Convergence Spring 2012

CONVERGENCE

Humber College School of Media Studies & Information Technology

Unconventional Methods

SPRING 2012

Capturing the arab spring

LETTER From the Editor Sitting in a hotel restaurant in North Korea with a copy of Elizabeth Longford’s Wellington Peter Goodspeed noted his surroundings in the margins of the book as throngs of people lay flowers at the foot of a statue of Kim Il-Sung, the country’s first ruler.

On page 33, Convergence’s Emily Innes looks at how reporters work in this closed nation and how the Associated Press hopes to broaden foreign understanding with their new bureau in Pyongyang.

Until now, the country’s secretive

government has forced journalists such as Goodspeed to work covertly and find alternate routes to their story.

In many cases it’s these restrictions that encourage innovation in media.

In desperate circumstances such as the Arab Spring, photographers madedo to give international audiences a glimpse of a devastating reality. In our cover story (page 28), Erin Jones speaks with some of these photographers who turned to the convenience of iPhone apps rather than bulky DSLR cameras.

It’s not just necessity, but creativity that fosters innovation, and in this issue of Convergence we look to celebrate those people who are breaking from tradition and finding new ways to get an old job done.

Elaine Anselmi Editor-in-Chief

LETTER From the dean A shattered image of a shattered nation.

Sadly, the cover story features an image not uncommon in the whirlwind of Arab uprisings.

What is unconventional is the acceptance of this and other iPhone Hipstamatic photos as a valuable tool in the photojournalist’s arsenal.

Freelance “shooter” Michael Brown, covering the Lybian revolution, was a catalyst in the “iPhotojournalism” revolution.

New methods and new technology continue to prod journalists and other media players to stay on top of their game and their tools.

In this year, wedged between the 100th anniversary of the birth of Marshall McLuhan and the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the student editors, writers and designers of Convergence have examined some of the unconventional methods used to tell stories, sway opinion, illustrate our world. In the process, they are also documenting the changing media landscape and the changing nature of media itself.

Close to home, Toronto mayor Rob Ford, fed up with his feud with conventional media decided to take to the airwaves himself.

Samantha Emann chased the mayor for four months trying to get his side of the story.

Control of the message has always been the rule for North Korea but with the death of Kim Jong-Il and the ascendance of his son, cracks are appearing in the wall of information security.

Emily Innes reports that with an Associated Press bureau opening in North Korea and a growing cadre of refugee reporters, the world may soon get a clearer picture of this reclusive nation.

In China it’s becoming increasingly difficult

to be a foreign correspondent writes Alex Consigilio. Both human rights and press freedom have worsened significantly since the Bejing Olympics as China struggles to present a positive image to the world. In its 2011-2012 rankings, Reporters Sans Frontiers suggests China may have lost touch with reality, after dropping to 174th out of 179 countries.

There’s little room to feel smug in Canada, however, as access to information systems continues to slide on a global scale, with our nation now ranking 40th among 89 countries and tied with Estonia and Montenegro. Where is the outcry? Worse, most Canadians are either ambivalent or ignorant about our 30-year-old Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Apathy, it appears, remains a quintessential Canadian talent.

For the less conventional we turn to Les Stroud – Survivorman – who has been taking fellow Canadians on an adventure filled tour of the world. A former music technician turned TV personality and music maker, Stroud embodies the unconventional. As well, Convergence writers talk to musicians turned radio show hosts and journalists turned graphic novelists and to ad execs trying unconventional methods to reach millennials with their messages.

Given time, the unconventional often becomes the new normal. Marshall McLuhan knew that, or at least predicted it, back in the ‘60s and ‘70s when only a handful realized the magnitude of the media revolution he foresaw.

The very technologies that McLuhan was so ambivalent about have

precipitated the next major reinvention of media and we are all both spectators and participants in this process of change. The only certitude is, leaving the final word to McLuhan: “A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them.” 1964 Edited by Eric McLuhan & Frank Zingrone “Essential McLuhan” Routledge 1997 ISBN 0-415-16245-9 page 278.

Welcome to these interesting and unconventional times. And welcome to this absorbing issue of Convergence.

William Hanna Dean of the School of Media Studies and Information Technology

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 3

TABLE OF

CONTENTS 6 36 47 58 61 62

Les Stroud filming Survivorman photo by Laura Bombier

IN BRIEF PREDATORS OF THE PRESS PORTFOLIOS WHERE ARE THEY NOW? OUT OF SPACE IN MEMORY

FEATURES

Cover photo courtesy Michael C. Brown

10 LES STROUD GOES IT ALONE 28 CAPTURE & EXPOSURE

How Survivorman came to be

iPhotojournalism and documenting the Arab Spring

24 UNDERSTANDING MCLUHAN 42 MORE THAN JUST MEN IN

TIGHTS Revisiting the ideas of an innovative thinker

CBC Radio 2 Drive’s Rich Terfry aka Buck 65 photo courtesy CBC

4 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

44 ON AIR

Comics and graphic novels get real

Kim Mitchell and Buck 65 on moving to radio

INTERNATIONAL

CONVERGENCE

Reactions to whistleblower Bradley Manning

Editor-in-Chief Elaine Anselmi

22 THE RISK AND REWARD OF A WIKILEAKER 31 IF TRUTH BE TOLD...

Yemeni photographer talks about oppression

Executive Editors Adam Carter Jan Vykydal

33 SECRETS OF A ‘DEAR LEADER’

Managing Editors Words Danielle Perry Jeff Doner

38 KEEPING WORDS LOCKED UP

Managing Editors Production Samantha Emann Rebecca Sadler

Media in North Korea after Kim Jong-Il’s death

Training reporters to work in communist China

NATIONAL 8

CHARTER CHECK UP: 30 YEARS LATER

What has it done for you lately?

16 WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CABJ? The end of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists

21 INFORMATION BREAKDOWN Explaining Canada’s low grade in access to information

26 FORD TAKES ON ‘THE CITY’ Rob Ford only talks on his on own terms

BUSINESS

Art Director Marlee Greig Photo Editor Erin Jones Section Editors Ryan Saundercook Tyler Davie Dan Green Victoria Nash Copy Editors Emily Innes Ashley Greene Research Jillian Cecchini

13 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MARKET CRASH

Online Production Tyler Davie Kayona Lewis

14 THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE & THEIR DOLLARS

Faculty Advisers Terri Arnott Carey French

Crystal-balling in financial reporting

How consumer reporting looks out for you

18 OLD RIVALS TEAM UP FOR MLSE PURCHASE Bell and Rogers take stock in Toronto sports

20 ADS FOR THE STIMULATION GENERATION Marketing to Millennials

22 CREATING A PERSONA IN AN ONLINE INDUSTRY

Publisher William Hanna Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning School of Media Studies and Information Technology 205 Humber College Blvd.

Toronto, Ontario, M9W 5L7 Phone: 416-675-6622 • Fax: 416-675-9730 http://humberjournalism.com/convergence

PR wants to be your Facebook friend

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 5

in

BRIEF

The show's over for Fashion Television After 27 years on air, Fashion Television has been cancelled.

The news broke early April by longtime host Jeanne Beker, who tweeted, “So surreal. This dream is over: After 27 glorious years, FT production ceased today. So sad to see some of my closest colleagues move on.”

The show originated on Citytv and was eventually acquired by Bell Media, viewed in Canada and by more than 130 other countries around the world.

The weekly half-hour show featured talent from the worlds of fashion, photography, architecture and design — including interviews with leading style icons such as Karl Lagerfeld, Betsey Johnson and the late Alexander McQueen.

Bell Media released a statement saying, “[We look] forward to an exciting future with [Beker], including the development of new projects.

“Bell Media remains committed to the fashion genre and will continue to grow FashionTelevision Channel to deliver a broader appeal for viewers, advertisers and distributors.”

40 years of Ms. Magazine Ms. Magazine, considered a landmark institution in women’s rights, celebrates 40 years of publication.

Ms. started as a one-page sample in a December 1971 issue of the New York Magazine, and it was an instant success selling all 300,000 copies in eight days.

According to its website, by the time the first issue hit newsstands in July 1972, the magazine already had 26,000 subscriptions.

Ms. was the first of its kind to address controversial issues such as domestic violence and date rape, and also rated U.S. presidential candidates based on their stance on women’s issues.

Numerous celebrations and fundraisers are being held throughout the year to mark the occasion – some featuring guest of honour Gloria Steinem, the co-founder of Ms. and editor for 15 years.

“Certainly there are words and phrases that exist now because of Ms. – like domestic violence and sexual harassment,” Steinem told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I do think we’ve contributed to the ability to accurately describe and work on a problem.”

Ms. is now published four times a year by the Feminist Majority Foundation and accepts advertisements that align with its values such as Planned Parenthood and university women’s studies programs.

Steinem says it’s important to continue moving forward. She told a Stanford University conference, we need “to overcome these crazy categories based on the fiction or race or gender or what is normal sexuality or ethnicity and so on. And, if we do it with joy and poetry and music and sex and humour, then we will have joy and poetry and music and sex and humour at the end of our revolution. Yes, the answer is still blowing in the wind, but I think you and I, in this room, know now that we must not just hold our finger to the wind, we must become the wind.”

Tracking sat-phones risks journalists' lives In the wake of Marie Colvin’s death in Syria, the safety of satellite phones has been called into question.

On Feb. 22, The Telegraph reported journalists working in Homs feared that Syrian government forces were discovering their positions by tracking phone signals.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports satellite phones can be tracked a few different ways. Governments can ask companies to hand over user information, or buy monitoring software. Polandbased company TS2 sells a portable Thuraya network monitoring system incapable of being detected, listing the U.S. military and other government agencies as clients on its website.

EFF says the position of a satellite phone user can be discovered through triangulating the calls they make from short distances. The frequency at which the phone broadcasts is detected in the spectrum of frequencies broadcast in the region, and authorities point their antenna in the direction in which the signal is strongest. This has become easier as more satellite phones use GPS. SaferMobile, an American non-profit organization helping activists and journalists understand the risks of mobile communication says it is likely the GPS location data of the position the user calls from is sent by the phone.

6 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

Frank Smyth, senior adviser on journalist security for the Committee to Protect Journalists, writes that technologists operating from hostile environments say satellite phones should not be used from the same position more than once or in places that cannot be easily evacuated.

Users should keep their calls to a maximum of 10 minutes and then change position and multiple users should avoid calling out at the same time in the same place.

Restrictions on freedom to Tweet Twitter announced in January 2012 that it has changed its policies in ways the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) say could “facilitate granting of censorship requests in specific regions.”

On Jan. 27, a post on the CJFE website stated that censorship is a “slippery slope,” and people should pay very close attention to how the policy shift impacts freedom of speech in social media.

In their announcement, Twitter says its policy is a way to withhold tweets only in a specific country instead of globally, which they say will decrease censorship.

Journalists in Syria face grave dangers Earlier this spring, the Syrian army opened fire on a house near the Turkish border killing two freelance journalists.

Naseem Intriri, a French citizen, and Walid Bledi, a British citizen, were identified as the victims — the two were filming a documentary about Syrians fleeing to Turkey to avoid conflict in the country.

The journalists, who were staying with a number of Syrian activists in Darkoush in Idlib province, fled the house when security forces opened fire.

Upon returning to gather their equipment after the shooting appeared to subside, forces targeted them again, hitting one in the chest and one in the head. The Syrian army obtained the bodies.

One other journalist was shot in the shoulder and was driven across the border to Turkey to a hospital in Antakya.

After ordering a blackout on news coverage last year when the uprisings in the country began, the Syrian government has been attempting to control local media and completely shutting out any international journalists.

The deaths are “yet another illustration of the grave dangers that journalists face in reporting a conflict that the Syrian government has sought to hide from the world,” Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the Committee to Protect Journalists Middle East and North Africa program co-ordinator, told The Guardian.

The deaths of Intriri and Bledi raise the death toll of journalists in Syria to 10 since November of 2011.

Twitter says they, “ will withhold specific content only when required to do so in response to what [they] believe to be a valid and applicable legal request.”

But the CJFE says bending to the laws of specific countries will allow governments of those countries to use or create laws that will effectively allow them to censor what people say on Twitter.

The CJFE says this may limit freedom of expression rather than increase it, most often in countries where free speech is needed most.

CRTC names interim chairman The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada’s federal broadcast regulator, has named Leonard Katz acting chairman.

Katz, who has been vice chairman of the CRTC since 2007, replaced Konrad von Finckenstein who retired from the company in January.

Before joining CBC, Katz spent 30 years in the private sector as president and chief operating officer of Digimerge Technologies and president of Rogers Business Solutions.

He holds an MBA from McGill University and a B.Sc. from Concordia University.

Katz will remain the acting chairman until the federal government assigns a full-time replacement for von Finckenstein.

Montreal journalist targeted The Sûreté du Québec raided Journal de Montréal reporter Eric-Yvan Lemay’s home on March 15, 2012, after he published articles about the lack of patient privacy in Québec.

Lemay’s articles were about patients’ privacy records, and included photos and information from files that had been left in open view.

Police confiscated his computer, some of his clothes, and obtained fingerprints.

The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) published an open letter to Robert Dutil, the Québec Minister of Public Security, about the raid saying it was an attempt to intimidate journalists and shows that journalists in Canada lack proper protection.

The CJFE says journalists need to be able to report without fear of harassment and intimidation, and the raid could have a “chilling effect” on journalism in Québec.

Reporting on female circumcision Liberian journalist Mae Azango and her nine-year-old daughter were forced into hiding this spring after receiving death threats for bravely exposing the tradition of female genital mutilation (female circumcision) in Liberia.

Azango reported on her personal experience of being circumcised at the age of 13 by five women with a knife in the bushes. The article, headlined “Growing Pains: Sande Tradition of Genital Cutting Threatens Liberian Women’s Health,” was published on March 8, 2012, by FrontPage Africa.

Though this made her a target of threats over the controversial subject, her story has forced the Liberian government to take a public position on the ritual that has been passed down for generations.

Azango told the CBC that some Liberians, a secret sect, practice female genital mutilation to deter adultery. According to other news sources, as many as two out of three Liberian girls in 10 out of 16 Liberian tribes are subjected to the tradition.

The Liberian government cautioned journalists to be careful reporting the story and sent out letters to those who perform the procedure asking them to end it.

This is the first time the Liberian government has said it wants to stop female genital mutilation.

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 7

Fred Vallance-Jones (left) and Bruce Gillespie (right) speak at the 30th Anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms event at Ryerson photo by Jan Vykydal

charter check up: 30 years later Canadians are indifferent about the charter, but it’s not all their fault. Journalists have a responsibility to make them care By Jan Vykydal

F

reedom of the press in Canada is at risk, and the Canadian public is sitting by and allowing it to happen.

That was the message from a group of journalists, lawyers, government officials, and experts on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms who met to discuss press freedom at Ryerson University in March.

“We don’t cherish the Charter, and frankly, most of us don’t know about it,” said Michael Cooke, editor of the Toronto Star, and panelist at the conference. “And I’m not even sure that Canadians in general care about it very much.

There’s not a lot of evidence that they do.”

One of the main themes of the conference, called Press Freedom in Canada: A Status Report on the 30th Anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, was that the indifference of Canadians is one of the biggest reasons people in power are allowed to suppress information.

Cooke told a room packed with close to 200 people that journalists in Canada still rely on groups of self-appointed elites for their information. These groups include doctors, lawyers, teachers, and most of all politicians.

8 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

And, he said, a huge part of the problem is that these groups protect themselves, and the members of their organizations.

He cited the case of Howard Curtis Baker, a Richmond Hill, Ont. lawyer who was convicted of possession of child pornography.

An Ontario judge allowed Baker to resign, and according to Cooke, a meeting between Baker and the judge in the judge’s chambers was followed by a publication ban on his disciplinary hearings. Following this, Baker appeared before the Law Society of Upper Canada – a group created by the Legislative Assembly to regulate, licence, and discipline Ontario lawyers and paralegals – where they upheld the ban.

Cooke said the courts still haven’t told anyone what happened to Baker.

“Those kinds of cases go on with those professions over and over again, and we need to open it up. It’s justice in secret, and it’s wrong,” said Cooke.

Bruce Gillespie, an assistant professor of journalism at Wilfrid Laurier University who recently published a study on how Charter issues are presented in the press, says the

problem isn’t just how journalists tackle Charter or access to information issues – it runs deeper than that. The problem is Canadian culture as a whole, from the indifference of the public to the mindset of those in positions of power.

“Obviously those people are elected by us to work on our behalf and in our best interests with our money,” says Gillespie. “So we need freedom of information either as journalists or as individual citizens in order to look through all the information about their daily operations and where they’re spending money and what choices they’re making and why they’re making them.”

He says Canadians are apathetic and ignorant to the point that they often don’t understand the difference between the Charter and the U.S. constitution.

“One of the things I looked at was this idea that I think a lot of Canadians really aren’t aware the Charter exists, and what exactly it enshrines in terms of their rights,” says Gillespie.

“I think part of this is history and part of this is cultural. I think if you stopped people on the streets and said, ‘There’s an act of legislation that guarantees these rights. Can you name it?’ I

think very few people could. And I think with respect to the press freedom rights, I think that if you asked people on the street – and maybe even some journalists – what rights journalists have in Canada, I think they would actually end up telling you the rights journalists have in the States, just because we hear about them much more often.”

The United States enacted its freedom of information legislation in 1966, almost 20 years before Canada.

Almost at the same time the Charter was introduced, Canada enacted its freedom of information legislation, which required the government to give people information about its inner workings.

Fred Vallance-Jones, a journalist and assistant professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax, says there is an “appalling lack of political will to see the system work,” and since the legislation was introduced, information hasn’t been as easy to access as it was supposed to be.

Vallance-Jones, who is also one of the country’s leading experts on access to information, says before the legislation in 1982 there was a tight lid on information, so there was intense resistance when everyone was suddenly supposed to have access to all sorts of government information.

“

I think a lot of Canadians really aren’t aware the charter exists, and what exactly it enshrines in terms of their rights

”

Bruce Gillespie

He says the access to information system is set up to delay or deny requests from anyone seeking even vaguely sensitive information.

Access to information “requests are only bad news, and potential sources of trouble for risk-averse public servants,” said former B.C. information commissioner David Flaherty, in a 2001 report.

Vallance-Jones and Gillespie pin a portion of the blame on journalists, who haven’t done an adequate job of discussing the issue of freedom of the press in a way that makes the public care.

Gillespie says stories written about Charter issues tend to lack context, and come off as whiny and self-pitying, which annoys readers. He says it’s not deliberate, but articles written about the Charter often don’t explain to the reader that access to information issues facing journalists directly affect everyone – that limiting access to information is an obfuscation of democracy.

Typically, most working journalists know enough to protect themselves from libel, says Gillespie, but their knowledge of Charter issues is meager.

In larger media outlets, he says, journalists have a legal department they can run their stories through, but that allows journalists to be lazy.

Education about Charter rights in journalism school may help, but Gillespie says that idea could be taken further – students in all colleges and universities should be taught about the rights the Charter affords them.

“More education across the board is certainly necessary, and I think journalists writing about it more often will help, but I’m not sure it’s the magic bullet that will solve all these issues,” says Gillespie.

“Every day, average readers think of journalism as, ‘Oh, it’s just there to tell you stuff,’ and maybe that’s the weather and maybe that’s celebrity gossip and maybe that’s weight loss tips, but the function of journalism at its most basic level still is as a facilitator of democracy,” he says.

“Journalism in a Western democratic sense is a tool of that democracy.

Journalism is there to facilitate democracy and that’s the end of it.”

photo by Jan Vykydal

“People are scared of freedom”

Veteran investigative journalist Linden MacIntyre talked about what he calls “courthouse culture” at the 30th Anniversary Conference on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He described this culture as the tendency of people in power to deny other people information, regardless of whether those people are entitled to the information or not.

