With the departure of senior news honcho Tony Burman, someone has stepped in to fill his role as the CBC’s news blogger.
I say someone, because whomever the writer is (or writers are), they’re not identifying themselves it’s not clear at first glance who the author is. It doesn’t show up in RSS readers or on the blog’s main page. This sadly, is probably the least effective way of engaging the dialogue that the blog desperately wants:
Tell us how you get your news and why you prefer it that way. Has the digital news world changed how you find out about things? What would you like to see covered in this space? Who would you like to hear from?
More than just being less effective, I believe it could actually hurt our brand image. We’re anxious to showcase the innovative programming and great people we have here. We spend lots of money advertising to that effect. A nameless blog, written as “we,” just reinforces the image many Canadians have of us as a bureaucratic and impersonal broadcaster.
Don’t get me wrong. The CBC News Editors’ Blog is better than not having one at all, but people want to engage with other people, not a huge faceless organization.
UPDATE: Since this original post went up, the web site was tweaked and now includes the names of the authors 
Next to change: Full-text in the RSS feeds.
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Comments below | See also: News & Journalism |
| Email this | Posted at 3:17 pm (15 Oct 2007) |
I know just what you mean. I’ve had some engaging correspondence with the CBC Radio One Podcasting Team, who identify themselves only as, um, “CBC Radio One Podcasting Team”.
As a CBC groupie, I would be thrilled to receive e-mail actually from Angela Misri or Pedro Mendes.
–Bob (who treasures every item in his “Tod Maffin” folder)
Although it’s not on the main page, each entry does have an author associated with it:
Author: Mark Bulgutch, Senior Executive Producer, News Programming and Newsworld Production Unit
Author: Esther Enkin, Acting Editor in Chief
Mind you, anyone reading in an aggregator isn’t going to see those, but that seems to be a common misfeature among many of the CBC blogs.
I just subscribed to the feed for the News Editor’s Blog, but will probably unsubscribe shortly because the full text of the articles isn’t in the feed.
The feed only summarizes the articles. I use a feed reader/news aggregator for convenience, and it just isn’t convenient to flip back and forth between the reader and the Web page that actually contains the content.
A word in the ear of the News Editor’s Blog’s Webmaster: Please provide full content in the feed!
Thanx,
–Bob.
Bob:
It’s funny, but when we started podcasting almost two years ago, the ‘Team’ answering emails really was just me… but now we have a few members on the Podcasting team, so yes, I think it is a good suggestion on your part, and we shall be sure, from now on, to sign off all emails we answer from podcasting@cbc.ca with our real names.
Thanks!
Angela Misri
CBC Radio Podcasting Team