplomatic).
Anyway, here's what was said on the announcement at Inside The CBC.
Antonia Zerbisias, the late, great media blogger at the Toronto Star, had this prequel story yesterday.