“Courthouse culture doesn’t end in little courthouses, in backwaters or even big cities like Halifax,” cautioned MacIntyre.

Whether or not journalists get information still depends on who they’re talking to. The operating ideology of the party in power seeps down into courthouses, influences how much information is released, how long it takes to be released and how much it costs, says MacIntyre, an award-winning journalist, author, and host of CBC’s The Fifth Estate.

“The law doesn’t require anybody to tell you in which building in the country the search warrant applications are filed,” says MacIntyre.

He says the courts have learned where and how to hide information.

“Once again, in 2012 courthouse culture rules in a lot of places, and it causes me – after many, many years in this business – to ask myself, ‘How does this phenomenon called courthouse culture survive, in spite of constitutional amendments, in spite of well-intended legislation, in spite of supreme court decisions?’” says MacIntyre. “And I have to say that it applies far more because of a state of mind in the general public than it does in any particular political ideology.

“People are scared of freedom. It’s kind of like we’re all in favour of the idea, but when it comes to the practice, we become a bit indifferent to what goes along with freedom, which is called responsibility. You have to take ownership of the things that you are free to do, and a whole lot of us would rather be told: ‘You’re not allowed to do it.’”

He says for many people, this is the default position on freedom.

“We have freedom of religion and nobody goes to church anymore.

We have freedom of the press and people have stopped reading the press. People are now shopping around for what most closely approximates their view of the world and their own way of interpreting issues, and they find the boutique that delivers something comfortable to be with or, in the lower end of the food chain, something that is amusing and sexy and affirming of who you want to be. And the broad sense of improving ourselves by consuming information or improving society by digging it out and putting it out there is just diminishing.”

JV

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 9

Stroud in the Kalahari desert, Namibia

UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS

LES STROUD goes it alone

How this survivorman got where he is today: A look at the creation of a reality TV first, now in its final season

By Elaine Anselmi photos by Laura Bombier

10 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

H

is feet are severely blistered and he threw his back out three days into his stay on the uninhabited Tiburón Island – an island separated from Mexico’s west coast by Canal del Infiernillo, or Hell’s Channel. Yet, when Les Stroud says that for the first time in more than a decade filming Survivorman he is ready to call it quits, physical pain is hardly the deciding factor.

Since 2001, Stroud has been filming in some of the most isolated and severe environments of the world, and the physical discomforts afforded by such harsh conditions are nothing new. But this last time – and it is just that, the last episode of the Survivorman series – Stroud says he is tired of filming himself.

It’s not only Stroud’s ability to endure the simulated situations posed in the show that make it unique – think, road bike breaks down in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert or canoe trip gone wrong in Canada’s boreal forest – it’s his ability to capture it. It’s the cameraman, the host and the producer. It’s Stroud.

“Along the way and over time, if you’re paying attention and watching your life unfold and going after what you want, you get this toolkit. And it just keeps gathering all of these different tools and skillsets, until you land somewhere and go, ‘Wow, I can use everything I’m about,’ ” Stroud tells Convergence. “I think that’s where I’m at.”

Where he’s at is a place that is the result of years spent working towards several divergent interests that met in the media brand he has now established.

“Generally speaking, if you’re paying attention, everything you do in life tends to swirl around back onto itself. Especially if you’re going in the right direction,” says Stroud.

For him, the first step in that direction was pursuing his love and talent for music in Fanshawe College’s music industry arts program. “All I knew was I played some rock ‘n roll in the suburbs of Toronto,” says Stroud.

“How else am I going to learn how to become an engineer or producer or any of those things.”

Stroud saw this program as one avenue that allowed him to work both on his music, and on his technical skills to be a part of the Canadian music industry.

The music industry arts program coordinator, Steve Malison, says he sees the program as having two halves. “It has a tech side and a non-tech side,” which allowed Stroud to learn the mechanics behind recording studios.

As well, Stroud “learned about the business and integrating through networks, and so on. How to get that level of entertainment that good,” he says.

Stroud is “an entertainer and gets the whole business of entertainment, including all the nuts and bolts and all the creative side that need to go into a successful TV show,” says Malison.

“You can’t have only the creative side and have no sense of structure, tech or business. You’ve got to have it all.”

Terry McManus, a now part-time Fanshawe instructor, speaks to Convergence of the developing empire of his former student.

“Les always had a lot of confidence, but I wasn’t really sure what he was so confident about,” recalls McManus. “He was obviously a very engaging person and obviously a very bright person, but he wasn’t focused.”

Stroud is still in contact with his former instructor who he says gave him “many pearls of wisdom along the way.” Both point to the time McManus called Stroud out in class saying, “You know you’re not going to impress anybody coming to school in track pants.”

Despite what Stroud thought at the time, he says this is one example of how McManus taught him to think seriously about what he was doing and where he was going. “He was quite right,” says Stroud. “It’s like, you’ve got to start making yourself do the deed.”

After graduation Stroud moved back to Toronto (he was raised just west of the city in Mimico), where he says his interest was piqued by the new television station MuchMusic, that

Stroud in Ecuador

was airing an increasingly popular medium, music videos. “The first job I got was working in production in rock videos: building sets and production managing.”

Stroud’s initial interest in making his own music never faded. He says while working on other bands’ rock videos, he was envious of the bands he was working for. “My inner desire was as a musician,” says Stroud. “That was really always my simple core desire.”

It was a desire that led Stroud to a very important step in his career, says McManus, as “the music helped him get into the video end of things.”

Stroud remained at the station for several years, where he says he was “exploring the avenues from the skillset [he] learned at Fanshawe, and was able to capitalize on them.”

Eventually, Stroud left MuchMusic feeling disillusioned.

“It was that mid-20s angst,” he says. “I just was not focused. I was not focused and I should have been.”

The next step was clear. “As soon as I pulled

away I turned right back to the thing that I originally loved, and that was nature.”

Stroud set off in a canoe along the whitewater and calm stretches of the Temagami River, in Nipissing District, Ont. He describes paddling the 64 kilometre river, lined with mixedwood forest, as being utter heaven. “I just thought, how could I get this all the time? And, I found out there were ways,” he says.

Stroud’s search for the peace he found paddling Ontario’s wild and meandering river system led him into the industry that would provide the survival skills and outdoor savvy that make him the “survivorman.”

“One thing led to another and I became an outdoor adventurer and guide,” says Stroud of one of the sources of his basic survival skills. He led canoe trips throughout northern Ontario for Blackfeather Wilderness Adventures, as well as undertaking extensive wilderness survival and primitive-living training.

McManus points to the Temagami canoe trip as a formative time in Stroud’s career path.

“He headed north and took what he learned

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 11

Stroud shows off one of his many talents in Peru

about video and filming and the rest of it and combined it with his love of the outdoors. And that was it,” says McManus. “Music is a good springboard towards a lot of different things that have to do with combining arts and business.

“You have the artistic sensibilities that kind of say, ‘what if?’ That postulates something and says, ‘you know, what if I just want to spend time in the country?’ ” McManus says. “Then you take any technical things that you’ve learned along the way – in Les’ case it was working with cameras and film – and so he added the technical to the artistic and he created a product.”

The Outdoor Life Network’s (OLN) original series Survivorman, illustrates how Stroud’s love of adventure weaves flawlessly with his passion for the natural environment.

“He’s one of the most passionate people I have ever met. He does this because he loves to do this and most great content creators are doing it, and are motivated by that reason,” says Claire Freeland, director of original programming at OLN. “You can’t go out for that number of days alone with just your camera and survive off the land and not be passionate.”

The show began as five-minute segments on Discovery Canada, as a part of that channel’s show Daily Planet. For this first project Stroud spent seven days in Wabakime Park, near Thunder Bay, Ont. He filmed the episodes in the rugged fashion still evident on Survivorman, and then edited it down to five small segments that ran for a week.

“At the end of the week the ratings were so high we just took those five, five-minute segments and put them all together and played it

12 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

as one show on the Sunday,” says Stroud. “And the idea was born.”

Stroud produced two of these mini-series for Discovery Canada. And, following the success of these, Stroud says he looked to sell the show to whoever would buy it, and that was OLN. For the station whose name encompasses outdoor life, this one-man-show of basic survival was a natural fit. “OLN is programming that embodies the spirit of action and adventure and obviously outdoors being a big component of that,” says Freeland. “I think Les’ show really was the show that was indicative of OLN as a service.”

OLN first aired the show in Canada in 2004, with the Discovery Channel providing an international stage.

“I think it really turned reality programming on its head,” says Freeland. “He wears a lot of hats, that’s for sure … I’m sure he’s got a few people that he works with but he really leads the charge and it’s his vision. And I think it makes sense for the type of show that it is. He needs to have that creative control.”

This is a sentiment shared by Stroud, as it is his vision that drives and dictates every part of the show.

“To this day I’ll do four or five different camera angles, and that’s when the passion of the filmmaker comes out and that rests within my creativity … just like the music, just like the entertainment. For me everything is always about expressing creativity.”

He says despite how difficult basic survival is at times, until this last episode, he never thought to stop filming. Getting a good shot is always

on his mind.

“If I’m going to be making a film out there on Survivorman, I’m alone. I want it to look beautiful, as beautiful as I can on screen.”

McManus says Stroud’s creative and discerning eye is a factor in the success of the show.

“The thing with most successful people is that they’ve got a standard and if it doesn’t come up to that standard it doesn’t happen,” says McManus. “Paul McCartney has probably written a whole lot of bad songs, but you’ve never heard them … because, he threw them out or they didn’t make it to his records.

“People look at Les on TV and they go ‘wow, look at this guy – he’s out there, he’s a Survivorman, he’s a survivalist.’ You know what I look at? I go, ‘look at that camera shot – this is an artist. This is an artist out in his element, doing what only he can do.’ ” “When I first started doing it, you know no one had done anything like this before,” Stroud says. “In fact, no one’s still been able to do what I’ve done in terms of being alone.”

“The copycat shows, when people talk about them, they basically talk about, oh, maybe the show was cool, or something like that, but you don’t hear them talking about lives being changed and with Survivorman that phenomenon did happen,” says Stroud. “That’s a lot more important than any of the other peripheral circumstances around making a TV show.”

Stroud says there wasn’t one particular moment of enlightenment where he realized what he was meant to do. Rather, it was years of accumulating experiences and skills that brought him here.

Stroud says his life has “been a series of thousands of pivotal moments that all feed into each other. And, they always do keep telling the same story, that’s for sure. And that is that I love being connected to the earth.”

Stroud is now designing and promoting his own multimedia music tour, called Les Stroud: the Earth Tour. He says it has very strong environmental messaging and is a project he never could have done in this way had he not been the “survivorman.”

“I’m landing right where I started, and right where I wanted to be all along,” says Stroud.

“Now I have this audience, so I think really all of my life of desires to promote the health of the earth, to promote being connected to the planet all comes to fruition now.”

Stroud laughs at the promotional line he’s come up with for the tour and says, “Bono’s never lived with cannibals, and David Suzuki can’t rock and roll. That’s where I come in.”

CLOUDY WITH a chance of

market

CR a

SH

The crux of financial journalism is forecasting trends and preparing for the storm

By Tyler Davie

A

good sense of history is required of those covering business and economic affairs.

Media have a tendency to treat stories like they’ve never happened before, says Carleton University journalism professor Christopher Waddell, who teaches courses on how to navigate the sea of statements, reports and opinions making up the field and provide context for readers.

“In the late 1980s when the Canadian government was running annual deficits of $30 billion, that was big news,” says Waddell. “Because it was a big issue for a long time, a lot of journalists knew and understood a lot about it. The specialized reporters still knew more but there was more general knowledge. But we went through 10 to 12 years where nobody cared about the business-economic world except for the specific reporters covering business and economics.”

The ability to provide context with economic stories for general audience publications decreased in Canada between the early 1990s and 2008, Waddell says. Canada’s economy was relatively good in that period, and the media’s attention drifted towards the stories where something was going very visibly wrong.

Waddell says that the replacement of specific beat reporters with general assignment reporters contributed to the lack of ability to provide context to a lot of numbers that need some detailed examination and the pronouncements of economists, financial institutions, and governments.

These are the types of data specialized reporters

need to follow regularly.

“The big number isn’t always necessarily the big story,” says Waddell. “There’s always lots of people making predictions about these things.

Not a lot of media check up on them, so they’re not held to account and there’s no disincentive to make further predictions.”

And the economy has certainly been the big story since 2008.

According to Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism data, economic stories have made up the largest portion of mainstream news coverage for the last three years in the United States. The unit of measurement used – newshole – encompasses all newspaper front pages, news websites, television news shows, and radio from 50 sources, such as The New York Times and CNN. In 2009, 2010, and 2011, the economy’s percentage of the newshole was 20, 14, and 20, respectively.

The ease of covering economic stories from political venues is part of their domination of the American news cycle, says Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the PEJ. “There tends to be a kind of political battle, partisan battle, beltway battle, over an economic issue that tends to make up a lot of the coverage,” he says. “It basically takes place on Pennsylvania Avenue and its easier to do something like that, just logistically, because your reporters can go down to Capitol Hill, and people are standing in front of microphones every day, every hour of the day, and talking about that particular situation.”

Those numbers are averaged over the year.

For short periods of time relating to specific issues, they spike considerably. For the first half of February 2009, as the stimulus bill worked its way through Congress, the economic category made up 46 per cent of the newshole. Economic newshole share was 31 per cent for most of December 2010 with the battle over the expiry of the Bush tax cuts, and 35 per cent from the

end of June through the first week of August 2011, with the debt ceiling battle and possible default of the U.S. Government.

The more something is said and not demonstrated to be untrue or out of context, the more it becomes conventional wisdom, and Toronto Star business columnist David Olive says journalists need to think about who profits from the conventional wisdom. Bankers and financial institutions profit from it, but Olive says that doesn’t make conventional wisdom right.

“The old conventional wisdom was that the world was booming, there would be one wave of prosperity after another,” he says. “Now people are gloomy about everything, that’s the new conventional wisdom.” Austerity is the conventional response in much of Europe, and Olive says he wonders if this approach is worth it considering the amount of pain people will be put through.

Olive says journalists are generally better at writing history than offering predictions. Reporting is, after all, writing about things that have happened.

“Journalism has been terrible as a predictive force about stuff on the horizon,” he says. “It’s more that we’ve failed to prepare than predict, there’s a chronic failure for decades of preparing people for potential future outcomes. Beware of predictions.”

He says journalists should be skeptical of conventional wisdom and anticipate drastic change.

That thousands of financial and business journalists across all media, including Olive, could miss the dangers of U.S. housing and mortgagebacked securities is evidence. The story hasn’t ended there, with people and economies struggling to keep their heads above water. If journalists walked the street instead of the newsroom, Olive says they might not have missed it.

Olive says beat reporters in areas other than finance are in place to notice key pieces of data in financial stories – he gives the example of how reporters at city halls in suburban America might have noticed how town sewage budgets were rising dramaticalImage courtesy Bank of Canada

Tech stocks fall on September 29 2008 Courtesy Mike McCune, Creative Commons

ly without corresponding population growth, and the people buying those Dunsky says the team had an opportunity to understand and illustrate houses and shopping at the new malls had taken out such large mortgages. the sources of the financial collapse of 2008, and once they and the audi“With the financial collapse, there were lonely dissenting voices, but ence had a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of the causes, broader not a majority. It wasn’t the conventional wisdom,” he says. “As a journal- issues could be examined. He says once the team felt good about quesist, you have to be humble, do the work and watch nothing happen. But tions to ask, they could find people to address them and put bigger quesit was the truth, and three to five years later people will say, ‘You know, I tions on the table. read that somewhere…’”

Dunsky says the story of the collapse introduced the team to data jourEditors are the ones who eventually make the calls on which stories nalism and visualization. run, and can drive the intensity of an outlet’s cov“The most memorable pieces of data we’ve erage. Canadian Business editor Duncan Hood presented have been visual, just because of the recalls working at Maclean’s during the stock scale of some of these numbers,” he says. “You market crash in 2008. could take the number of mortgages underwater “Maclean’s decided it was a financial catastroin a certain region, then feed in other related inforphe, and we came out with a couple of cover stomation, such as the effects on jobs and families.”

Boyd Erman, Waddell says the information is out there, ries,” he says. “You make quick calls and it helps Globe and Mail reporter just not necessarily on the front pages, and that if you have the right mix of experience and fresh people in the room.” reporters need to canvass a range of opinion, Hood says editors have a hunch about what might happen and send report- gauge how realistic it is and arrange it fairly for the audience to ensure a ers out with working theses. Then they need to become specialists themselves. basic level of economic and financial literacy in society.

Hood says the best editors are representatives of the average reader of a Boyd Erman, a reporter for the Globe and Mail Report on Business, publication, whether Canadian Business’ professional audience, Maclean’s says journalists are all trying to figure out what that next big story is. general audience, or MoneySense’s family money manager audience.

He identifies the Canadian housing market, the Canadian Mortgage and In attempting to read the tea leaves of complex financial issues, TVO’s Housing Corporation (CMHC), and Canadian household debt as potential The Agenda with Steve Paikin, is heavily influenced by audience response hot spots. through social media, says executive producer Dan Dunsky. This method “We’re all poking away at those stories to see if there’s anything there,” allows producers to gauge viewers’ understanding of topics, engage them says Erman. It takes multiple stories and versions of the same story to cordirectly in conversation, and learn from them. rectly frame the issue and demonstrate as something people really need Dunsky says ongoing analysis of the situation, especially related to to know about.

Ontario’s fiscal problems, turns into a discussion with viewers where eco“You rarely get to write the definitive version the first time,” he says. nomic stories progress in a political direction. He says this discussion is “You make your mistakes in public; people call you; people educate you about how society is moving forward from the recession and deciding on and say, ‘No, you’re going up the wrong alley and this is where you want the relationship between governments, corporations and citizens. to look’ and the stories get better for it.”

“

Right now we’re all trying to figure out what that next story is

14 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

”

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

“What we have a lot of now is business coverage that’s written from the viewpoint of the consumer or aimed at the consumer,” says Roseman.

“I think the [financial] world has got a lot more complex and readers are really dying to find out what it all means.”

Before the onset of global economic hard times, business coverage was, “Well, the price of gold is up $20 but nobody ever says, ‘So what’s the importance,’ ” she says. In today’s coverage, reporters tell consumers what the price of gold means to them.

Rosemans says that what consumer jouirnalists are trying to figure out is what their role is and help make their readers more aware of their finances.

“Part of what we do in the media is communicate in very, very easy, simple understandable language. Companies don’t do that … customers are relying on us media, Evey now and then a story comes along that to simplify it … I think that people appreciate reminds a journalist of the reasons for embracing that, they see that it’s important and they the craft. For Ellen Roseman, Toronto Star see the media’s role as trying to cut through business columnist, it came last year, when she the camouflage and tell them the real truth,” was contacted by a mother who needed help Roseman says. opening her dead son’s Facebook page.

People are often too busy to do a lot of The page had become an online memorial, but research about products, she says. That’s where since the mother was not his “friend” she could not consumer journalism steps in. gain access. After going through all the channels “We will always be consumers, a lot more of and being given the cold shoulder by Facebook, the risks are being thrown on to our shoulders the mother contacted Roseman for help. … the decisions we are making are more Roseman answered the plea and contacted complicated than before but we’re being pushed sources of her own. In the end Facebook responded into them because of the fact that we have to and allowed the mother to view the site. keep going as consumers as long as we can,” Consumer journalism is all about “taking says Roseman. an extra step in trying to relate the business When asked for examples of standheadlines to the ordinary person reading it and out consumer-protection victories, Sean how they can use O’Shea, host of that information,” the eponymous says Roseman.

Consumer SOS The Facebook on Global TV, case – while tightly thinks of a senior sighted on individual citizen who got her tragedy – resonated money back from for a larger audience a Montreal scam still coming to grips Sean O’Shea, Global News artist. Somebody with the reach of phoned her house social networking. In other cases, the importance and said she had won a new car, but the catch of a story is more obvious. was she had to pay $1,500 in order to claim it.

