406 replies to this topic

[spanky123]

I am often quoted verbatim by local media and was only ever credited once. In fairness though, many of my tips come from local media who can't get stories past their editors :-)

 

The day local media started firing reporters for writing articles that offended their advertisers was the day that they stopped becoming 'news' organizations and became 'entertainment' outlets in my opinion. 

 

What I lament though is that with the lack of any credible news organizations left in Canada we devolve into partisan outlets who spin fake news and lies to further their own agendas. 

 

I feel badly for TC staff. I don't think that anyone believes the building is going to be knocked down and then space allocated for them in the new one. 

Edited by spanky123, 17 June 2017 - 10:35 AM.

[Mattjvd]

^ They want the taxpayers to pay up to $30,000 per reporter. 35% of their wages is their ask.

19239609_10154573397240887_1293436969_n(1).jpg

That's something pretty rich, eh? The mods here at VV INSIST every clip from the TC is brief, and links back to its source at the TC website. So does reddit, so does Victoria Buzz, so does my website (a minimum of two links back to the TC for every article). My website is 41 days old. For the past 11 years, VV has linked TC articles. I Heart Downtown linked for 7 years. Victoria Buzz has been linking for 6 years. We've sent more traffic to the TC than all others combined.

And then you all of course know that the TC gets a LOT of their article ideas from VV information, and never links back.

Why the TC wants to stay in their silo is beyond me. Victoria Buzz provides news and fun clips to Kiss FM/Ocean every morning, we have a signed agreement with CHEK for news sharing, we signed Raeside when the TC fired him, and Mike K's Citified is a weekly guest on CFAX. Why not collaborate?

And the week this all blows up, Victoria Buzz opens their first physical office (across Douglas from the TC!) and hires two people (a reporter and a sales person), while we get word the TC sells their building.

What a load. VV/Citified are excellent local news sites. This is the premier source for construction and land development news on the South Island.

Instead of trying to adapt so they can keep up with the younger, more agile, digital-only competition; the TC would rather sling mud and ask for a subsidy?

Edited by Mattjvd, 17 June 2017 - 10:35 AM.

[VicHockeyFan]

To be fair, the TC was not part of the group asking for a subsidy, at least not in that article.

[Mattjvd]

Oh, my mistake. Thanks for the clarification

[VicHockeyFan]

A bit of my point is... is "quality journalism" defined by who aggregates online information the best?

 

http://www.timescolo...isis-1.20575410

 

^ Is that "quality journalism"?  It's the TC reading Helps' website and then quoting it.  Why can't I just read Helps' website and interpret it for myself?  Why should I pay that reporter $30,000/yr. of my tax dollars to do that?

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 17 June 2017 - 10:51 AM.

[Bingo]

A bit of my point is... is "quality journalism" defined by who aggregates online information the best?

 

I don't think there is any other source in Victoria that does quality investigative reporting better than Focus.

http://www.focusonvictoria.ca/

[Mike K.]

What I found absolutely shocking when I got into this business is just how much information the MSM publishes as "news" is delivered to them every single day via press releases. What I once thought was an industry that spread its tentacles to "uncover" information so often just waits for that information to arrive or to be uncovered by independent sources that is then regurgitated.

Bottom line is, the media SHOULD NEVER be in the pocket of the government. A media organization funded by government will be used as a pawn or as a promotional machine.

[Mike K.]

I don't think there is any other source in Victoria that does quality investigative reporting better than Focus.
http://www.focusonvictoria.ca/

Yes! And we've often asked why not a single MSM outlet in this city has chosen to be even half as diligent in their reporting regarding the bridge. If it wasn't for David Broadland, all we'd be hearing are whatever CoV press releases acknowledge.

[VicHockeyFan]

I don't think there is any other source in Victoria that does quality investigative reporting better than Focus.

http://www.focusonvictoria.ca/

 

I think most of us agree, Bingo.  The long-form tests the patience of some though.  So it's not for everybody.

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 17 June 2017 - 11:04 AM.

[Bingo]

I think most of us agree, Bingo.  The long-form tests the patience of some though.  So it's not for everybody.

 

Have patience or be a patient, that is the question.

[aastra]

 

The day local media started firing reporters for writing articles that offended their advertisers was the day that they stopped becoming 'news' organizations and became 'entertainment' outlets in my opinion.

 

1880s? Or are we thinking more early 1890s?

[johnk]

What I found absolutely shocking when I got into this business is just how much information the MSM publishes as "news" is delivered to them every single day via press releases. What I once thought was an industry that spread its tentacles to "uncover" information so often just waits for that information to arrive or to be uncovered by independent sources that is then regurgitated.
Bottom line is, the media SHOULD NEVER be in the pocket of the government. A media organization funded by government will be
used as a pawn or as a promotional machine.

I churned out tons of news releases in my time and always found it interesting to see who printed them verbatim and which others hung a story on the bones of the release.
Print journalism is far from dead, it just doesn't need to cut down trees so we can have yesterday's story tomorrow.

[johnk]

Yes! And we've often asked why not a single MSM outlet in this city has chosen to be even half as diligent in their reporting regarding the bridge. If it wasn't for David Broadland, all we'd be hearing are whatever CoV press releases acknowledge.

