The CBC’s Toronto broadcast centre will host an interesting panel Wednesday on the future of news. It’ll explore how technology — such as citizen journalism and Web 2.0 tools — can be used by the media to provide greater public service to citizens and communities.
Participants include:
- Andrew Keen, author, The Cult of the Amateur
- Leonard Brody, CEO, NowPublic.com
- Rahaf Harfoursh, Research Coordinator, “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything”
There are only a handful of public seats available, so you may want to tune in online. It’ll be streamed live at cbc.ca/futureofnews (where a discussion forum is open now) and segments from the discussion will appear on CBC TV and CBC Radio.
Happens Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time.
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The future (and survival) of “The News” has very little to do with technology. Nor does the ability to properly inform the population depend on any advanced technology. The WILL to fully inform is not something that technology can bring to the table. That, unfortunalety, rests with the individuals who are told what the news is and is not going to be.
How much technology do you need to ask the REAL questions? How much technology do you need to thoroughly study an issue? What kind of technology do you need to DEMAND real answers? What kind of technology do you need not to act as a PR arm of the corporations? What kind of technology do you need to call a liar, a liar? How much technology do you need to truly question our government’s positions and actions? What kind of technology do you need to start assuming your crucial role in society?
The media has been abdicating its role for many years, but nothing compares to the sharp change it has undertaken taken since the greatest false flag operation of all time, 9/11.
We can have all the technology in the world, all of the best minds working on developing them but it is all smoke and mirrors unless we aim to properly inform the people.
Media ownership trumps all. As we speak, reputable independent news sites are being targeted, attacked and rendered inoperative due to their “unpatriotic” quest for the truth. (In other words, they’re hitting the right targets…)
Where’s the mainstream media during all this?
Busy pretending that the advent of consumer-driven reporting will possibly change things. “Come on people, tell us what you think!” One big vox populi.
Mainstream news professionals are in the business of selling us “the conventional, government-approved view of the world”. Now we are to beleive that this philosophy is about to change due to the advent of new technologies?
News professionals should know better than to sell canadians this lie.
Thanks for allowing the nation to contribute to this - all 200 who can squeeze into a room at the TBC.
And I agree with one understated point in the above rant by “fog cutter”… There is an immense difference between the public “contributing news (or simple opinions)” and “serving the community”. The first priority for a news organization is finding, presenting and perhaps analyzing current events. Secondly, focusing on excellence and sustained performance within the scope of that mandate. State how you will measure excellence in news gathering and presentation, then submit yourself to serious public scrutiny… don’t yield to pressure regarding features, cross promotions, “reality entertainment”…
According to the Globe & Mail, the CBC is already blessed with a Futurist - Tod Maffin.
And I seem to recall that he did a piece entitled, by coincidence, “The Future of News”.
I sure do hope that he’ll see fit fit to contribute to the discussion.
Nora, I just heard a part of your daytime discussion with Andrew Keen. If all people were like “fog cutter” above (ie. delusional) then I might agree with him that news should only be done by trained professionals.
However, many of us are logical, thoughtful, and balanced, and yet often vehemently disagree with the “news” that comes out of organizations such as your beloved CBC. Just yesterday I was listening to the political analysis of the new Throne Speech on CBC Radio 1. I soon realized that many of the “professional” journalists on there weren’t very astute. They also did little to hide their clear bias toward the Liberal party. Yet what do you think the possibility of having a more balanced spectrum of voices on the CBC would be? Let me take a wild guess: zero to nil.
As for Mr. Keen, his entire perspective can be summed up by one thing he said, dripping with disdain: “What on earth do bloggers in Iowa know anyway?!” Well, probably a lot more than he does on at least one subject: humility.
“Yet what do you think the possibility of having a more balanced spectrum of voices on the CBC would be?”
Bearing in mind the background of the new Publisher, I’d say pretty good. Unless you subscribe to the Fox News definition of “balanced”.
“Yet what do you think the possibility of having a more balanced spectrum of voices on the CBC would be?” Zip. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Bupkis. Big Goose Egg!
Kev seems to subscribe to the Fox News definition of “balanced”. The only difference is his left wing version costs Canadians $1 Billion a year. I hope he doesn’t think that health care and universal day care should get more funding. I know how to free up $1 Billion a year.
Kev,
Really? Show me more than one example of a CBC presenter or journalist or bottle washer that hasn’t consumed massive injections of the Socialist Kool Aid. Amigo, a discussion amongst two Liberals and two NDP’ers does not constitute a balanced conversation. Rex Murphy is the only person there who I can think of.
Your example of Fox News is perfect. Take a mirror image of that and you start to see precisely what the CBC is pumping out 24/7. How you can be critical of Fox News (and rightly so) but not apply the same criteria to the CBC completely baffles me.
Robert
I think all this talk of “drinking the Socialist Kool Aid” and similar comments are silly and embarrassing and really discredit the criticism of the CBC, and I think that that’s very unfortunate because I believe that there is a lot of serious and very legitimate criticism that can and needs to be levelled against the CBC for its performance in recent years.
With respect to news and technology, what modern technology has made more and more possible is the transference of rich information, and large amounts of it, over great distances. The opportunity this has created for the CBC is the ability to better execute its mandate by representing, and reaching out to, all of Canada in much better ways. We have the ability now to have a morning news and culture show hosted and produced out of Halifax, a noon show hosted out of Toronto, and an evening show out of Vancouver. We could have arts and cultures shows coming right out of the current hotbeds of Canadian culture like Montreal and Vancouver, and we can have culturally Canadian prime time comedies and dramas being created and produced in places like Regina and the Maritimes, and all of this could be brought together and cross fertilized and informed by various kinds of networking made possible by the net and current technologies. But this is not happening. Instead the CBC is collapsing around its head office in Toronto and it is less and less in contact with the greater Canadian context, and it is representing Canadian culture in every poorer and leaner ways. A recent trend has been to hire regional Toronto personalities, some of whom have never lived anywhere in Canada other than Toronto, to host “national” news and pop culture shows based out of Toronto. This is obviously not a change that has been dictated by technology and instead represents corruption and a will by CBC management to promote and protect its own, and its own are its Toronto based friends and co-workers, not Canadians as a whole.
Now that it’s over, I have some comments.
I didn’t appreciate the host coming out dressed like a personal trainer. And I didn’t like the way he practically ordered the audience to applaud. This was an appearance before 200 people, and it could have had a bit more class.
The audience sounded really, really, smart. This discussion could have gone on for hours and hours.
Journalism, both the old and the evolving, is fascinating.
The young lady on the panel was outstanding. Informative and natural in her contributions.
The two male panelists were largely unhelpful.
For the male panelist on the far right to say “media is about money”, means that I am spared from buying his book.
For the male panelist on the left to insist that he tell me what the most read news story was from last year, about a man having sex with a donkey, only confirms that he deals in largely meaningless information.
The title of this program was The Dumbest of The Dumbest Titles Ever.
The broadcast has now been posted, and you can decide for yourself. But it’s not for the faint of heart. An hour and a half of a mind-boggling statements that will convince you of the need to think for yourself.
The CBC would not publish my comment above (at 9 pm) at the web page for discussion and questions.
Apparently, the mandate of the Corp is that in the event anyone should be reading about the CBC ten years from now, they will find only that everyone enjoyed and approved of all its programs.
To be fair Allan, it was probably the crack about the host’s dress sense that did you in. It looks like you have two other comments there that didn’t get refused. Maybe there’s a trend here?