“In 2008, that mortgage crisis in the U.S. was Unfortunately, she paid the money. “We went to a huge eye-opening experience for everyone Montreal, located the company that was running because we realized that the whole mortgage a boiler room scam operation, ran in there with a business in the U.S. . . . had gone completely camera,[and] convinced them to give the money haywire,” says Roseman. In the financial back. She got her money back,” says O’Shea. meltdown that followed, the business writer That was 10 year ago, but the demand for became the go-to person for an explanation information that will help protect consumers’ of complex forces battering bemused and wallets continued to gather steam. unprepared consumers.

“I get anywhere from ten to 200 phone calls

& THEIR

[and] emails a week. The sad part is you can’t help everybody, you can’t do a story on every situation, so you pick and choose,” says O’Shea.

Deciding which story to cover can be tricky.

“It boils down to whether it’s going to be a good story, whether you can get the people to go on camera and talk about the particular issue, whether they’re prepared to do that,” says

DOLLAR$

Consumer journalists ask the questions their audience needs answered

By Rebecca Sadler

“

The sad part is you can’t help everybody, you can’t do a story on every situation

”

Toronto Star columnist Ellen Roseman photo by Rebecca Sadler

O’Shea. “You could do a story a day, 15 stories a day on some of the issues based on the calls I get. The limits are resources [and] time.”

There are also legal limits.

“We know going in it’s going to be risky. We do a lot of editorial consultation, we bring the lawyers in early with consultations, get their opinions, vet the scripts carefully and we go ahead,” says O’Shea.

In the end, consumer related programing will always be needed.

“The news that most people want to watch is the news that matters to them,” says Laurie Few, executive producer of 16X9, Global’s investigative current affairs program. “For the Average Joe what really matters to them is what happens in their daily life.” Is that $30,000 car going to burst into flames on their driveway?

Are the big banks making big bucks every time a debit card gets swiped? “These are things that matter to us in our daily lives. So everybody can relate to this.”

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 15

WhatEVER HappenEd to the CABJ? The Canadian Association of Black Journalists has taken down its website and is no longer the thriving organization it once was, leaving many questioning what went wrong

By Kayona Lewis

T

he association that was once a go-to hub for minority journalists has fallen upon hard times. Its website is missing, there is no official president or board members, and there is really no association to speak of at all.

When the Canadian Association of Black Journalists (CABJ) was founded in 1997, it “was an opportunity to create a resource so that there was a pool of people who had the ability … to create more of a profile,” says Angela Lawrence, CABJ founder. “If anything this was an opportunity to work towards an association that would have been a resource not only for the black community, but also for the mainstream media and mainstream employers in general.”

Former CABJ treasurer, Donovan Vincent, says the association was once thriving. “We had gospel brunches, we had speakers, and a big thing was our membership and a lot of young kids coming through. There was a real synergy happening there,” he says. Although Vincent admits that at one point, things started to fall off, such as a lack of attention to finances, no Annual General Meetings (AGM) taking place, and a lack of fundraising events, they were still able to pull themselves up again.

However, the CABJ’s website was recently taken down and the organization looks as though it has disbanded. The news was received with mixed reactions, but did not come as much of a surprise – in fact, according to current and former members of the CABJ, it looks as though the downfall of the organization has been a long time coming. According to Lawrence, there has been a lack of enthusiastic presidents and a steady decline of interest in the organization due to lack of upkeep.

As recently as this year, the CABJ and the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in the United States, both known for giving scholarships to journalism students and running successful annual fundraisers, were in talks on how to better what was, in the past, a thriving, organization.

So what went wrong?

Lawrence describes the years when the organization first began in 1997 to 2001, as the “glory days.”

“Definitely at that time it was an organization. We had monthly workshops, it was thriving and we had about 200 paid members,” says Law-

16 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

rence, who confirmed that she cannot say for sure what the current status of the CABJ is. “I don’t know if the CABJ’s dead – I just know the website is not there,” she says.

“I was very disappointed to see that,” she says. “Besides the fact that [the website] had not been updated for about eight months, at the very least, have the website up. If an association is going to die have something up that says, you know this is going to happen. It could have been a lot more inclusive,” she says.

Lawrence was not alone in her frustration and confusion with the slow but steady decline of the organization she founded.

Ashante Infantry, former CABJ parliamentarian and one of its first members, has similar views, stating that she is slightly disappointed with how the organization has fizzled out. “Lots of organizations go through challenges, but there are some real leadership issues in the last eight years that are responsible for it falling apart and that’s a shame,” says Infantry.

In her 10 years at the CABJ, she was involved in fundraisers and counts the CABJ as being a part of her getting into journalism. She says it is unfortunate there won’t be something like this around for future black

journalists.

“There was a really crucial period about five years ago when the organization really needed some leadership to take it into the new phase of journalism,” says Infantry. “The organization should have moved to be more online, in terms of an online newsletter and a [website] where people could blog and contribute their ideas. It didn’t make that transition, and I think that’s why it has fallen apart. It’s hard to make people attend meetings, but I think if it was established online at the right time they would have been able to keep it going.”

She says after first leaving the CABJ in 2001, she got re-involved with the organization four or five years ago to help revive it. The lack of teamwork was frustrating, she says, and she found people’s attention was divided and it was hard to get them to follow through when they took on tasks.

“I think what happened was there was an influx of new membership, which is good. There was also an influx of new people on the board, which is also good – but what happened was some of the established foundation members got old, they got busier with either family or careers and there was not much of a connection with the old and new.”

In fact, she says, “I didn’t notice the website was down because I had fallen out of love with [CABJ] a long time ago.”

Not everybody feels the same way. Vincent, who spent four years with the organization starting in 1997, credits the enthusiasm of CABJ members in the early years as one of the highlights, making note of what they did for the community with fundraisers and brunches.

“Things started dropping off around ’05 and ’06, and I noticed things like we weren’t getting any emails, I wasn’t hearing about any activities happening, and the organization just started to drift off,” says Vincent, conceding that the organization requires a lot of sacrifice on top of everyday work and day-to-day life. “Folks just don’t have the time anymore.”

When referring to the state of the CABJ right now, Vincent says that it did not come as a shock to him. “I can’t say I was surprised, because the last AGM had been postponed and looking at [the hiatus] we went through two and a half boards ago, you could start to see a bit of drop off. We had problems getting folks to come out to our events, we had some problems getting

“

different committees going, we had a discussion board [on the website] and we had absolutely no discussion for the last two years that I was there.”

Unlike Infantry and Lawrence, Vincent believes that this drop off was not a lack of leadership, but lack of a strong organization. “An organization is only as strong as its members.

given up hope saying that she is relying on that American connection.

“There has always been an on-going goal to create some connection with the NABJ and the CABJ. It’s the next best step but it needs to happen from [the NABJ] end in order to be done.”

“The site is down because it didn’t make sense to keep it active if there wasn’t anything

The president at the time was pretty active, but you also have to have members taking part to make the organization dynamic,” says Vincent, who calls the most recent acting president at the time, Michelle Lynch, a “crackerjack.”

“She’s a really smart lady and I have a lot of respect for her, she’s a real gogetter, real passionate and committed,” he says.

Lynch deDonovan Vincent , scribes the situaFormer CABJ treasurer tion as “a difficult thing.”

“The intention is not for it to be completely gone,” says Lynch, admitting that although she is not the acting president at the moment, she is working in conjunction with the NABJ to win support to create a chapter in Toronto.

Lynch says she is adamant about bringing the CABJ back to life, but unfortunately is not in the position to do it at this time. She acknowledges that after a final attempt to recruit people to take various positions on the board was unsuccessful, she decided to leave. However, she has not

in place, but the goal is to continue with it and hope that people are still interested in seeing it thrive,” Lynch says in response to the question of whether or not this was an unintentional disbandment of the CABJ. Lawrence says if this is the end of the organization, then it had a good run. Lawrence does feel that the CABJ served its immediate purpose “A lot of the people who were members 15 or 16 years ago got what they needed to get out of CABJ. They connected with the people they needed to connect with and they got the jobs they wanted to get. Maybe what needs to happen [now] is we give it a nice burial and pull another team together to launch something new.”

Things started dropping off around ’05 and ’06...

Folks just don’t have the time anymore

”

(Facing page, top) 1998 CABJ launch party, 1998 Annual General Meeting (Facing page, middle) Ashante Infantry, 2003 Christmas party (Facing page, bottom) 1998 CABJ launch party (Right page) 2007 Annual General Meeting photos courtesy Angela Lawrence

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 17

OLD rivals team up FOR MLSE purchase The good and the bad of the Bell and Rogers majority share of Toronto sports giant

By Jeff Doner

T

alks of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan selling its majority share of the highly valued Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) have resonated across the Toronto media landscape since early 2010.

But the volume was turned up when not one, but two high rollers stepped up as potential buyers.

This spring will bring the official majority takeover of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Raptors, Football Club and Marlies by the two airwavedominating companies.

Canada’s two largest sports networks, TSN (Bell) and Sportsnet (Rogers), have been aggressively competing for an edge for over a decade, but are attempting to put their differences aside in the $1.32 billion venture that could change the face of sports media in Toronto. However, the jury is out on how the partnership will work.

Bruce Dowbiggin, a Gemini Award-winning hockey writer who reported on the MLSE sale for The Globe and Mail, paints a grim picture of where sports media in Toronto is headed.

“We have a situation now where the GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs [Brian Burke] and Bob McCowan (a radio host on Rogers Sportsnet the Fan 590) are getting a paycheck from the same boss,” Dowbiggin says. “If we get to a point where Brian Burke is upset about the coverage that he’s getting from Bob McCowan, who do the bosses side with? The conflicts are out there and they’re rampant in this situation. The partnership has made it even worse.”

Damien Cox, a sports columnist for the Toronto Star, who is also a contributor to various Rogers television and radio programs, agrees there are questions about how the partnership will work,

18 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

George Cope CEO Bell Media (left), Larry Tanenbaum MLSE Chairman (centre), Nadir Mohamed CEO Rogers (right) photo courtesy of MLSE

but says business shouldn’t change too much.

“It’s hard to envision TSN or Sportsnet doing an extensive series on how [the] Leafs or Raps management is running the team into the ground and suggesting the general manager be replaced.

So sure, I think there are some uncomfortable areas here. As a practical matter, on a daily basis I doubt much will change … I doubt very much they will stop competing.”

Stewart Johnston, president of TSN, said in January that competition between the two giants will remain at a fever pitch.

“By Bell and Rogers sharing in the purchase of MLSE, not a lot will change. We are as competitive as we’ve ever been and that starts at individual business units such as TSN versus [Sportsnet].

“There’s a long history of solid competition,” Johnston says. “So we’re as fierce as ever. How we wrap around specific MLSE content is going to be a key differentiator between us,” he says of game broadcasting.

The big question is how these companies split up the assets, namely the broadcast rights to games. Johnston says there is plenty of content for everyone involved.

“We think there’s enough content to go around for two networks, and that is not the case

in most other Canadian cities I would suggest, but in Toronto there certainly is and there is a population base to support multiple offerings.”

As for why the mega-competitors would join forces in this venture, Cox says the two companies want to protect their interests, while also promoting growth of their own respective products.

“I believe what they say, that neither could afford to buy the whole thing or get cut out,” Cox says. “So they had to do a deal.”

Jeff Beer, a writer for Canadian Business, agrees with Cox, but also says there could have been issues with the competition bureau or the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) if only one of Bell or Rogers had purchased MLSE. “Certainly the others would have been crying foul for having an unfair advantage of access to Leafs and other sports teams,” Beer says. “You would have had a media company owning arguably the most valuable sports media properties in the country.”

However, Beer makes it clear there aren’t any issues with the competition board or the CRTC with the current deal.

“I talked to a lot of people on the outside, particularly media buyers, who basically buy all

the ads. They are usually the first to raise a stink about lack of competition,” he says. “They are actually pretty supportive of the deal.”

Meanwhile, sports media not under the massive Bell and Rogers umbrellas are playing a waiting and watching game.

Lance Hornby, a Toronto Sun sports columnist, says despite the fact Bell and Rogers will own a large share of MLSE, regulations should keep the playing field even when it comes to access to the team and content for other broadcasters and media outlets.

“It wouldn’t be a fair playing field if they were spoon-fed every scoop that comes down the pipe. Sportsnet and TSN are constantly battling each other to see who can get the key guests on,” says Hornsby.

For Toronto-based sports broadcaster Score Media, vice-president of marketing and social platforms Jonathan Savage says knowing their role has been key in setting themselves apart from Bell and Rogers.

“We’re not direct competitors with them,” Savage says confidently. “They are very large companies with massive rights deals. We carry a mix of live sports and entertainment programming. It’s very difficult given the cost of certain live rights, especially with the NHL.” But rights don’t show the whole picture.

Savage stresses the importance of smartphone apps and online content in Score Media staying competitive.

“On a digital side, I feel that we are competing very well with them and part of that is because we’ve taken a native approach to the platform. We haven’t waited for the broadcast entity to produce content for other platforms,” Savage says.

In other words, getting information directly to the consumer as soon as possible is a priority through apps and social media.

“You’re talking about two very huge, primarily broadcast, slightly less digital entities going into an arms race with each other. We sort of play along on the sidelines and we’ve always carved out our niche because our audience is so different and our demographic is younger.”

With the purchase, Bell and Rogers now own an incredible amount of content that they will no doubt be filling the airwaves with, which will also be a boon for advertising revenue.

“The Leafs being the crown jewel, so-tospeak, is a huge amount of content and between TSN and TSN2 and Sportsnet they have hours and hours of time to sell, so to own the teams that means you’re not paying rights,” Beer explains. “All the advertising you sell against it, all the subscription stuff, all the mobile apps, all the ways people watch it and the advertisers pay

is money in your pocket as opposed to going out and paying for the sports rights.”

As part of the purchase, Bell and Rogers will automatically own all regional broadcast rights to MLSE games, but according to Beer, it’s the national rights that the new ownership group will set their sights on next.

CBC currently holds the national broadcast rights for Hockey Night in Canada, but that contract expires at the end of the 2013-2014 season and Beer says those rights will simply go to the highest bidder.

“Certainly you can sure as hell bet that [Bell and Rogers] are going to be the highest bidder when those come up in a couple of years.”

Can smaller sports publications in Toronto survive and grow under these circumstances?

Dowbiggin in particular believes they can thrive.

“I think maybe the public and the fans’ viewpoint as time goes by might be that the smaller and independent social media sites and websites might be the place to go to for the most honest coverage just because they won’t have those conflicts,” he says. “I’m not saying that the beat writers and reporters who do the job for the large people are necessarily compromised, but I think the public might start to think that they are.”

Cox says the larger Bell and Rogers grow could make it more difficult for smaller publications to compete, but those small outlets will still have their place in the market.

“To me, it matters most that TSN and Rogers continue to compete. Beyond that, the growth of blogs and websites means it will be difficult for MLSE to control the entire message even if it wanted to.”

Johnston agrees, saying he thinks there is always a role for larger publications to work with the smaller ones in Toronto sports media.

“Smaller players will just attack the market from a different perspective and can certainly get more local and be more nimble,” he says. “I think Bell and Rogers and the various business units underneath are going to be so busy battling each other. Who knows what opportunities there might be for little guys.”

From a business standpoint, Beer says it’s important to both the Bell and Rogers brands to have winning teams, but points out that it will remain a strong investment for both companies.

“Certainly winning makes a difference,” Beer says. “But I think the cash engine here is the Leafs and I think the Teachers’ [Union] paid $50 million in 1994 and they got $1.32 billion and there hasn’t been a Stanley Cup in sight, so I think their investment is pretty safe as long as the Leafs actually exist. It’s amazing and defies logic.”

With a 45-year Stanley Cup drought for the Maple Leafs and the Raptors toiling near the

Bce keeps on shopping In a market that is already ultra-competitive with big players such as Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor Inc. all competing- for content, Bell has added another asset to its growing arsenal.

Just on the heels of the MLSE purchase, Bell dove right back into the market and acquired the Montreal based Astral Media.

The deal, which is worth a reported $3.38 billion in cash and stock, was announced in March.

As reported by Jeff Beer of Canadian Business, Bell’s interest in Astral centred around its radio stations and specialty TV channels, which Bell would use in an attempt to keep up with global digital entities like Google, Netflix and Apple.

ComScore, a company that specializes in collecting data on the digital media landscape, reported online video viewership in Canada was up 58 per cent in 2011.

More people are watching TV through the Internet and Bell is looking for more ways to break into that market.

With Bell already a major player in Canada’s English-language programming market, the acquisition of Astral Media will also help them tap into the French-language market in Quebec.

Beer wrote in April that Bell and Astral are still waiting for the deal to be approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and the Competition Bureau.

The Ottawa Citizen recently reported that Bell expects the deal to close later this year.

JD bottom of the National Basketball Association standings, a championship-starved fan base will expect more from the new ownership group.

But Hornby says fan-ownership relations could improve under the new regime.

“I guess it’s easier than having the teachers in charge, which was a company that was very invisible. TSN and Rogers are closer to the people,” says Hornby. “They’re broadcasters, they put these games on. I think the people in charge of those networks are people that are more average everyday than the suits that were at the [Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan]. At the end of the day I think it’s going to be a better situation.”

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 19

Ads for the stimulation generation

By Victoria Nash

A ragged rock face hangs over the street in downtown Toronto. The artificial outcrop is printed on an enormous billboard covered with actual climbing grips, and they come in handy for the rock climber Travel Alberta paid to scale their innovative advertisement for two hours each day.

The forms in which advertisements are being delivered have changed drastically – evolving from handbills and posters, to radio and television, to online and 3D outdoor billboards. Examples of new attention grabbing ads are showing up all over the country. Coors Light entered the 3D market by incorporating a massive print of its beer can onto a TTC bus shelter, consuming an entire side and extending past the roof.

Advertising companies are trying to keep up with the demands of a new generation who “have grown up with a vast array of media options … and are notorious for

20 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

shorter attention spans and multi-tasking,” says Doug Crang, research director for a 2012 study on next generation advertising.

In January of this year, comScore Inc. (an audience measurement service which, through surveys, provides digital companies with information on e-commerce, advertising, search, video and mobile) released the study, “Next-Generation Strategies for Advertising to Millennials.” The study characterizes the Millennial generation – the audience born between 1981 and 2000, who have purchasing power estimated at $170 billion per year – as “stimulation junkies.”

“There are a lot of innovations which address this need – like viral video campaigns, advertising popping up in all kinds of places it wouldn’t have been seen in the past, utilization of social media sites, innovative games and contests, interactive advertising on the Internet, user generated reviews and partnerships with blogs,” says Crang. “The advertiser has to keep in mind that it is not an entertainment company, but rather is trying to sell a product.”

Steve Lambert, founder of the U.S.-based Anti-Advertising Agency, says this underlying purpose for ads limits creativity.

“The number one thing that the ad always has to do is sell the product. They can have other intentions, but the number one thing always has to be to sell the stuff – and so it really limits what you can do in public space.”

Like the Travel Alberta and Coors light ads, another Toronto billboard – this one produced by Pattison Outdoor – looms over the street inducing thoughts of beer caps popping off with that familiar fizzle. The simple ad is a blank emerald green board with a massive Heineken cap in the bottom right corner.

T h e cap is just slightly bent through middle as if it had just been popped off an equally massive bottle. It’s simple, but eye-catching to beer enthusiasts.

The hope, Crang says, is that if ads are eyecatching enough, they’ll be something to talk about.

He says, the Millennial generation is valuable to advertisers because of their propensity to share information through media such as social media – acting as advocates of brands they use or like.

“The younger generation is always of interest to marketers as they are trendsetters and potential long-term customers,” says Crang.

Crang says an effective way to grab the attention of the audience is to develop some type of emotional connection – whether it is humour, desire, aspiration or fear. This can be highly effective at gaining an audience.