Indeed. He produces a lot of good stuff backed by really diligent research, he's a real asset. My only quibble with Focus is that the longer stories need to be broken up with more graphics so the page is not a mass of unbroken type. Still, a quibble that's well worth it for the info Broadland uncovers.

[Nparker]

He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.  - P. T. Barnum

[Mike K.]

That was his way of getting those tigers under control. Just cancel the subscription.

[skeptic]

Taxis are being replaced by Uber and Lyft, should the government pony up to subsidize their declining incomes?

AirBnb is giving hotels a run for their money, should the government pony up to subsidize the hotels?

Tradional news outlets are going down because the alternative sources are cheaper and more timely. Why would I pay several dollars for a dead tree newspaper that has yesterday's news? If the government agrees to pony up $350M per year to support a dying dinosaur news media industry I think that may well be an election issue in 2019.

[VicHockeyFan]

^ If I follow, I think some legacy news outlets think that the news they print is superior quality to other news.  So they want you to pay to top up their reporters' salaries as much as $30,000/yr.  Since they have no idea how to raise revenues otherwise.

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 17 June 2017 - 04:15 PM.

[VicHockeyFan]

Andrew Coyne has it right:

 

http://news.national...ernment-bailout

 

• You can force people to pay for news. You can’t force them to read it. The clinching argument for subsidy-seekers is “because democracy” — without a well-informed public, democracy dies. But there never was such a thing as a well-informed public. Some people want to be well-informed; most do not. That has always been the case. It always will.

 

 

News, especially in North America, has traditionally been funded, not by newsstand sales or subscriptions, but by advertisers — the ones who have deserted us for Google and Facebook. Now, for the first time, we’re having to ask readers to pay something closer to the full shot.

 

That isn’t going to be easy, and not everyone is going to survive the transition — in fact, most of the legacy media companies will probably fail. But the one thing guaranteed to impede them from taking the necessary risks and hard decisions is the availability of government lolly.

 

Conversely, the one thing that is guaranteed to focus our attention on the reader — as businesses, and as writers — is if the reader is paying the shot. We don’t have to guess at this.

 

It is the business model, increasingly, for top-end papers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It is also the business model for all that is best on television: the pay channels that are responsible for TV’s current “golden age.”

 

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 17 June 2017 - 04:54 PM.

[VicHockeyFan]

Here are more details:

 

 

Canada’s largest employers of journalists in Canada and their unions, representing the vast majority of paid journalism jobs in this country, have come together to ask the government to modernize the existing Canada Periodical Fund to address the critical issues and crisis facing the dissemination of Canadian perspectives. The proposal will help allay the costs of always-on journalism and coverage of local issues, giving the industry more time to innovate and navigate through the challenge of preserving our distinctly Canadian voices.

“Canadian journalism needs this fund to help bear the costs of reporting the news, costs that are increasingly not supported by advertising sales because of Google and Facebook,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President, which represents 12,000 journalists and media workers across the country.

News Media Canada would like to acknowledge the role of the Public Policy Forum in assisting with the development of this proposal. The Forum brought together the industry, unions and digital-only publications in both French and English to forge this proposal, which builds off the Forum’s report The Shattered Mirror: News, Democracy and Trust in the Digital Age.

Overview of the Canadian Journalism Fund

• An expansion of the existing Canada Periodical Fund program—currently open to paid-circulation community newspapers—to cover daily and free community newspapers
• A rebate on Canadian journalism salaries and expenses
• A rebate on innovation investment in the future of journalism and dissemination of Canadian news
• In the case of disputes over qualification, a determination will be made by an independent body.

 

• https://nmc-mic.ca/n...ournalism-fund/

[VicHockeyFan]

And Andrew Coyne again:

 

Now here’s a story. Says here “Canada’s newspaper industry unites to advocate for Canadian Journalism Fund.” That’s what they’re calling the $350 million the papers want the federal government to give them every year to, well, let’s let them tell it.

 

According to Bob Cox, chairman of News Media Canada, “the industry has come together in an unprecedented way to” … What? Lobby for public funds? Plead for a rescue? No, to “support Canadians’ continued access to real news.”

 

Wait, there’s more. “In an unprecedented show of strength,” Cox says elsewhere, “our membership has come together to ask the government to” … Bail us out? Save our cushy jobs? No, to “modernize the existing Canadian Periodical Fund to address the current issues and crisis facing the dissemination of Canadian perspectives.”

 

By modernize, the industry means to expand, which is to say nearly quintuple a fund that was originally set up for magazines and small community papers to include the big-city dailies. That might sound a little self-serving, so the industry is keen to let you know that’s not what this is about. It’s not to save us. It’s to “save news.”

 

But if this is about saving news, it’s odd that the publishers should have such a narrow definition of it. Anyone who follows the news these days knows it comes from a vast array of sources: not only traditional newspapers and broadcasters, but Facebook, Twitter, online news outlets like Vice and Buzzfeed, personal or group blogs, and on and on, in every size and configuration.

 

http://nationalpost....90-808679730adb

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 20 June 2017 - 06:37 AM.