“If there’s an ad that’s funny or something, [the Millenial generation] will forward it to their friends,” says Crang. “As with communication in any media, creative quality is critical and it is also important to suit the message to the medium.”

To ensure Pattison Outdoor’s advertisements meet the criteria for brain stimulation, Joe Donaldson, vice president of marketing at Pattison, says the company works with a creative team based in Winnipeg.

“The process is, they get a brief from our sales team working with the client and what they’re looking to do,” Donaldson says. “Some of the things they come up with are amazing and are award-winning.”

Donaldson says communication with the client is key to maintaining the advertisement’s message.

On Pattison’s website the company offers an interactive feedback application, called Eyewitness, which allows clients to locate where all of their board sites are across Canada. “Our clients can identify that their campaign’s been put up, and they actually get to see the creative on the boards that they bought,” says Donaldson.

Donaldson says this is one key way Pattison ensures the right message gets out there.

He says for Pattison the digital transformation is really important right now, and so the company is remaking a lot of its boards and putting up new billboards, which follow the new digital format.

“This format does a multitude of things,” says Donaldson. “It allows us to actually get a clearer message across, allows us to use a more interactive creative on the boards, and allows us to have multiple clients on the board.”

Donaldson says they get their digital boards from Yesco, an environmentally conscious company that specializes in the manufacturing of signs with lights.

“You don’t want [digital billboards] to be an environment hindrance during the day or night,” says Donaldson. “They adjust their light … density so when it gets dark at night the light is actually dimmed down so it’s not as bright and then during the day it is actually increased.”

Even though traditional billboards are the bread and butter of marketing, advertising companies such as Pattison are evolving to keep the out-of-home experience for clients as engaging as possible.

By Michael Radoslav Every election, as campaigns roll into towns and cities across the nation, candidates tout the notion of an open and transparent government.

Politicians let the people know they have control over the nation’s interest, and anyone can request information to discover how they get the job done.

Yet despite these promises, one federal administration after another passes on the opportunity to better connect with the general public by revamping Canada’s antiquated access to information system.

The Centre for Law and Democracy, a notfor-profit agency established under the Nova Scotia Companies Act, spent two years ranking the 89 countries worldwide that have access to information laws in place. They graded each government on factors including the right to access, the scope of requests made, sanctions and protections in place, and the procedure itself.

The group released its report on International Right to Know Day, Sept. 28, 2011.

Canada placed 40th overall, in a tie with Estonia and Montenegro, receiving a score of 85 out of a potential 150.

The study suggested Canada had a cutting edge system once, when the Access to Information Act was first introduced in 1983, but a failure to upgrade has relegated the country to the slow lane. The study cites “lax timelines,” “access fees” and “blanket exemptions for certain political offices” as reasons Canada has failed to keep pace.

“Traditionally the law and purpose behind access to information is for citizens to hold their government accountable,” says Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault. Thanks to technological advancements such as the In-

ternet, however, Legault says the purpose of access to information requests has transformed into “maximizing engagement between a government and its citizens.”

While the way in which people interact with the government has changed, Canada’s federal government has failed to evolve with it, says Legault. “Experts would say the federal system has fallen behind,” she says. “Our performance has been declining every year. We used to be the leaders in the field.”

Information requests have a 30-day window to be fulfilled, says Legault, while larger requests can receive extensions. The number of requests completed within that time frame has steadily declined over the past decade, she says.

In the 2002-2003 fiscal year 69 per cent of access to information requests made to federal government agencies were returned within the designated time frame. By 2009-2010, Legault says the number fell to 56 per cent.

Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro (Peterborough, Ont.) says the numbers are not an accurate depiction of the environment in Canada, as “the number of access to information requests have gone up dramatically over the past decade.” Del Mastro says, “response time to access to information has been improving dramatically.”

There are those, however, who have noticed the decline in Canada’s overall performance in this field.

Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce law, describes the access to information system in Canada as an incredibly important system for better transparency, but one that is, “underfunded, under-re-

sourced, and could do with significant improvements.

“In the last number of years the system has become so slow it has become less reliable,” he says.

Geist says, outside of Canada he has only dealt with the United States for information requests, and while it fared only slightly better than its northern neighbours in this area – the United States placed 36th on the Centre for Law and Democracy’s international rankings – he says their system was better in areas such as communication and interaction with the requester.

“It still took some time, but the process involved more dialogue,” Geist says. “It was a much more engaged system.”

Sean Moreman, legal counsel for the CBC, says he has spent time talking with colleagues at legal conferences about what could be done to fix the way the Canadian government handles information requests.

“There is a lot of discussion about openness and transparency being the cornerstones of democracy and the process is supposed to be easy when you request documents.

“The theory is right, in that government needs to be accountable to its citizens, and that also includes the press,” Moreman says. “We all agree something needs to be done because it is a very slow and laborious process.”

Moreman says the experiences the CBC has seen when requesting information from other departments is “a deliberate attempt on behalf of some to delay answering requests, or to deliberately slow down the process in hopes that we as the requestor will go away, as the information is no longer relevant.”

Geist says he has experienced a similar treat-

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 21

ment when making requests as the process has become more selective in nature.

“The system is not working on first-come, first-served basis. It is doing what can be filled in time to keep their records on track,” he says.

To help curb this tendency of lagging returns, Moreman says incentives should be introduced for those areas that meet the target deadline.

“If any changes in the legislation happen, there needs to be incentives put in so that the government departments are encouraged to respond in a positive way.”

Legault, however, says public services already have incentives in place, which “should be reflected in their performance pay.” And while incentives may be hard to implement, she says any notion of penalties or sanctions would be even more difficult to entertain.

“I’m not sure we would find anyone who would do information requests if they were ever to be fined” for completing them late, she says. An understaffed department, for example, would have a hard time completing the requests, and any punishments would be impractical.

“The main recourse is for an organization’s office to negotiate a commitment date,” says Legault. A government organization can be taken to court if the commitment date is missed, usually a year after the request is filed.

There are some progressive systems for access to information found in Canada. Legault points to British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario as provinces leading the way in the field. The federal level trails in comparison though, and the information commissioner’s office will be conducting a review to see if changes can be made.

Such changes could include adding specific timelines in the legislation, at which point the commissioner could deny any extension and demand the department give disclosure of the information. Should they fail to do so the organization could be held in contempt of court, says Legault.

The laws however must be approached with a presumption of disclosure of information, she says, as outlined in section two of the Access to Information Act. The law should strike a balance between legitimate disclosure and legitimate protection.

“It is perfectly legitimate to disclose some information and protect some information,” says Legault. “Exceptions should be just that, exceptions – not exclusions.”

Geist says some progress was made this year with completed requests being published online, which he says should help stop the redundancy in people filing requests. He says due to the secretive nature of the government not providing in the past, at times there were “five requests basically being filed for the same thing.”

If people could access what had already been retrieved, Geist says the system would better serve the people. “Now departments are publishing completed requests,” Geist says. “They started happening universally on websites.

That’s a good step.”

While it is a positive sign, Legault says there is still much in Canada’s system to change to catch up to the worldwide leaders in access to information laws. There is still a long way to go.

“We should all remind the government that they must reverse their performance.”

the risk and reward of a wikileaker Bradley Manning has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and still awaits trial for leaking government secrets

By Ryan Saundercook

B

radley Manning, who is standing accused as the man behind the largest leak of secret material in United States history, showed the world a glimpse of the inner workings of the government and the reality of the war in Iraq.

He was arrested on May 26, 2010 and has been held without trial ever since.

As well as being believed to have leaked hundreds of thousands of documents that showed the U.S. government in an unflattering light, Manning is accused of uploading footage to the Wikileaks website that eventually became the video Collateral Murder. The video shows two U.S. Army Apache helicopters firing on a group of individuals who appear to be armed insurgents. Among others, Namir Noor Eldeen, a Reuters photographer, was caught and killed in the gunfire. Later in the video, the Apache

22 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

fires on a van seen trying to remove injured people from the area. Two children in the van were wounded.

Manning’s supporters continue to stand by his side. Two parties nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize in February 2012 and groups are speaking out in his defence. Despite the nominations, Manning may spend the rest of his life in prison.

Now, the Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press (RCFP), an organization comprising numerous media outlets, has sent a letter of protest to Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson.

They say “The overwhelming majority of court records filed in Manning’s court-martial have remained shielded from public view,” and the U.S. military’s “unnecessary degree of secrecy” has prevented adequate coverage of the trial, which is of significant public interest.

The letter was written by the RCFP’s legal director Lucy Dalglish, who urged the Defence Department to allow the same kind of media coverage of Manning’s trial as is allowed for trials taking place at Guantanamo Bay Prison.

“The prosecution of an American service member for the alleged leak of the largest amount of classified information in U.S. history is a matter of intense public interest,” the RCFP letter says. “The interest in openness in this case

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning AP/Cliff Owen

is not mere curiosity but rather a concern about the very integrity of this nation’s military courts.”

Signed by at least 46 media outlets, including ABC, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, CBS, The New York Times, and National Public Radio, the letter was sent just before one of Manning’s hearings on Mar. 15, 2012.

And there’s more support. The Movement, a

Lt. Dan Choi, gay veteran and activist, center left, and retired US Army Colonel and diplomat Ann Wright, right, march in support of Bradley Manning on Dec. 17, 2011.

AP/Jose Luis Magana

political movement in Iceland led by three members of parliament, has nominated Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“All of us think that it’s important to raise awareness about what he’s being tried for,” Birgitta Jónsdóttir, member of The Movement and a former volunteer for Wikileaks tells Convergence. “Nobody has been held accountable for the war crimes so gruesomely depicted in the video.

Whereas he is being held responsible and accountable for showing the rest of the world what is going on.”

Jónsdóttir is also a member of the Bradley Manning Support Network’s advisory board which includes filmmaker Michael Moore, Daniel Ellsberg, who was behind the Pentagon Papers, former U.S. Col. Ann Wright, and Ray McGovern, former CIA officer-turned political activist.

Jónsdóttir, who helped produce Collateral Murder, says the film “was just so brutal. The lack of humanity in it … it was just a confirmation of what you’ve heard. And, you might have seen some of these things in photos but to see it like this was an incredible inspiration to try to do everything in my power to spread awareness about it and demand that it ends,” says Jónsdóttir. “I’m still moved by it when I watch it. And the reality of the situation is that this is not the only time. This just happened to have become available to us.”

The Oklahoma Center for Conscience and Peace Research (OCCPR) has also nominated Manning for the peace prize. The Center’s mission statement indicates the organization “works to promote and support the rights of conscientious objectors … who seek an end to war and warmaking and the establishment of nonviolence and co-operation as the cornerstone of a just society.”

James M. Branum, the OCCPR legal director, tells Convergence, “We support him because we believe that he revealed evidence of war crimes and that a soldier doesn’t just have the right but a duty to report evidence of war crimes.”

Branum says it seems unlikely Manning will be released at this point.

On April 26, Military Judge Denise Lind found there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, and dismissed defence motions to drop all charges.

“The military system of justice is pretty rigged. There are some key procedural issues that pretty much ensure a very high conviction rate, 90

per cent or higher, and in Bradley’s case they definitely want to shut him up,” he says. “And not just shut him up, but shut other soldiers up who might be thinking about using their conscience. I think, unfortunately, that Bradley Manning is sort of a sacrificial lamb that they’re going to use to send a message to other soldiers.”

Chase Madar, a lawyer who recently published The Passion of Bradley Manning, says, “Nobody has been able to come up with a single death or casualty, whether military or civilian that can be attributed to Wikileaks.”

Madar’s book explores Manning’s story and the current U.S. approach to whistle-blowers. He’s also contributed to The London Review of Books, the American Conservative Magazine and Counterpunch.

“It’s my opinion that the habit of extreme secrecy in Washington has been immensely damaging to national security,” he says. “Much of what got us into this war was government secrecy, distortion and lies, and we have to take that into account.”

Madar says that the current political climate of secrecy is a major reason why Manning likely won’t be released in contrast to former whistle-blowers such as Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

“There’s no legal distinction whatsoever between what Manning and Ellsberg did. Rather, the only legal distinction is that all of the documents in the Pentagon Papers were all classified as top secret, the highest classification, whereas not a single thing Manning has released is top secret. The liberal class, the opinion class really embraced Daniel Ellsberg, he even had support inside Congress, whereas Manning has not gotten any of that.”

A continuing issue surrounding Manning’s detainment has been his treatment. Recently an investigation by Juan Mendez, the United Nation’s special rapporteur on torture added evidence to the allegations that Manning faced cruel and degrading treatment.

“The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence,” says the report.

Mendez has been denied unmonitored access to interview Manning about his condition.

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 23

UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS

Understanding McLuhan Revisiting the ideas of the innovative media theorist after his 100th birthday

By Jason Spencer

D

r. Robert Logan worked as Marshall McLuhan’s science adviser at the Coach House Institute from 1974 and recalls how during their lunch breaks, while on the way to the cafeteria at St. Michael’s campus, in Toronto, McLuhan would stop by St. Basil’s Church for a 15 minute mass. Being Jewish, Logan wasn’t kneeling to convert to Catholicism – instead, he would attend so he could fervently ask for divine assistance with another pressing matter.

“He would pray for his salvation, and I would pray to understand what he said that morning,” says Logan. “His outrageous predictions turned out to be true.”

Logan, who is now professor emeritus of the physics department at the University of Toronto, retired in 2005, 25 years after McLuhan’s death. He recalls how, in 1965, a friend of McLuhan’s, who worked for IBM, set up a lunch meeting with McLuhan and six other executives from the company.

“During the lunch he said, ‘I predict someday everyone will have a computer in their home,’ when the [IBM executives] got back to the friend, they said he was crazy and that he didn’t know what he was talking about – 15 years later the personal computer emerged.

Today, everyone has [their own] computer.”

Logan explains that at the time computers were mainframes: massive machines that filled large air-conditioned rooms, with elevated floors.

Imagining the inconceivable was McLuhan’s specialty.

During his McLuhan-themed YouTube talk at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre last October, Vancouver-based author Douglas Coupland told

24 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

Ph1977 no.47 from the University of St. Michael’s College Archives photo by Robert Lansdale

the audience how speaking about television insidiously removing our personal identities sounded like “gibberish” to the crowd in the 1960s – as well as today.

“Up until three years ago, [McLuhan’s] been a holy idiot and now he’s sanctified; now he’s right … All his detractors are like, ‘Oh, don’t we look stupid now,’ ” says Coupland.

Kathy Kawasaki, a retired librarian and school teacher, was in McLuhan’s fourth-year modern poetry course at St. Michael’s College in 1965 -1966.

“

Up until three years ago, [McLuhan’s] been a holy idiot and now he’s sanctified; now he’s right

”

Douglas Coupland

“The entire class thought that he was almost impossible to understand and most of us wondered how we were ever going to pass the course,” says the Toronto native.

Aside from notes scribbled on the back of envelopes, which were stuffed in his pockets, McLuhan would deliver his lectures in a spontaneous manner, whereas most professors, she says, would read directly from their notes and address the class in a linear fashion. He also set his own exams, she says, which was again, highly unorthodox for a professor at that time.

The digital way of thinking, which McLuhan

was employing, was using pattern recognition – another term coined by him – to come to conclusions rather than using deductive reasoning, she explains. The method was filling the space between two seemingly unrelated, juxtaposed things with connections. That was the modern way of thinking, known as three-dimensional, whereas two-dimensional, or linear, thinking was looking at already connected spaces.

“He would draw obvious conclusions and throw it all at you, hoping that you would see the connection yourself,” she says. “What I got from his class in modern poetry, after the fact when the whole thing clicked, was a way of looking at the world and understanding everything. I have a world view of looking at everything as twodimensional or three-dimensional space.”

Along with his ideas, McLuhan left scores of fans and naysayers in his wake. Logan delivered a lecture last spring at Ryerson University and again in November, as part of McLuhan100 – an international initiative to mark McLuhan’s centenary by celebrating his ideas – entitled “McLuhan Misunderstood: Setting the Record Straight,” not only to clear the air, but as a birthday gift to his friend.

Logan acknowledges that many of McLuhan’s colleagues thought he was a “charlatan” because of the “outrageous manner” in which he spoke. McLuhan wanted to shock his audience, he says. “McLuhan wanted to provoke his students and his audience to think through things themselves,” says Logan, who published Understanding New Media: The Extensions of Marshall McLuhan, in 2009.

“McLuhan believed that every new medium numbed its users and made them unaware of its

effects, so he felt the need to exaggerate to make users aware of the effects of that new medium,” he continues.

Logan outlines another aspect of McLuhan’s complexity that caused many academics to dismiss him as incomprehensible: A love for puns. Being a professor of English literature, McLuhan was a devout fan of Irish wordsmith James Joyce, who often employed a perplexing array of puns throughout tomes such as Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake. McLuhan’s Joycean delivery was littered with jokes that he believed were the most effective method of airing a grievance. “The hidden grievance behind McLuhan’s jokes was that he saw with great clarity the effects of electric media, but most of his colleagues were unable to see that,” says Logan.

McLuhan’s eldest son, Dr. Eric McLuhan, followed his father’s path with a PhD in English literature and a lifelong dedication to media analysis. The 70-year-old, who has continued his father’s work, recalls a time when his dad’s controversial insights received a different treatment.

“If you wanted to continue your academic career you best not mention the name let alone write about him or talk about him in your classroom,” he says.

In Marshall McLuhan’s book The Medium is the Massage – which was originally supposed to be titled The Medium is the Message, but some suggest the printer’s error was kept because McLuhan liked the pun – the author was unsparing in his criticism of academia. “Not only did McLuhan critique higher education, he made fun of his colleagues. They never forgave him,” says Logan.

Kawasaki, who co-authored a book called City as Classroom, in the mid-‘70s with Eric McLuhan, says her former professor’s alternate income was another cause for the derision from his colleagues.

“A lot of advertising firms on Madison Avenue employed [McLuhan] as a consultant,” she says. “From what I gathered, from talking to other professors, it was pretty much jealousy.”

Though many of his prophecies have come true, both McLuhan and his work remain misunderstood. However, the entire discipline of media ecology sprang from his ideas, and is still discussed today through platforms such as the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology’s Monday night seminars at the Coach House Institute on St. Michael’s campus.

Kawasaki worked with both McLuhans at the Coach House during her summers off from teaching at Victoria Park Secondary School, in Toronto. She describes the experience as an

“intellectual rollercoaster ride” and not just because many famous visitors would flock to the Mecca of the modest little cabin.

“Anybody who came to Toronto would knock on the Coach House door to visit Marshall … John Lennon and Yoko Ono came to visit one Saturday when they were doing their bed-in protest in Montreal.”

Looking back, she embraces the complexity

Marshall McLuhan photo courtesy Eric McLuhan

Eric McLuhan photo by Jason Spencer

and prescience of the man and his work.

“He was being an artist because he was showing people what was happening in their world, but not handing it to them on a silver platter.”

Logan says, in 1962, the Internet was foreshadowed two years before its predecessor the ARPANET – which was created by the United States military. From The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man: “A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce

mass library organization, retrieve individual encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind.”

“Everything he said about the way media work and how you study them applies absolutely to today and today’s situation and today’s technology,” says Eric McLuhan.

When “you’re not quite sure what [McLuhan’s] saying that just means it’s coming down the road,” says Coupland, who has written two biographies on McLuhan: Marshall McLuhan (2010) and Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work (2012). He says the reader can go through the seminal books like The Gutenberg Galaxy with Post-its and mark the allusions to Google, InDesign, Photoshop, and so forth.

McLuhan foresaw the advent of the web affecting culture by “re-tribalizing” the young into a global village. Logan cites how McLuhan predicted the open source – think Wikipedia – learning environment in a convocation address to the University of Alberta, in 1971: “The university and school of the future must be means of total community participation, not in the consumption of available knowledge, but the creation of completely unavailable insight …

There is no kind of problem that baffles one or a dozen experts that cannot be solved by a million minds that are given a chance simultaneously to tackle a problem.”

Coupland says an analogue world of preliteracy was McLuhan’s ideal environment – not an information age. “He romanticized the pre-Gutenberg era – the aural universe, where everything was richer … He mourned the loss of that,” he says. “He became the poster child of technology when, in fact, he really hated technology.”

McLuhan “didn’t like the way [technology] was going and he saw it very clearly,” he says.

“He wasn’t talking about understanding television sets or radios – what we would call media literacy – the main idea in the word ‘medium’ is a milieu or environment … the environments or cultures brought into play by new technologies,” says Eric McLuhan.

Logan asserts that McLuhan was neither a technophile nor a luddite, but a social critic.

One of the final great ironies of McLuhan’s life was when he suffered a catastrophic stroke a year before he died, after which he lost all of his alphanumeric capacity, says Coupland. “He could [no longer] read or write, whereas if you were talking to him, he knew exactly what you were saying … He got what he wanted and it was the worst answered prayer.”

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 25

Rob Ford takes on ‘thE city’ After shunning so-called ‘leftist’ media, Mayor Rob Ford and his brother join forces on Newstalk 1010

By Samantha Emann

L

ove him or hate him, Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford has got the public’s attention, and he isn’t letting go. Having battled with the media, Ford has become a part of it, embracing the adage, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

In February, Newstalk 1010 radio station announced that the mayor and his outspoken brother were scheduled to become the hosts of The City, a talk show previously hosted by Toronto Councillor Josh Matlow.

“To the citizens of Toronto: neither I nor the administration are responsible for the actions, ideas, comments, hand gestures, facial expressions, hang-ups on callers or text messages made by my brother Doug,” Mayor Rob Ford said on the first episode of the radio show. “I have no idea what [Councillor Doug Ford] is going to do, so hang on.”

“The radio show is a gutsy move,” wrote Bob Reid on the political blog, Touchdowns and Fumbles, as part of his series of posts called “communications play of the week.”

Reid, former radio broadcaster and communications adviser to former Ontario premier Mike Harris, says: “As a vehicle for taking his message directly to the people and to every reporter who will be listening, it’s unparalleled.”

“It benefits the residents and includes them in a dialogue with the mayor,” says George Christopolous, Rob Ford’s recently appointed press secretary.

“It allows the mayor to set an agenda on what he has done and what he is going to do in the next two years in-office,” says Christopolous.

“It’s kind of a table setting show, focusing on the issues pertaining to the city and discussing that in an open forum where you can take callers.”

In an email statement to Convergence, Ford shares his thoughts about hosting the show so far.

photo by Amber Daugherty

“The City was a great opportunity to continue offering the people of Toronto a way to learn what’s going on in this great city. So far, it’s been a fantastic experience.”

“

I have no respect for the Toronto Star whatsoever

26 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

the left wing media of this city, and I give you full props for just ignoring it.”

The issue garnered enough public attention for a sold-out event in January to be organized on the topic.

Fear and Loathing at City Hall was a public forum with the purpose of analyzing the conflict between Rob Ford and the Toronto Star. One panelist was Newstalk 1010 talk show host Jerry Agar, who defended Mayor Ford. He was seated beside Royson James, a Toronto Star columnist and critic of Ford’s objections to the nations largest paper. Globe and Mail columnist Marcus Gee and Toronto Star city hall reporter Robyn Doolittle rounded out the panel.

The conflict began because of a story the Star published reporting that Mayor Ford, who is also a football coach, assaulted a player.

”

Rob Ford

Before Ford took to the airwaves at Newstalk 1010, there was a lot of attention focused on his refusal to speak with the Toronto Star after the paper was highly critical of him and published an article with which he disagreed.

A caller during Ford’s first show brought up this issue saying, “It’s unfortunate that you had to put up with the malicious childish antics of

James maintained that whether Rob Ford actually assaulted the player or not, proper journalistic procedure was followed by the Star’s reporter.

Agar, however, suggests that the Star was in the wrong and should have corrected their story.

The mayor made his position clear on John Oakley’s AM 640 show, saying “I have no respect for the Toronto Star whatsoever. If people want to read a paper, pick up the Globe, Post or Sun, that’s what I encourage people to do.”

Agar says he is surprised Ford talks to the CBC after the network reported a story about a 9-1-1 call the mayor made when surprised by TV personality Mary Walsh at his home in Etobicoke, Ont. He says he found it appalling that the CBC defended its story by suggesting city officials such as Toronto’s police chief were untrustworthy.

University of Toronto politics professor Nelson Wiseman says there is a clash of political biases between the politician and the publication. He says Ford does not speak to the Star because he feels it is editorially biased against him.

“His supporters believe that the people who read the Star share that bias, did not vote for him in the first place, and they aren’t going to change their minds.”

The Toronto Sun is on the other end of the spectrum, publishing columns and reports that favour the mayor and his decisions. During Ford’s election campaign, the Sun also publicly

endorsed Ford and his platform.

Wiseman says a politician’s first responsibility is to the electorate, and the media is there to transmit messages between the two. He says Ford’s targeted refusal of the Star is what makes it stand out.

Reid says it’s not uncommon for a politician to refuse to speak to a specific journalist because

you’re doing and ensuring the media is properly releasing the story out to residents … there is a fine balance.”

Agar says he was not involved in bringing the Fords on to The City but says this show is important for discussion and debate on issues that affect Toronto and its residents. He stresses that it is “not their show” and that it is good to have different hosts to bring different ideas and guests on the show.

“The purpose of the show is to have people who are involved in the city, whether it’s elected or other people who run agencies, who really affect the day-to-day workings of the city to come together on a Sunday and give various opinions and ideas,” he says. “Josh Matlow, who I think is left of centre, was hosting, now the Fords will host it for a while and I’m photo courtesy Newstalk 1010 sure in the not-too-distant future someone else will host it.” of personality issues or subjective reporting, but Ford declined to be interviewed in person both journalists and politicians need to remember or over the phone, but wrote in an email to their first responsibility is to the public.

Convergence, “The media will always look “I think the public look on it as rather petty to for the next big story. That is the nature of a be honest, and I think it does neither side any good free press. I don’t think it is uncommon for a to have a protracted public spat going,” Reid says. politician to be scrutinized.”

Christopolous says since he was hired he has In an interview with AM 640’s Arlene Bynon, been talking to the Star, but defends Ford’s need shortly after his hosting debut, Ford explained to safeguard what information gets out. his reason for getting on the airwaves: “They “When you’re a mayor and you’re the focal hear it right out of the horse’s mouth … unlike point, obviously it’s a tough balance between the print media, they’ll twist it anyway you can ensuring the residents are happy with what and you can’t defend yourself.”

Reading between the ledes:

How Toronto print media announced the Ford brothers’ take over of The City

Toronto Star

“The brothers Ford are going to have two hours to tell Toronto ‘like it is’ without the ‘media twisting’ their message.”

Toronto Sun

“Get ready radio listeners for two of Toronto’s most outspoken politicians, two microphones and two hours of live radio. That’s the recipe for radio gold Mayor Rob Ford and Councillor Doug Ford are cooking up with their new gig on Newstalk 1010.”

National Post

“With promises to deliver “the straight goods” to Toronto citizens, Mayor Rob Ford and his brother councillor Doug Ford have announced they are the new hosts of NewsTalk 1010’s radio show The City.”

Globe and Mail

“Mayor and councillor, upset with treatment with other media land a talkradio gig”

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 27

Capture& eXPOSURE

UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS

Photojournalists turn to iPhone camera apps to document the Arab uprisings

By Erin Jones photos courtesy Michael C. Brown

P

hotographer Michael C. Brown was shaken by a wave of energy that passed through his body before the Libyan man standing in front of him was blown off his feet. “He landed right in front of me. He was bleeding everywhere. If he wouldn’t have been standing in front of me, I would have gotten his shrapnel,” explains Brown, who narrowly escaped death after losing 50 per cent of his blood from wounds to his chest, shoulder and arm.

“I felt something – this hot metal in my body – and I looked and I saw this blood coming out where the shrapnel had come in through my sweatshirt,” says Brown. “I figured perhaps I had a few minutes and then I would be dead.”

Last April, Brown, a New York based photographer, along with fellow photojournalists Chris Hondros, Tim Hetherington and Guy Martin, were covering the front line in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata, when Libyan forces using high-explosive mortar shells fired on them. Hetherington, best known for co-directing the Oscar-winning documentary Restrepo, and Hondros were fatally wounded in the attack, considered one of photojournalism’s “blackest hours” by LightBox, TIME Magazines photo blog.

Brown wasn’t covering the war in Libya for a news publication. He arrived on his own dime because he had an “overwhelming feeling” that he had to experience a revolution. Inadvertently, Brown became a major catalyst in a much different revolution – a photojournalistic revolution referred to as “iPhotojournalism.”

While covering the Friday prayers in Benghazi in his first week in Libya, Brown’s camera was knocked out of his hands, breaking the shutter. Instead of leaving the country to have his camera shipped away to be repaired, Brown began shooting with his iPhone using the Hipstamatic app.

Hipstamatic produces vintage inspired images that appear as if they were taken by a toy camera in the ‘70s. The square-shaped format, vignetting,

28 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

and oversaturated colours are derived from a variety of selectable lenses and filters. In essence, it is a digital darkroom.

Brown decided to use the Hipstamatic app while in Libya because he “likes how the images look.”

“An image is about the content. Perhaps using Hipstamatic or mobile phones, the quality of the image isn’t as good, but it’s about what’s in the picture,” says Brown. “It’s about what someone is looking at – the significance of the content that is in the photograph and the emotional value of the photograph, and the information in the photograph.”

Brown wasn’t the first to use his iPhone or the Hipstamatic app in a documentary photographic sense. His colleague and fellow New York Times contributing photojournalist, Damon Winter, covered the war in Afghanistan with his iPhone, sparking an ongoing debate on the validity of this form of photojournalism. However, Brown’s catastrophic experience in Libya propelled iPhotojournalism further into the limelight and scrutiny of the journalism world, igniting a rippling debate: should images taken on mobile devices be considered as photojournalistic material, or do they impinge on the true definition of photojournalism?

“I hadn’t seen a complete photo essay made with an iPhone that would explore all ends of a revolution that became a war,” says Brown. “The way a lot of [Libyans] were communicating was by using their mobile phones.

The equipment was appropriate for the story.”

Last year Chip Litherland, Florida based freelance photojournalist for major publications such as New York Times and Newsweek, garnered a lot of attention when he wrote in his blog that iPhotojournalism is the “death of modern photography.”

“It’s not so much that I hated iPhones or photos that came from a phone,” Litherland says. “It was more their use in documentary photojournalism

and how it was kind of pushing what the truth was of a scene that a photographer captured.”

“Documentary photojournalism is the [last] holdout of truth out there, and we should try to keep it real and as accurate as possible when we’re presenting it to our readers,” he says.

Hipstamatic “makes a really crappy scene look good,” says Litherland. “You can shoot a picture of a horse’s butt and put a filter on it and it’s going to look pretty sweet.”

Dennis Owen, a seasoned photojournalist, and the photo editor for the Globe and Mail, says the Globe publishes iPhone images taken with the Hipstamatic app.

“We generally don’t mark them as being an iPhone picture,” says Owen. “In my mind a photograph is a photograph. If you have to qualify that, then there is probably an issue with using it.

“The iPhone camera produces a certain kind of look and feel to it,” explains Owen. “It looks like a style of photography that professionals would employ, so it almost, in a way, gives amateur photographs a more professional, stylized look.

“What was only the [privilege] of a select number of professional photographers 20 years ago, is now in the hands of everyone,” says Owen. “Everyone who has a smartphone with a decent camera on it can send – what [has] the possibility of being a commercial grade image – around the world virtually instantly. Now [the public] see photographs as being not something that just an artist could produce, but something that they can do themselves.

In his blog, Litherland argues that Hipstamatic images not only change the way we view

pictures, but the way we view the photographer.

“When you’re applying these filters and these borders it becomes much more about your own artistic ideas, and your own vision for what you see in front of you,” says Litherland. “It puts up a digital fence between the photographer and the viewer.”

Litherland says it is really hard for photographers to survive with the surge of freely available iPhone photography. “At my old newspaper [The Sarasota Herald-Tribune], it went from 10 photographers to three in a span of two years.”

Using the pocket-sized devices as opposed to a big bulky camera has its advantages when covering conflict, says Brown. “Guards at the hospitals weren’t allowing photographers inside the hospitals, but of course me holding an iPhone and going inside and getting pictures, it wasn’t seen as a threat.”

The outcome of Brown’s iPhone images from Libya is a project appropriately titled, Libya.

The collection includes images of burning Libyan government tanks, an opposition fighter lying dead on a hospital floor with a trickle of dried blood coming out of his mouth, the foot of a dead pilot at the crash site of a Libyan government fighter jet, mourners grieving and opposition fighters celebrating a victory in the streets of Benghazi.

In mid-2010, Hungarian photojournalist Balazs Gardi photographed the war in Afghanistan for a year with his iPhone using the Hipstamatic app for his project Basetrack.

“A photograph is about a subject, it’s about a lot of things and it’s definitely not about the gear you are using to capture the photograph,” Gardi tells Convergence.

“The reason I used the iPhone is because it gave me images that I have not been able to achieve with previous cameras,” explains Gardi. “To me a camera trapped in a phone is not different than a camera that was made to be

a camera.”

Litherland says he doesn’t have a problem with photojournalists shooting with the Hipstamatic app on their iPhone, but when they win awards at the World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, or National Press Photographers Association then it becomes a problem.

“The fact it was shot on a phone isn’t relevant at all and fair game, but what is relevant is the fact it was processed through an app that changes what was there. It’s now no longer photojournalism, but photography,” Litherland writes in his blog.

“I just feel like it muddies the water,” says Litherland, explaining his blog posts. “There’s a big gap between where we are now and where we once were. I think it’s problematic to open that door to such manipulation.”

James Helmer, the publisher and editor of the News Photographers Association of Canada (NPAC) told Convergence in an email statement, that using an iPhone to cover a story “would not be normal protocol.”

“Having said that, it has been done and for the most part is looked upon as an artistic way to cover a story and not considered to be an accepted way to present.”

Owen agrees. “I don’t think we will have a long run of [the Hipstamatic] image being an award-winning image ... The core quality that judges look for in images has not changed. The skill of the photographer needs to be evident, not the skill of the app as the producer.”

Owen and Litherland agree, Hipstamatic will not be the end of photography as we know it.

“That is simply the latest fad … that will pass because the novelty of it will wear off. A proffessional … can’t have all these square, green-tinted, vignette images. Their caché will be gone, and we will move onto something else,” says Owen.

“The way we shoot and the way we see the world is not going to necessarily change,” says Litherland. “Our visions are constantly changing, people will always have stories to tell, there’s just a lot more ways to tell it.”

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 29

Donate, volunteer or become a member today to help protect journalists, as well as the right to freedom of expression, both in Canada and abroad.

CJFE.org

If truth be told...

Award-winning photojournalist Khaled Al-Hammadi discusses the challenges facing media workers in a hostile country

By Justin Crann The Arab Spring has ended in Yemen, but an air of uncertainty lingers. Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh may have abdicated his position, but former vice-president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has replaced him, and the Yemeni people are not likely to forget the violent actions Saleh’s regime took against them.

The government used water cannons, tear gas and snipers to disperse protests, and according to Human Rights Watch, forces loyal to Saleh killed hundreds of people. The government also imposed restrictions on the press, deported foreign journalists, harassed and detained reporters without due cause, and in some cases, actively tried to kill them.

According to Reporters Without Borders, six media workers were killed in Yemen over the course of the revolution, and the most recent Press Freedom Index listed the country in its bottom ten for journalistic liberty – the worst ranking it has ever received.

D

photo by Ruth VanDyken

uring his 16-year career, award-winning photojournalist Khaled Al-Hammadi has been the victim of threats, personal attacks, interrogation and detainment at the hands of his own government.

In that time, he has exposed corruption within his native Yemen’s military, landed an interview with a former Osama bin Laden bodyguard, produced his own coverage of the revolutionary Arab Spring movement, acted as a gatekeeper for and protector of western reporters in his country, and established an organization for press freedom. For his efforts to get the truth out of Yemen and into the news worldwide despite of the ongoing risks he faces, Al-Hammadi is a respected member of the international media community and a recipient of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression’s (CJFE) 2011 International Press Freedom Award.

The Yemeni government wants media “to cover what the government does, and they don’t want to cover any other issues which are of interest to the society,” Al-Hammadi tells Convergence. “They don’t want any journalists to cover the revolution. Last year, Yemeni journalists became direct targets of security forces and also neighbours and gunmen who were hired by the government to stop the expanding protests.”

Reports of journalists being attacked by government officials and actively targeted by military snipers during anti-government protests have been filtering out of Yemen for months – reports Al-Hammadi substantiates.

“Journalists in Yemen became direct targets for government forces and snipers,” says Al-Hammadi. “If they recognized any cameraman, any journalist, they directly targeted and shot at [them].”

The situation in Yemen is bad enough that some members of the

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 31

press have been issued protective helmets and vests by their employers, but the equipment clearly sets reporters apart from the rest of the crowd. Aside from being bulky, the equipment is marked with the word ‘PRESS’ in large, capital lettering and often acts as a bull’s-eye.

“We got some of these helmets from our job and very few companies have this,” Al-Hammadi says. “If you move while wearing it during the demonstrations or rallies, if any sniper sees you wearing it, he immediately will recognize that you are press and will start shooting at you.”

In October 2011, Salah Al-Hatar, an AlJazeera cameraman working with Al-Hammadi in Change Square – the makeshift tent city in Sana’a in which protesters had been sleeping, eating and organizing for months – was shot by a government sniper while covering a protest.

After Al-Hatar was shot, Al-Hammadi says he began encouraging his colleagues to conceal the helmets and vests if they chose to wear them.

The government’s reach hasn’t been limited to Yemeni journalists. In March 2011, three foreign journalists – two British, one American – were taken from their home and escorted to the airport by government forces. The reporters were producing the majority of coverage out of Yemen for western outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and Time. While the government cited issues of national security, one of the reporters commented to the Toronto Star that he felt he was deported because of his reports of intensifying violence in the capital.

Even prior to the government crackdowns brought on by the Arab Spring, the safety of reporters and media workers in Yemen was far from

guaranteed. Al-Hammadi recalls a particular oc- risks every day as he goes to work. This is unaccasion when he ran afoul of the government. ceptable and the courage he shows not just in “In 2005, I published an investigative report his work, but in helping foreign journalists, deabout the corruption within the Air Force in Ye- serves to be recognized,” she says. men, and they were It was in this not happy with it at spirit, Game says, all,” that the InternationAl-Hammadi al Press Freedom says, “They kidAward was given to napped me when I Al-Hammadi. was in an Arab city While others far away from the might have balked at capital and they took the personal risk, Alme to the capital cenHammadi maintains tre and detained me his convictions as a for two days.” reporter in a country Al-Hammadi traditionally hostile says the governto the media. “I have ment planned to deno other choice. I tain him for a longer have no other option. period of time, but For me, I love this an organized effort subject. I’ve loved among the comjournalism since an munity of Yemeni early age,” he says. photo by Ruth VanDyken journalists forced According to the government to Game, Khaled’s release him. dedication to the This trend toward press persecution has gen- craft and his people is evident. erated considerable criticism and concern among Al-Hammadi “is an excellent example of a the international community of journalists. journalist who works in the public interest and “What we need to understand is that a free who took great personal risk to bring stories not press is the cornerstone of democracy and journal- just to the Yemeni public, but the world,” says ists being allowed to report without threat is key. Game.

They should not have to put their lives at risk to “For me, journalism is not a job, but it is also a speak truth to power,” says Annie Game, execu- mission in life, to serve the society, to help,” Altive director of CJFE, in an email to Convergence. Hammadi says. Yemen “is a developing society “In the case of Khaled, he has to weigh those and it needs a lot of hard work from all people.”

Bringing Press Freedom Home

Al-Hammadi sat with Convergence to discuss his experiences in Yemen photo by Alex Leach

32 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

After winning the International Press Freedom Award, Al-Hammadi returned to post-revolutionary Yemen and launched his own organization for media rights.

“After I received the International Press Freedom Award 2011 from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, I felt a moral and social responsibility towards my colleagues working in media, to protect them and provide quality training for them,” AlHammadi said in a release.

The resulting organization, Freedom Foundation, was officially established Mar. 22, 2012 and mandated to record violations against freedom of expression and the press within Yemen, while also actively educating and promoting those same freedoms. JC

Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s portrait was carried past mourners during his funeral on Dec. 28, 2011 in the country’s capital, Pyongyang AP

SECRETS OF A ‘DEAR LEADER’ The Associated Press attempted to open its office in North Korea the day the Korean Central News Agency announced Kim Jong-il’s death. As the first foreign media outlet to operate in the country, AP is hoping to answer long-standing questions about the guarded nation

By Emily Innes CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 33

“NOW IS NOT A GOOD TIME.”

That’s the message that was flashed to Associated Press reporters and executives when they arrived in North Korea to open the outlet’s new Pyongyang bureau on Dec. 19, 2011.

AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll recalls lining up to board the plane at Beijing Capital International Airport when the news came down.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il was dead – and the Korean Central News Agency had sat on the news for two days before revealing it to the world.

The reports from Pyongyang-based correspondents – previously reporters had been parachuted in from Seoul or the United States – was a direct challenge to decades of secrecy and suspicion of western-based media.

“We don’t submit to censorship, we don’t submit our copy or our images to anybody else before they go to our customers,” Carroll said in a phone interview with Convergence.

“We’ve gone in with the understanding that we are going to operate the same way we operate everywhere else.”

Carroll made three trips to Pyongyang to ensure North Korean officials agreed with AP’s conditions.

However, some reporters are skeptical about how much truth AP will be able to uncover because of the country’s notoriously tight grip on information.

“It’s a phenomenally controlled society,” says Melanie Kirkpatrick, who reported for Wall Street Journal Asia for 10 years. “I suppose the AP having a photographer and a reporter in Pyongyang, now, will get a little bit more local colour, but they aren’t going to get access to any kind of truth about the imagination of the elite rulers. It just doesn’t happen.”

She says the truth is “not even just elastic in North Korea, it’s elusive.” Even new leader Kim Jong-Un’s age is unknown (he’s thought to be in his mid-20s).

“It’s not the kind of reporting you would do in any other world capital because you can’t interview an official and get information that you can trust or use,” says Kirkpatrick.

“North Korea doesn’t even publish trade statistics or basic economic statistics. The World Bank won’t report on the size of the North Korean economy because it says, quite correctly, that it has no idea.”

Peter Goodspeed, a journalist for the National Post in Toronto, has made two trips to North Korea to report on the country’s lifestyle and education system. In 1992, he went undercover to report for the Toronto Star, but when he returned in 2005 he was honest about his profession, openly taking notes and photographs.

34 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

“You always know that everything is spun, there is always something going on, and you have to try and read that, you have to try to see what they are getting at,” says Goodspeed.

He says North Koreans don’t get CNN or BBC. “It’s all strictly North Korean … they don’t get news, they don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

Goodspeed wrote an article, ‘Was Kim Jong-il murdered in a power struggle with North Korean military?’ published in the National Post on Dec. 21, 2011 about a theory that Kim Jong-il didn’t die of a heart attack, as the KCNA reported.

Goodspeed says he tried to demonstrate in the article that all kinds of conspiracy theories are possible because the country is so close-lipped.

“It may have been that the power struggle was going on for days before,” he says. “You just don’t know, but the fact that there is that uncertainty and that it is opaque makes it interesting.”

When Kim Jong-il died, Western media published countless legends found in North Korean media about him: reports say he was born on the sacred mount Paektu where he was greeted by rainbows (he was actually born in the Soviet Union), he learned to walk at only three weeks old and talk at eight weeks, and in his first round of golf he shot 11 holes-in-one.

Kirkpatrick says the West retells these stories because they are entertaining.

“I know a lot about North Korea and I laugh at those stories too,” she says, recounting a recent tale of bears coming out of hibernation to mourn Kim Jong-il’s death.

“It’s just so ridiculous you have to laugh, but of course the reality of North Korea is not laughable.”

Kirkpatrick says she thought western media coverage of Kim Jong-il’s death focused too much on these tales and lacked information about human rights violations in North Korea.

Goodspeed says he thinks it is important to report on both the myths and the more complicated reality.

“The myths justify him being where he is, but the fact is you have this fat pudgy guy who allegedly drinks more Courvoisier cognac than anybody in Asia,” he says.

Courvoiser’s “best customer was North Korea, but the only people drinking it were in diplomatic receptions, Kim Jong-il and his family, and that’s when two million people were dying of starvation and eating berries and roots, says Goodspeed.

“He is a fat man in a country that’s visited by famine. His son is too.” This new young leader, Kim Jong-un recently spent $850 million U.S. on a failed rocket launch on April 13, 2012.

Despite all the red tape, journalists have found ways to become informed about the country.

Kim Jong-il was the supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 until his death in December 2011.

Associated Press

Kirkpatrick says the increasing numbers of North Korean refugees are becoming sources for the media and some are even braving reporting themselves. “Because of modern communications techniques, it’s possible, though extremely dangerous, for the North Koreans involved to get information out of their country.”

Now reporting from Canada, Goodspeed says he spends a lot of time following South Korea’s industry that monitors North Korea. Goodspeed says though South Korea may have “an axe to grind” when it comes to the North, obtaining accurate information is in their best interest.

Yonhap News Agency in Seoul acts as a listening post by following North Korean state media and maintaining networks of defectors and scholars who have information on North Korea, says Kim Kwang-tae, a reporter for Yonhap.

“This kind of stuff makes Yonhap have a bit of a competitive advantage compared to other news agencies,” he says.

Kim receives tips and information from intelligence officers from a spy agency, but they speak strictly on conditions of anonymity.

“The spy agency won’t tell anything about how they get intelligence from North Korea because they believe that any leakage could jeopardize their missions, their spies and their

intelligence officials,” he says.

Kirkpatrick says the reporting is speculative, based on limited knowledge and today’s “facts,” that may be proven wrong in the future. But, she says we know with much greater certainty about the lifestyle of North Koreans than ever before.

Five years after Goodspeed’s trip to North Korea, around the time Kim Jong-il was reported to be sick, he received an email from his North Korean government guide asking for copies of his newspaper, which signaled to him that “some kind of change is going on.”

However, he says since Kim Jong-Un has become “The Supreme Leader,” Pyongyang has been releasing the same propaganda as before. “I can’t think of any dramatic changes. In terms of how they operate day-to-day … and especially with the media, nothing has changed.”

He describes reporting on North Korea as trying to look through a frosted glass window.

“You know there’s a tree there, but you are not sure what are all the details.” He says the more information a news agency gets, the more they can scratch the frost to see the tree.

North Korean reporter Pak Won Il and photographer Kim Kwang Hyon are on staff for AP in the KCNA building.

Both have a long history working for the KCNA, and they’re joined by American reporters who will also act as supervisors. Pak Won Il’s challenge will be to get people to feel comfortable enough to speak to him, says Carroll.

She says she is confident because AP has had an online video site produced in Pyongyang for five years and bilingual reporter Jean Lee has already forged close bonds with sources in North Korea.

A story of journalists risking their lives to report on North Korea

Photographer Kim Kwang Hyon captured his own images at a ceremony honouring late leader Kim Jong-il that marked the 100-day mourning period AP / Kim Kwang Hyon

Carroll says their reporting from North Korea helped contextualize the images the world was seeing after the death of Kim Jong-il.

“We see these pictures of people grieving, which is what everybody saw a lot of, [and AP reporter Rafael Wober] could describe with real authority, instead of just parachuting in and taking pictures of what is in front of you at the airport,” she says.

Carroll says she can only speculate why North Korean officials agreed to let AP into the country. She says the political leaders she met with had researched the news agency in detail and were aware of their code of ethics.

Melanie Kirkpatrick says she first became aware of North Korea’s human violations when she was working in Hong Kong as an op-ed editor for Wall Street Journal Asia, in the mid-‘80s. The journal published a piece by an Italian journalist who had gone to North Korea, and on his return to Beijing kissed the ground because he was so happy to be back in a free country. “I thought, ‘Gosh if he considers China of all places free, what must North Korea be like?’” says Kirkpatrick.

Her book, Escape From North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad, to be published in September, tells the stories of refugees who have

“They are very proud people, they are proud of their country, they feel as though they aren’t understood. I think they are trying to have more information out there about them,” she says.

AP will face challenges and “bumps in the road,” Carroll says. But, they will tackle resistance in the same way they do in other parts of the world.

They will request meetings, protest, and send leaders to talk with those imposing the restraints.

“We haven’t hit those bumps yet, but we will,” she says. “It’s better to be there than not.”

“This is what we do. We go places where people are curious what is going on.”

been trained by Chinese or South Koreans in basic reporting. They’re given flash drives or miniature cameras and they return to North Korea to do secret reporting.

“The North Korean reporters decided that there was no way they could report on, say, North Korean’s nuclear program because you can’t get access to that,” she says. “So, they decided to focus on several areas of daily life, such as corruption, and they have done a fabulous job reporting on the corruption.”

She says there are tens of thousands of refugees hiding in China, and about 3,000 make it to South Korea every year. There are now more than 20,000 North

Koreans living in South Korea.

With the help of the humanitarian workers in China, she began interviewing North Koreans in the early 2000s. They are often reluctant to speak to her, but they do so because the people who have rescued them have requested it.

She says if returning refugees were caught talking to reporters they would be sent to a political prison camp along with their families, under punishment of death in some cases, adding that sources have to change their names and can’t be photographed.

“These are extremely brave people, the North Koreans, who are interested in telling the reality of what their country is like.” EI

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 35

SOUTH AFRICA

Lebanon’s press is substantially freer than its Middle Eastern neighbours, with constitutional guarantees for press freedom, but these are dictated by public order, national unity and security.

Newspapers, periodicals, and broadcast outlets require licences, but laws are vague as to whether journalists must belong to self-regulating syndicates. The 10 seats on the National Council of Audio-Visual Media are awarded along the sectarian lines present in the government.

Broadcast licences are divided into two categories, with the one allowed to broadcast news and political content much more expensive than the other. News programs must be produced locally.

Ownership limits of 10 per cent of television companies per party have not been enforced.

Pakistan’s constitution officially curbs freedom of expression when reporting on the military, judiciary, government, religion, and national security issues. Blasphemy laws are enforced, and defamation is a criminal offence.

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) is responsible for regulating broadcast media and part of the Information Ministry. The rules regarding licensing are vague, allowing the government-dominated organization to assign licences arbitrarily.

Live coverage of events the government does not want broadcast, and material viewed as defamatory of the military, judiciary or government are banned.

National security issues are broadly defined and can lead to shutdowns.

Attempts have been undertaken by PEMRA to block radio stations from broadcasting BBC Pakistan content.

PAKISTAN

LEBANON

LICENSE TO

South Africa’s constitution allows for freedom of the press, access to information, and independent broadcast regulation.

However, a rarely used 2004 anti-terrorism law allows authorities to restrict publication of information about the police, military, prisons and mental hospitals, and journalists must reveal sources.

The 2006 Film and Publications Act separates governmentrecognized publications and others, high courts can prevent media from reporting on sensitive stories, and government departments restrict access to information.

Jail sentences of up to 25 years are possible and no public interest defense for reporting will be considered valid under the proposed law.

Proposed legislation has pushed for more government control over the Independent Communication Authority, the country’s broadcast regulator.

GEORGIA

Georgia has dozens of private newspaper and broadcast outlets but ongoing political power struggles have polarized the media.

Smaller outlets have been stifled, and those in power have made significant efforts to control the two major TV stations in the country.

Although Georgia’s constitution protects free speech, the country has a regulatory framework that can be used to restrict or influence the media (particularly the 2004 Law on Broadcasting).

Newspaper outlets are freer, but have poor distribution, while the Georgian National Communications Commission is by law allowed to issue, suspend, revoke, renew, sanction, and consider complaints in the broadcast field.

CENSOR INDONESIA

The pen is mightier than the sword, as the saying goes, and a growing number of governments around the world are discovering that bureaucracy is a subtle but effective means of suppressing dissent.

Freedom House, an independent organization working towards worldwide press freedom, studied how this freedom is threatened, though not through explicit or violent means. In a 2011 report titled License to Censor: The Use of Regulation to Restrict Media Freedom, the organization studied how the media is restricted in eight countries through licencing, registration, politically biased regulatory bodies, and content requirements.

Compiled by Alex Consiglio, Tyler Davie and Jan Vykydal

ZIMBABWE

The 2009 election of Zimbabwe’s Government of National Unity allowed for a slightly greater disclosure of information to the public, yet its media remains one of the most restricted in the world.

Broadcasting falls under the government-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Company, that runs all local radio and television stations.

Several print media outlets operate in Zimbabwe but are restricted to heavy licensing that reaches both the organizations and independent journalists.

Legislation limits publication of information and harsh prison sentences can result. Several newspapers have been licensed since 2010 but costs remain too high for most to publish.

killed, five were kidnapped and 18 were attacked in 2011.”

Strides towards better press freedom have been made, but Indonesia still has a long way to go.

The Ugandan constitution allows freedom of the press, but interpretations of sedition, criminal libel, “promoting sectarianism” and the Anti-Terrorism Act can curb this freedom.

Licences must be renewed every year to avoid prosecution, but this is rarely enforced.

Broadcast outlets are regulated by the Broadcasting Council – appointed and directed by the Minister of Information – which has broad powers to grant or withhold licences based on vague conditions, and seize equipment without due process.

UGANDA

Indonesia has entered a new era of press freedom over the last decade, but conditions remain volatile.

Since former President Suharto’s “New Order” dictatorship fell in 1998, a dramatic expansion of the press has occurred.

Journalists receive a certain level of protection from government interference, but criminal defamation laws and physical intimidation still impede true freedom of the press.

Defamation allegations do not distinguish opinion from facts and carry lengthy jail sentences.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) speculate that one journalist has been killed in 2012, while two others have been unjustly detained.

In the West Papua region, RSF reports, “at least two journalists were

ECUADOR

There has been an unprecedented number of cases of judicial harassment, intimidation and physical attacks against journalists in Ecuador since Rafael Correa was elected president in 2007.

Government officials, and especially Correa himself, have subjected the press to harsh critique leading to many outlets closing, and many journalists resigning.

Ecuador introduced a Communications Bill (which is already being called a “gag law”) in 2009, which would subject the media to censorship by the state, and impose even stricter mandatory licensing for journalists.

Broadcast media is especially limited – broadcasters can be thrown in prison if the material they publish is deemed criminal.

Chinese police officers guard a make-shift holding cell Associated Press

Keeping words locked up Journalists in China have long been met with the challenge of strict governmental control of what can be reported. With police trained to keep dissenting voices quiet, journalists are being trained to find ways around the handcuffs and steel bars

By Alex Consiglio 38 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

E

xcited, middle-aged women breathe the fresh air as they look for directions to the Christian service, probably the first they’ve ever attended in public. Then a few courteous young men trick them away from the service and straight into a police van.

That was when Toronto Star foreign correspondent Bill Schiller began snapping pictures to go with his April 2011 story about Beijing Shouwang Church, a growing congregation that the Communist Party of China (CPC) was seeking to eliminate.

“Another group of men immediately dragged me away and before I knew it, I was being led up a urine-soaked stairwell,” says Schiller from his office in Toronto.

The service was being held outdoors, he explains, because the CPC views any assembly as a threat to its authority, and had recently shut down the church’s premises and blocked its purchase of another.

The uniformed officers didn’t have a key to the room, so it was back down the stairs to another building and finally into a cubbyhole of a room where Schiller was interrogated and forced to delete his photos.

“It became quite clear to me I wasn’t going to be leaving if I didn’t,” says Schiller, musing that coverage of Christian suppression for western consumption wouldn’t look good on China in predominately Christian nations.

Schiller, in China since 2007 and now back in Canada after the Toronto Star closed its bureau in December 2011, says editors rightly decided his detention would now be the story.

“That whole situation would have never happened in 2007 when I first got to China,” says Schiller.

He says it’s increasingly difficult to be a for-

eign correspondent in China since “the largest propaganda event in modern times” – the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Before and during the Games, China suggested its human rights situation was going to improve and foreign correspondents would enjoy press freedom in line with international standards.

Now, both have worsened and China, the world’s fastest growing economy, is suppressing foreign media coverage to present a positive image to the world and prevent an Arab Springlike uprising of its own.

As Andrew Jacobs, Schiller’s counterpart at the New York Times, points out, after the Olympics came the call for a “Jasmine Revolution,” China’s own Arab Spring, through anonymous Internet postings, exacerbating China’s crackdown.

“I think the Chinese government is nervous,” says Schiller. “They see what’s happening in the Arab world and they want to make sure it doesn’t happen in China.”

It’s a crackdown noticed by people still on the ground, such as editors and reporters from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), and by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a non-profit organization that releases an annual Press Freedom Index.

In the last five years, RSF has consistently warned of China’s deteriorating status, from encouraging the release of 50 cyber-dissidents in 2007 to warning “the Chinese authorities against taking a road from which there is no way out” in 2010.

In its 2011-2012 rankings, RSF concludes China seems “to have lost contact with reality as they have been sucked into an insane spiral of terror” after its ranking dropped from 163rd in 2007 to 174th out of 179 countries.

This means China’s press freedom remains

worse than countries such as Yemen, Libya and Iraq, and hovers just above Iran and Syria.

“My mail was opened on a regular basis and I’m quite sure my phone was tapped,” says Schiller. “Many of us on the ground quickly realized our movements, wherever we went, were monitored on a regular basis – and we weren’t quite sure how that was happening.”

Some think they’re tracked by their cell phones, says Schiller, and some think perhaps it’s their government-issued press passes – that maybe there was some type of chip in the mandatory identification that must be carried at all times.

“China is that type of country – where foreign correspondents are rightfully paranoid about how closely monitored they are and I’m quite sure the state wants it that way,” he says.

But reporters still cover poor villagers’ farms being seized without compensation for development, self-immolations by Tibetans in protest of government policies, and people being detained for criticizing their government.

Schiller says the drastic measures may be for the government’s own intelligence gathering and suspects those writing strong human rights pieces have trouble renewing their visas.

Jacobs suggests the crackdown on journalists may be a message to their contacts – an attempt to chill and dry up their sources.

Though that’s a theory Schiller agrees with – noting human rights lawyers who spoke to him freely in 2007 wouldn’t speak at all in the last months of 2011 – it’s not why he left China, or why his paper closed up shop.

That decision came down to the bottom line, as Schiller estimates it costs more than $250,000 a year just to operate a one-man bureau and the newspaper industry is continuing to contract.

“Our ad revenues are still down and we’ve had

Plain-clothes officers prevent photographers and reporters working for RSF from documenting the protest Associated Press

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 39

to find a way to do more with less,” says Schiller.

The new approach is to respond to news events as they happen and rely upon wire services – the Star runs copy from the Times’ wire service – for day-to-day coverage, a paradigm Schiller sees as positive while citing his paper’s coverage of the Arab Spring.

The Star sent nine reporters to nine countries to cover the Arab uprising, a tactic referred to as parachuting and something that wouldn’t have been possible without reallocating funds previously used for operations in China.

“Everyone in North America, except for the absolutely biggest and best resourced newspapers, like the Times or Wall Street Journal, is cutting back,” says Schiller.

The Globe and Mail, the oldest Canadian newspaper bureau in China, is maintaining its one-man operation, a small venture compared to the Times or WSJ. Michael Wines, the Times’ Beijing bureau chief whose copy has run in the Star, says although he has “great sympathy for anyone running a newspaper right now,” China is an emerging superpower that needs the attention of reporters on the ground.

“Parachuting someone in to cover a breaking news event just isn’t going to happen in China,” says Wines, adding if the Arab Spring were to ever ignite in China, only those already there would be able to cover it adequately.

“It’s a very difficult matter because in China, if you’re a journalist, you just don’t get a visa by walking up to a window and putting down some money,” says Wines.

One of his photographers has been waiting nearly a year to have his visa approved and Wines isn’t surprised by findings from the Foreign Correspondent Club of China’s (FCCC) recent survey of its members.

Over the past two years, 27 foreign journalists have waited more than four months for visas, 13 are still waiting after six months, and three haven’t heard a peep – meaning they’ve been denied.

In six cases, the FCCC reported China’s Foreign Ministry rejected applications or put them on hold due to the applicant’s previous coverage of Chinese affairs – just as Schiller suspected.

Wines says the oppression is not restricted to journalists, “People are getting eight or more years in jail simply for speaking out against the government – where that sort of crime, if you want to call it that, would have received maybe two or three years in the early 2000s.”

Andy Browne, the WSJ’s Beijing bureau chief, says despite the “definite chill” creeping across the country, “nothing is going to stop us from reporting the news.”

40 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

Andrew Jacobs atop the wreckage of a collapsed school after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake photo by Shiho Fukada

Getting the story in China Andrew Jacobs travelled by night, using the skillset he’s developed working in China since 2008 as a reporter for the New York Times. He hid in monastery after monastery, switching cars, sometimes even hiding in the back of buses to escape check points – and, of course, he removed his cell phone battery along with his SIM card and had a second SIM card on hand to make any quick calls.

For four days, Jacobs evaded police detection on his way to the house of a 20-yearold Tibetan woman who burned herself to death on March 5, 2012, in protest against a new policy changing the language of instruction from Tibetan to Chinese in Gansu Province schools.

Just as those days of manoeuvring were about to pay off, Jacobs let down his guard and got caught. Only 10 kilometres away, Jacobs

and his crew, a photographer and Chinese guide, met back up at night but took one taxi.

They hit a checkpoint, and Jacobs hid on the backseat floor but police shone a flashlight his way and spotted him, detained, documented and then ordered him to the next town five hours away.

“It didn’t help that it was the anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s exile,” says Jacobs, explaining authorities were on edge and things were in lockdown as it was also the anniversary of the 2008 Gansu riots.

These riots began as an annual commemoration of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising and subsequent exile of the Dalai Lama, but ended in chaos as innocent civilians, protesters and police were either burned or shot to death while foreign media was banned from the area.

AC

Brown says, “The ban on us hiring Chinese reporters is really starting to seriously affect our ability to tell the China story to the world.” He says he can only hire them as “researchers” and is not allowed to reward them with bylines.

Browne says the reasoning, as told to him by the foreign ministry, is to prevent two categories of Chinese journalists – those controlled by state media, meaning human rights abuses go unreported, and others who enjoy the so-called freedom of foreign correspondents.

“You don’t get under the skin of China unless you live here,” says Browne. “You’ve got to live here. You’ve got to breathe the air. You’ve got to be talking to people constantly. You’ve got to be feeling and living it.”

Jacobs, one of Wines’ six Times reporters on the ground, has been living it since 2008 and says it’s an exhausting, but motivating challenge.

“It’s a constant cat-and-mouse game when reporting in China on ‘sensitive’ topics – basically anything that touches upon politics, human rights or corruption,” says Jacobs.

“They’re probably listening to us right now,” Jacobs quips from one of his cell phones in Beijing. “It’s hard to separate what’s really happening from paranoia, but it doesn’t deter us from our coverage.”

He explains the crackdown has as much to do with controlling foreign journalists as it does controlling who they interview, citing artist and political critic Ai Weiwei, a former reliable source of his who is now under 24-hour police surveillance and unavailable for comment.

“What China doesn’t have is the love and affection of the world,” says Jacobs, estimating he’s “stonewalled” by police at least once a month as China tries to control its image and remain open for business with more humane western nations.

“When your goal is to counter and suppress western media reporting – which they consider biased, but it’s actually just the truth – and when you generate propaganda and masquerade it as news, it’s not going to trick or convince anyone.

It’s just not going to work,” says Jacobs.

Creating a persona in an online industry How public relations professionals are changing their focus to social media tactics

By Ashley Greene Michael Smith learned the power of social media from Barack Obama.

Smith, now the CEO of Virginia-based Mike Smith Public Affairs, grinned excitedly at a camera as the rally unfolded behind him.

Smith was involved in the 2008 Obama campaign from the beginning. He worked on both the Presidential Communications Team, which had hundreds of volunteers, and with the Press and Advance team ranging from five to 20 people in Iowa, Texas and Virginia.

The public relations expert did a wide variety of things while volunteering for the 2008 Obama campaign – from blogging for the Huffington Post and Reuters to filming to tweeting.

Although he isn’t involved in the 2012 Obama Re-Election Campaign because he is focusing on his PR business, Smith says participating in the 2008 campaign changed the way he used social media. “Obama really taught me how to use social media,” says Smith. “I would never have known [about] Twitter if I had not been on the Obama campaign. I wouldn’t have known to package up flip camera videos on YouTube without the Obama campaign. I never owned a flip camera until 2008 and I started using it a lot.”

With 30 years of experience in PR and after attaining top positions at some of the best firms, including New York headquartered BursonMarsteller and cross-Canada PR firm Edelman, he says his perception of how public relations uses social media advantageously has changed throughout his career.

“It’s redefined the PR industry – there’s no question,” says Smith. “Social media is the PR industry, and I think that’s how we’re finding that we can go direct to the public. We don’t have to go to the newspaper. We don’t have to ask permission from an editor, we don’t have to

pitch a TV station – we can make our own TV and put it up on YouTube.”

“Social media is a new tactic,” says Jennifer Leonard, the public relations program co-ordinator at Humber College. She says she realizes the advantages of PR professionals using social media tools, but that social media will not work without a strategy. “When PR professionals are putting together a strategic plan they look at who their key audiences are, what their key objective is, key messages and then they look at what tactics would best achieve the strategy.

You have to use it strategically.”

That is exactly what Smith did. He and his colleagues contributed to Obama’s win in Iowa, which he says was one of the greatest nights of his life. With the help of Facebook fan pages, constant tweeting, and the participation of University of Iowa students, he managed to get thousands of students to vote at the Iowa caucus during their Christmas holiday.

“We got lots of votes because students were looking at social media and they decided to take a few days back,” says Smith. “I don’t know any student, at least not me, that would take my Christmas break and come early to my dorm so I could vote.”

In addition to the Iowa win, Smith saw vast voter turnout in Texas and Virginia and attributes the growing support to effectively using social media.

“Over three months, I watched the crowds go from 5,000 to 30,000 to 100,000,” he says.

“You don’t get things like that unless your candidate is really popular and you’re using social media to get people out.”

In an industry where the primary role is to communicate, social media has transformed one-on-one communication with clients. Martin Waxman, principal of his own social media consulting firm and senior counsellor at Thornley Fallis Communications, located in Toronto and Ottawa, says gearing public relations to social media methods can make a PR firm stand out from the competition.

In an article for PR News, “How PR Can Claim Social Media for Its Own,” Waxman outlines four key essentials for PR agencies to succeed in social media: listen, learn, participate and practice.

Waxman had the opportunity put his theory into practice at a product launch he organized in 2008 for Herbal Essences. The event focused on bloggers, which at the time were not recognized as an important influencer.

“We actually had a separate event for bloggers only. They had access to the same quality and spokesperson that traditional media had,” says Waxman. “Reaching out to bloggers and actually treating bloggers like media four or five years ago was considered pretty innovative.”

Waxman says a transition such as this is necessary for the PR industry to change with the times. If PR companies “don’t change they will be relegated to the publicity scrap heap of the blogosphere, and who wants to live there?” says Waxman.

“The social media I used were video blogs, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook fan pages,” says Smith. Social media gets people out to vote. “It gets people excited and it builds scale — and when you want lots of voters, you need scale. Suddenly, you’ve got this critical mass and you’ve got lots of people telling your story.

You don’t have to tell it yourself.”

Tonia Hammer, Molson Coors Canada’s community relations specialist, says it’s important for the company to really engage in social media.

“There have been tonnes of times I’ve been up tweeting until three in the morning because that’s when the questions are being asked or the issue is going down,” says Hammer. This scenario is a positive leg up for her company that proves its ability to take full advantage of social networking tools.

Hammer says the use of marketing and communications tools lets her team use social media effectively. Marketing tools have allowed the company to measure social media conversation, listen to the needs of the consumers and engage effectively with the influencers.

“We divide the roles up but we use a system called Sysomos, which is one of the tools that we use to monitor social media,” says Hammer.

“We’ve used a bunch of different tools where you can set up alerts for key words and programs so you can always be ready to tweet or update on Facebook when needed.”

Trell Huether, president of the International Association of Business Communicators’ Toronto chapter, says the acceptance of social media in PR is beneficial to both the agency and its clients.

“It opens up a faster way that you can communicate with your customer, with your clients or whatever audience you’re trying to reach and get feedback faster,” says Huether, who has worked in PR for Grand and Toy, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, and the Jamaica Tourism Board. He says that he focuses on producing content such as photos and videos and giving companies a plan to get started and running.

Waxman suggests that PR agencies and professionals will see many advantages in evolving harmoniously with social media.

“Times are changing, media’s changing – PR has to change as well.”

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 41

UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS

MOre than just men in tights Writers and artists are using the medium of comics and graphic novels to report on real world issues

By Adam Carter all art courtesy DC Comics

C

omics have always been the red-headed stepchild of storytelling,” laughs writer and artist Dan Goldman, from his home in Brazil.

His levity belies a seriousness and passion for his work, which is part of a rising contingent of comics about the media. These non-fiction books feature real journalism on socio-political issues, and fiction that delves into both the legitimacy of the profession and the issues that surround it.

The medium allows writers and artists to impart information in ways they can’t anywhere else. Journalism in comics is not just an excuse for Clark Kent to step out on his girlfriend anymore – and people are realizing it.

“There’s tricks and tools in comics that let you sidestep a lot of [words] and let you ‘infodump’ a little faster and more viscerally than just working in straight text,” Goldman says. This is something that becomes increasingly important as people have more options available to them and less time to disseminate news. “You can convey and transmit a lot of information with words and pictures in a shorter span of time.”

Goldman’s work includes the fictional account of a blogger-turned-correspondent, Shooting War (2007), and a non-fiction look at presidential campaigning, ‘08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail (2009). His love for comics comes coupled with the fact that he became so disenfranchised with the state of traditional media in the U.S. that he fled the country, opting to work out of Brazil.

“I used my comics to fight against this thing that was there before I was born and is still there now,” Goldman says. “I got rid of my television many years ago, because it was like an open wound in the living room, just oozing. When you see the fingers of the media coming out of everyone’s mouths … it was just awful, and it really got to me after a while.”

Goldman predicts a forthcoming “free form digital media” that will exist under a new banner. “When there’s elements of sequential images, they’ll say ‘Oh there’s an influence from

42 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

comic books,’ ” he says. “At the end of the day, however people start to digest their media, there’ll be a new word for it. Comics will be part of the DNA because there’s a lot of info you can convey quickly and easily – and people really don’t like to read that much.”

Cartoonist Josh Neufeld is now one of the more recognizable names attached to journalism in comics after Joe Sacco – who is largely considered the biggest name in that niche.

Neufeld achieved widespread acclaim for his Katrina narrative A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge (2009). Since then, he has illustrated an introspective look at media called The Influencing Machine (2011), as well as a story about the Bahraini uprising called Bahrain: Lines in Ink, Lines in the Sand (2011). A.D. has been hailed for its commentary on Katrina, and his work continues to legitimize realism in comics.

“As soon as I discovered real-life comics, I was attracted to them on a very primal level – the idea of taking a medium that most people think of as for fantasy or superhero stories and talking about real people,” Neufeld says from his home in New York. “Through that, I discovered that real life is pretty complex stuff. The world is full of real life storytellers and heroes, and we don’t need to look to fiction to make them up.”

Comics differ from traditional coverage in that they must carry a narrative while upholding the truth. In Neufeld’s case, this means using creative licence, having characters impart information that the reader needs to know, but also creating dialogue or actions.

“I was using the techniques of creative writing and fiction writing, and yet I never put a character in a place that they weren’t, or changed the time that something happened, or made up somebody who wasn’t there,” he says. “I feel like this amalgam of comics and journalism is something like a docudrama, but maybe closer to the world of journalism than those tend to be.”

Zahara’s Paradise, a comic set just after Iran’s 2009 election, treads on similar territory, using the genre to weave together a composite of

An inside panel from Brian Wood’s series DMZ.

real and fictional events. Its characters are imagined, but set against a backdrop of themes and situations prominent in current media coverage.

The story revolves around the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has disappeared in the Islamic Republic’s gulags. The author and artist started the online comic to coincide with the explosion of coverage of the election and fallout found in social media. The two have chosen anonymity for political reasons.

Then there’s the purely fictional account, like Brian Wood’s wartime saga, DMZ. The recently-concluded series follows Matty Roth, a journalist covering an American civil war in the present, with New York City as a de-militarized zone between warring factions. Well received in the comic world, it also illustrates how fictional themes can have a resonance in real life. Roth struggles with morality in reporting. Wood says the hardest thing for his protagonist to do is to keep his personal opinions out of his writing.

Wood had to read plenty of real accounts – especially about the Gulf War – to give DMZ its gritty, realistic feel.

“I like to read a lot of non-fiction, and there’s no end to the books out there about embedded wartime journalists,” he says from his home in New York.

“I was trying to read as much as I could to get an idea about speech pat- have picked up the book if it wasn’t a comic, and conversely, literary terns in a war zone. I also read Soviet accounts about their time in Afghan- agents who said she’d make more money on a traditional textbook. “But I istan, which I found pretty fascinating. I had to front load my brain with as have piles of those, and I never want to read them,” she says. Her book is much of this as possible in order to get into the head state.” Much of DMZ now being taught in many universities and colleges as “one of those books is dedicated to Roth doing interviews, gathering information, and decid- the entire freshman class reads.” ing how to distribute what he’s learned though competing news outlets.

Though the medium certainly has its merits as a way to get ideas Writer Brooke Gladstone partnered with Josh Neufeld on The Influenc- across, comics are often deemed sensationalist – Josh Neufeld himself ing Machine, to explore the history and scope of the media. Gladstone is a calls the superhero archetype somewhat “fascist” – as they often feature radio journalist by trade, knowing that world foremost and comics second. “the bigger and stronger” forcing their will upon others. Not to mention Regardless, she knew this combination of media was for her, having stud- their tendency to feature women that are anatomically impossible. In A.D. ied Scott McCloud’s seminal work, Understanding Comics. the guilty reality of Katrina left no room for over-dramatization.

“I wanted to do a comic book before I wanted to do a book about the Some scenes “were just so shocking and horrifying that I felt they took media. I wanted the opportunity to see how pictures convey abstract in- the drama and pumped it up to that docudrama so it wouldn’t seem real formation because there’s always this notion that only words can do that,” anymore.” Case in point – he left out an instance bound for A.D. in which says Gladstone from her home in New York. a woman gave birth outdoors among people The Influencing Machine makes use of the waiting for humanitarian aid, and both the fantasy element, even though the book is woman and her baby died. Neufeld relented resolutely non-fiction. from showing the event and says he, “wor“Rather than using verbal metaphors ried about desensitizing the reader.”

I could use visual metaphors,” she says.

“It was getting into some morally ambig“There were countless opportunities that uous stuff that I just felt would complicate were opened up by using the graphic form. the story that I was trying to get across …

Josh Neufeld, cartoonist It’s a stunningly effective way to concenthat other stuff seemed not only gratuitous, trate information in a way that was both but also distracting of the main point.” compelling and clear.”

“It’s just too much death,” Neufeld laments. “I know as a viewer of Tori Marlan is another journalist who has collaborated with Neufeld, movies and comics that at a certain point your brain just turns off when and is the writer of a forthcoming comic on an Ethiopian boy’s story from you’re inundated with too much tragedy and angst.” detention to green card, seeking refuge in the States. “Comics can reThere’s no doubt all of these creators are drawn to the medium by the ally work as a way to tell non-fiction stories,” Marlan tells Convergence absolute need to tell stories. from her home in Montreal. “There’s the possibility for great emotional “I don’t think I have a choice,” says Goldman. “I don’t really know if resonance.”

I’m good at anything else.”

“More and more people are aware of the genre, even in the last couple “I had a revelation about myself and the world on September 14, 2001. of years,” she says. When Marlan told the Ethiopian boy (who is now 21) I could see the World Trade Centre from my studio windows … and I she’d decided to tell his story as a comic, he wasn’t familiar with the me- watched it burn for a month. I remember I started smoking again – cigadium. So she took him to a bookstore to show him examples of the sort of rettes I mean. I was chain-smoking, I didn’t know what else to do. We thing she wanted to do. “He instantly got it and he said ‘oh, I’d read this painted our whole house. I was talking with my brother a couple days after before I read something else.’ ” it happened, and wondered ‘What is our purpose in this world if this is goGladstone says she knew when she started The Influencing Machine ing on?’ What came out of my mouth was that as a creative writer and not that some readers would be inclined to dismiss a comic as more light- as a journalist, it was my function to look through the shit as if it was transhearted than factual. “I think the genre still has a ways to go. I was aware parent and into a better universe, and try to bring back visions of things that some people would be predisposed to dismiss the book because of the being better. That idea has informed all the political stuff I’ve done.” genre I had chosen, but I was willing to take that risk.”

She says there are a number of people who have said they wouldn’t

“

The world is full of real life storytellers and heroes, and we don’t need to look to fiction to make them up

”

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 43

Kim Mitchell and Buck 65 talk the pros and cons of being musicians turned radio personalities

By Danielle Perry

Kim Mitchell’s band Max Webster’s first Gold record was released in 1976 photo by Danielle Perry

The raunchy, Jimmy Page electric guitar riff on Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” plays quietly in the background of the large, bright broadcast studio. DJ and seasoned rock musician Kim Mitchell sits with his back to the window, the late afternoon sun hovering just above Toronto’s CN Tower beaming behind him. Other than his producer, who sits to his right, the room is completely empty. She signals to Mitchell, they are about to go live on the air, and he begins the one-sided conversation with the microphone.

“Honestly, I think radio at times needs something different,” Mitchell tells Convergence. “Doing a time stamp and a weather stamp, who cares? I have an iPod that can do all that. I’ll listen to the tunes I have that I want to hear. Bring me some personality.”

Mitchell is one of an elite band musicians who have made a mark in the broadcast world.

In the last seven years alone, musicians such as Nikki Sixx, Buck 65, Randy Bachman, Alice Cooper and even Bob Dylan have become hosts of their own radio shows. Platforms such as satellite radio and podcasts have provided ample opportunity for variation – but experience on stage as a rock star doesn’t necessarily mean success as a radio personality. The transition from interacting face-to-face with deafening, cheering crowds to communicating with listeners in an eerily quiet studio can take years to get comfortable with – if ever.

“As there are more and more stations, people want to hire musicians,” says Mark Steinmetz,

director of CBC Radio Music. Steinmetz has hired both broadcasters and musicians for the outlet.

“I think it is a trend. I think people want to hire the real people who have lived the life to actually talk about the music they love and that they created,” Steinmetz says, noting that the ratings for CBC radio shows with musician hosts are “fantastic.”

Rich Terfry, commonly known as Buck 65 in his own music career, was hired by Steinmetz in 2008 to host CBC’s Radio 2 Drive, and says he loves hearing some of his own favourite musicians on the air.

“There seems to be a huge appetite for it,” Terfry says. “I think anytime there’s a figure that the public has already taken an interest in personally or an interest in their profession – obviously the idea of the big-time professional musician, that’s a daydream for a lot of people.

There are a lot of romantic notions wrapped up in that idea, and you almost think of a successful musician as some sort of magical person.”

But when he started out without any formal training in the broadcasting profession, Terfry’s initial experience in the radio studio was less than magical.

“I went in pretty darn cold,” he says about an unexpected invitation to audition. “When it came time to go on the air, it was kind of like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m just going by the seat of my pants here.’ I don’t think it took too long for some of the management to realize, ‘whoa – maybe we really do need some training here, because we’re kind of rough.’ ” “There were a few months there where it was just like, ‘Oh my gosh – torture.’ It just felt so difficult, it felt like I had to eat all my meals with my left hand all of a sudden.” He says it took him about a year on air to become comfortable, and admits he is constantly learning on the job.

“I had to unlearn everything that I knew, and I had to try things a new way. It was like, ‘Go in, use this framework, and stick to it.’ I would try that, and at times it would be utterly disastrous,” he says. “I really had to swallow a lot of pride for awhile because being live, there can be anywhere between half a million to two million people listening.”

Steinmetz says during the process of hiring a broadcaster, CBC assesses what the specific show is aiming to achieve – but just because someone is a musician doesn’t necessarily mean that they will find success in the broadcast industry.

“I did a survey of many, many personalities ranging from musicians to broadcasters and everything in between. I had hundreds and hundreds of names of potential people. We broke

it down and then we did little auditions, and then we broke it down even more,” Steinmetz says.

“We felt that Rich had the thing that hosts really need. That’s being knowledgeable, authentic and enthusiastic. There’s a bit of wit, he’s a good storyteller, and when you listen to him – what we heard was someone who felt like they were talking to [the listener]. He had a character.”

That’s a skill that sometimes poses a challenge to musicians who move into radio broadcasting.

“They have to understand what radio as a medium is. [Musicians] stand on a stage and speak to many. Radio is a medium where it’s one-to-one, so it’s very intimate. The great skill

of a radio broadcaster is that you feel like they are talking directly to you – not a bunch of you,” Steinmetz says.

“Some are successful, and some are not,” says Candice Knihnitski, the producer of Q107’s afternoon drive show. “I don’t know if it’s so much a trend, but it’s obviously happening more now than it did.”

Knihnitski has been working as the afternoon drive producer for just under a year alongside host of seven years, Mitchell, a Canadian rock icon. After working at radio stations across Canada in the past, Knihnitski still believes the radio personality needs talent and skill in broadcast, over status in the music industry.

“I wouldn’t say that radio stations are looking

Terfry won four Junos in four consecutive years, 2003-06 photo courtesy CBC

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 45

for rock stars to fill those positions [when they come open],” she says. “I don’t think they’d be seeking out Gord Downie from the Tragically Hip to host afternoon drive if Kim ever left.”

But whether Mitchell’s charm as a radio personality comes from personal stories like touring for six weeks with Bryan Adams or sharing the stage with Black Sabbath, his success since 2004 in his broadcast career is a matter of record.

“Kim’s show is outperforming the station, so his numbers are slightly higher than the radio station as a whole,” Knihnitski says. “That’s what program directors want – you want your afternoon drive show to be outperforming the station because then you would assume it’s the personalities that are bringing it to that level.

You play similar music all day, so the only thing that changes are the DJ’s.”

Like Terfry, Mitchell’s transition was not easy.

“The hard part was relaxing and being myself – because I sucked. I was really bad.

It was awkward. I sounded awkward. I felt awkward,” says Mitchell. “Every day was pretty

photo courtesy Q107

46 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

embarrassing at some point.”

Three to four months into his new career, he was on the verge of quitting. “Just getting through the day without hate mail would have been a good start!”

“It’s a lot different in the music business,” Mitchell says. “When people don’t like you in the music business, they just don’t come to see you. In the radio business, they let you know.”

After co-hosting the afternoon drive show for the first year at Q107 and then eventually taking it over on his own, Mitchell says it was almost two years before he felt comfortable behind the microphone and with the format of commercial radio.

“I think he was his worst critic,” explains the program director at Q107, Blair Bartrem.

“I think what he was bringing to the table far outweighed what he thought were the negatives.”

Bartrem and Knihnitski cite Mitchell’s immediate connection with other musicians during interviews as a definite plus. Mitchell says being the interviewer instead of the interviewee can be nerve wracking, but Bartrem argues musical instinct made Mitchell a natural.

“When we have artists and musicians come into the studio, they feel really at ease with him because he’s able to speak to them on a level that isn’t your typical announcer asking the same questions. He’s able to connect with them because he’s lived the life, and [still] lives the life,” he says.

“Having been interviewed by a tonne of radio people who are quote unquote ‘radio people,’ they pull the voice and do all that stuff … there have been a ton of them who will ask you a question and you can tell they disconnect,” Mitchell explains about his own experiences.

“I think the advantage I have is that I am a musician. So they sort of relax and relate to that a little bit, like, ‘I’m just going to be hanging out with a brother from another mother.’ ” Today, he balances his time between his music and broadcast careers, travelling on weekends and broadcasting from the Corus Entertainment building on Toronto’s harbour, Monday through Friday. Occasionally he will host his show while on the road as well.

“It’s a bit of a pain in the ass,” he says. “It’s not going from radio to the stage, it’s all the shit in between I wouldn’t want to wish upon

“

anyone. As Keith Richards says – it’s getting up, flying, going through security, eating crap meals, hotels and travelling.”

Mitchell says the urge to talk about music simply goes hand in hand with something that a musician already loves to do.

“There’s a bunch [of musicians] going to radio, because it’s fun. You know Bob Dylan isn’t going there to make cash, he’s going there for the experience to talk about music and being passionate about the whole thing,” he explains.

“That’s kind of why I’m there, too.”

But what is so appealing to listeners about musicians over the schooled broadcaster?

“There is an authenticity when Bob Dylan is on Sirius, or Kim is on Q, or Rich is on CBC,” Steinmetz says.

“The number one thing [musicians bring] Kim Mitchell is the unique perspective that nobody else can bring to the table,” Bartrem says. “They bring unique stories and unique content to the table regardless of whether they’re polished. I think the audience at the beginning is a bit tolerant.”

“Kim brings his years in the business, road stories and his perspective on music,” Bartrem says. “He’ll pick up his guitar and actually deconstruct the song and take you through how it was created.”

“How many people get to tell stories about how they met Eddie Van Halen in his underwear holding a submarine sandwich?” Bartrem laughs. “Nobody has got stories like that, other than people who have lived that life.”

Despite drawing a line between life as a rock star and life as a radio personality, the authenticity of Mitchell’s presence in the studio is hard to ignore. With three of his guitars hanging to the left and an electric drum kit tucked away in the corner, the vibe feels more like a musician’s living room. He signs off, and with the click of a button, Knihnitski cues Max Webster’s “Paradise Skies” to begin playing.

The classic rock hit by Mitchell’s old band brings back memories of when they formed in 1973.

“The two [live] I would say are actually very separate,” Knihnitski says. “You wouldn’t even really know that Kim Mitchell on the radio is also Kim Mitchell the musician when you’re around the office. He’s not walking around playing “Patio Lanterns” or anything!”

When people don’t like you in the music business, they just don’t come to see you.

In the radio business, they let you know

”

portfolio With thanks to Dean William Hanna The staff of Convergence magazine would like to join 3,000 student colleagues in the School of Media Studies and Information Studies to dedicate this outstanding selection of student work to our outgoing dean.

Keeping up with technological change, enhancing student job prospects by ensuring we were always ahead of industry and encouraging faculty to take risks and keep current are qualities we’ve admired.

Over the past 15 years William Hanna has built the biggest media studies school in the country. National and international awards, top flight faculty and outstanding graduates attest to it also being among the best in North America.

As the semester came to a close he announced he would step down as dean but will remain Associate Vice-president Academic at Humber College.

On the pages that follow you will see just a small sample of the work his students have produced this year. For a more complete look, please visit the website at http://mediastudies.humber.ca

48 49 50 51 52

3D ANIMATION 3D MODELLING Advertising copywriting Creative photography VISUAL & DIGITAL ARTS

53 54 55 56 57

Advertising & Package design Multimedia design & production Graphic design print & web Game programming Journalism

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 47

portfolio

3D ANIMATION

Stephen Gibson

Fatemeh Manzoor 48 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

portfolio

3D MODELING Anurag Sengupta

Anurag Sengupta

Ryan Walker

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 49

portfolio

ADVERTISING COPYWRITING

Get on 153 lbs.

Get off 153 lbs.

For sensitive stomachs.

Cooper Evoy

50 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

portfolio

Bruce Redstone

CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY Jen Byers

Alex McGoey Kadeisha Richards CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 51

portfolio

VISUAL & DIGITAL ARTS Taylor Nihls

Daniella Molina Siqueros

Stephanie Mohanlal 52 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

portfolio

ADVERTISING & PACKAGE DESIGN

Tara Torikian

Luke Merlini

Ryan Nerona

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 53

portfolio

MULTIMEDIA DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Johana Barretto

Ellen Choi

Daren Daley

54 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

portfolio

GRAPHIC DESIGN Ben Sehl

Melissa Da Silva

Anne Marie Goulet CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 55

portfolio

TITLE, NAME ETC Game Programming Jessica Sinyard

Carson Leprich

David Godon

56 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

yyz

portfolio

Journalism

Your window into young Toronto

The

SUMMER 2012

City you

LOVE

FROM THE INDUSTRY, FOR THE INDUSTRY

2012 EDITION

BREAKING NEWS

OH, IS THAT PHOTOSHOPPED?

Let’s get wet: Underwater rugby

SELLING THE FRONT PAGE MAKING A MEMORABLE COVER /// P. 5

Doug Ford’s summer slimdown

STORIES FROM JAIL

Speed demon – GTA street racing

SCOOP

DISHING

One on one with actor Aaron Ashmore

OUT THE

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GOSSIP /// P .14

GOING DIGITAL

HUMBER

Et Cetera

18

Hawks win 49-7 October 20 2011 Vol 44, No 4

BUILDING A

BRAND INFLUENCING PERCEPTIONS FINDING NEW AUDIENCES

BY MAKING THE MOVE

TO TELEVISION /// P.22

ADVERTORIALS A COMMUNITY NEAR YOU

PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS AND HOSTING EVENTS /// P.33

LAUNCHING IN CANADA

BRINGING THE PAST TO LIFE

SCANDALOUS MARKETING

SPORTS WRITING

FREELANCE AGREEMENTS

ALL PHOTOS BY GRAEME MCNAUGHTON

Occupy movement hits Toronto Graeme McNaughton News Reporter Humber students were among the thousands marching against corporate greed and unfair wealth distribution as protesters occupied St. James’ Park.

“The idea to take up space and get noticed that was developed during [the Arab Spring], it just kick started the whole world,” said Steve Timmins, 20, a second-year Humber photography student.

Occupy Toronto is just one of hun-

Witnesses testify against Humber student accused of second-degree murder

dreds of occupy movements around the world. Occupytogether.org said there are 1,535 occupy movements world-wide.

The movement began in New York City, when an initiative started

by Adbusters, a Canadian magazine, was inspired to set up camp at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan on Sept 17.

The New York protesters continue to occupy the park.

“It started in the Middle East, moved to Europe, then to America,” says Farshad Azadian, co-chair of the Toronto Young New Democrats.

News

3

Proposed amendments to Internet act could hinder privacy

“Those that thought Canada would be the exception were mistaken.”

The Oct. 15 march from King and Bay streets saw over 2,000 people make their way to St. James’ Park, located at Church and Adelaide.

Protesters set up as many as 60 tents in the park, saying they were planning to stay indefinitely.

“The most beautiful part about it is that now these people have been experiencing this, engrained in their psyche, about how there is a social network of conscious individuals who sit at home in an introverted

Biz + Tech

6

lifestyle and wish to seek change, we can actually start to coherently connect with one another and form this change,” said Nico Salassidis, one of the co-ordinators of the occupation.

Organizers said they were not surprised by the large number of protesters who are young people, as they’re often the ones in debt.

“Look at how much debt you’ll have to go through school,” said a member of Occupy Canada, which is a group uniting and sharing information among the various occupations.

Humber film and TV professor to teach workshop at Barrie Film Festival

A+E

10

“You pile up all this debt and you’re stuck. You can’t get a job.

You’re stuck with [the debt],” said the member who is a representative for the @OccupyCanada Twitter account.

Adam Slinn, 20, second year photography at Humber, said he agrees.

“I think it’s time for young people to have a voice, and I think we’re finally finding a niche for ourselves in politics, government, and becoming participating members of society.”

-With files from Julia Alexander

Child abuse prevention campaign suffers due to OPSEU strike

life

9

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 57

where are they now?

CONVERGENCE catches up with graduates of Humber College’s School of Media Studies and Information Technology

Joe Beausoleil Graphic Design, 2009

After graduating in 2009, Beausoleil is right where he wants to be thanks to Humber College’s Graphic Design three-year advanced diploma program.

He is currently working at Flooded Studios and using his creative skills to help customers figure out what they want.

The thing Beausoleil loves most about his industry is that every day there is something new to do.

He says networking is the most important thing he does now.

Nicole Chamula Fundraising and Management, 2010

Volunteer

Chamula has successfully combined her university degree in environment research studies with her postgraduate studies at Humber in Fundraising and Volunteer management to do work that she is passionate about. Before enrolling at Humber she was working as an HR co-ordinator for a software company, far away from the environmental field she was hoping to enter. “Taking the Humber program really got me right back on track with being in the environment field because it gave me the opportunity to do my internship with an environmental organization that I liked and then continue with fundraising into that.”

Chamula did her final year internship with Environmental Defense, which led to her getting a job with Ontario Nature. She is now the co-ordinator at the Foundation and Corporate Giving at Ontario Nature and is involved with the full grant cycle which keeps the organization running.

X CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

JOHNATHAN HEMBREY Journalism, 2011

Jonathan Hembrey works as a writer with CBCNews.ca on the national news desk. He interned with the features section at CBC as part of the journalism program at Humber and was hired as a casual in February 2011.

He moved to writing news during June 2011. His job consists of writing, editing and posting news and features on CBCNews.ca.

Hembrey has been involved in covering the trial of Michael Rafferty in London, Ont., providing both copy for the news story as well as live blogging the proceedings.

He says he learned practical skills at Humber from his teachers and his peers, and continues to use those skills everyday in the CBC newsroom.

He says the most important lesson he learned at Humber was the need to give it your all at every opportunity you get in the industry, whether it’s an internship, casual position or full-time work. To put it simply, he says, hard work pays off.

Jennifer Morrison Media Communications, 2011

Morrison graduated from the Media Communications program in 2011 and immediately put her academic skills to use as business communication coordinator at Bayer Inc. “I like that there is always something happening,” says Morrison. “Every day is a new day with new challenges.

It’s never a dull moment around here and I’m always busy.”

Morrison started as an intern at Global TV, and was later hired in their communications department. Jennifer credits the media communications program for preparing her with these essential skills that she uses day-to-day.

“Humber, [and] Lynne Thomas, program co-ordinator, have motivated and taught me to never give up and ask questions if I’m not sure.”

She says the thing she likes most about her career is that she is able to use every tool she acquired from the program and that everyday on the job brings a different experience.

Lisa Paivel

Radio Broadcast, 2010

Katie Saunoris Public Relations, 2007

Saunoris was one of the lucky few that stepped into their “dream job” right out of school. She went straight from the Humber classroom into a job as the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s media assistant where she stayed for two years. “I knew I wanted to work in the arts to combine my public relations experience with my arts background,” she says.

Saunoris moved to Toronto in 2009 and landed a contract as a publicist with the Luminato Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity, where she works now as a publicity co-ordinator.

Saunoris says Humber “set [her] on the path to the exact career that [she] wanted.” She adds, “I think I’ve been really lucky in my career because I get to work with some really fantastic people, some really incredible actors and talent as well as my colleagues.

I think just having the access to some of the best theatre and film and music in Canada and being able to do what I love everyday have really been the highlights.”

Paivel, now working at B101 FM in Barrie, Ont. as a morning show co-host, describes her field as “fun.”

“I always had a strong passion for radio because I really enjoyed listening to it,” she says.

“What I like most is the atmosphere. There are always station events you can go to and connect with listeners that way.”

Paivel credits Humber’s program for helping her get her internship and interviews after graduation and notes that her favorite part of her program was the professors.

“I loved the professors I had that year – Sheila Walsh and Paul Cross – they really wanted you to succeed.” Paivel says their passion really made her want to get out in the industry.

She says although there are challenges that come along with her job, the real challenge is keeping an open mind to criticism. One piece of advice to offer: “There is always room for improvement.

Grow a thick skin and take everything people say with a grain of salt.”

Kelvin Young Creative Photography, 2010

Shemroy Parkinson Radio Broadcast, 2011

Before Humber, Parkinson studied criminal justice at Ryerson University, and after a year off he followed his passion for radio broadcasting.

Parkinson says the best advice he received at Humber was to be patient, which encouraged him to be persistent to turn his internship at Kiss 92.5 into a job as a swing announcer. He has been working there since November and is very content with the position.

However, he says he always takes on extra roles to continually learn more. He is thankful to his teachers at Humber and all the experience he gained while in the program. Parkinson recommends that graduates stay in contact with their teachers, as they can be a great resource. “I owe all my success now and future success to Humber,” he says.

Young’s passion for photography and social issues took him out of the studio and to countries such as Kenya and Vietnam as a volunteer with non-profit organization, ORBIS. Young went on trips with ORBIS, which flies doctors and optometrists in its Flying Eye Hospital to developing countries to perform eye surgeries.

It’s a change from the work he does behind the camera in his studio, Kelvin Young Photography, where focus of the work is weddings and commercial photography. Notable assignments have included the G20 Toronto Summit, the royal visit at the Woodbine Race Tracks during the 2010 Queen’s Plate, and the Beauties of Asia pageant for which he was the 2011 sponsor and principal photographer.

Young enjoys the creative side to photography, which allows him to “capture the special moments in people’s lives.” He says Humber taught him to keep a balanced view of the industry. “The business side of things is one thing that is almost as important, if not more important, than the creative side.”

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 X

Matt Marchese Melissa Greer Journalism, 2011

After graduating from Humber College’s accelerated journalism program in April 2011, Greer immediately began an internship with Best Health magazine’s website, besthealthmag.ca.

While she had specialized in print, Humber’s online component provided the skills necessary to get through the digital door. Just one month into her internship, Greer was offered a position with besthealthmag.ca as the associate web editor. “What I lacked in paid experience, I made up for in hard work and passion,” she says. “After graduating from Humber, I had the confidence that I was qualified, and anything I didn’t know, I was able to learn quickly.”

Greer has recently taken on a new role at Best Health as Content Producer —a unique position with both print and website responsibilities. Sinc e she specialized in print during her time at Humber, Greer is happy to be working once again on a glossy magazine. “It’s the best of both worlds,” she says, “and a great way to bridge the gap between Best Health’s print and online content.”

Radio Broadcast, 2011

After graduating in 2011 from the Radio Broadcast program at Humber, Marchese interned at The Fan 590 in Toronto. He says he was ahead of the game and very prepared thanks to everything he learned at Humber.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to work with,” says Marchese. “With the teachers still being in the industry, it was great.”

He hit a homerun and scored the job of associate producer for the Bob McCowan show on The Fan 590. Working with a great producer, Marchese says it’s definitely challenging at times, but with sports being so huge in the city, there’s always a personality to talk to.

“There’s never a dull day in radio,” he says.

Teri Pecoskie Journalism, 2010

Steve Saylor

Radio Broadcast, 2010

Boom 97.3 digital content producer Saylor graduated from Humber’s Radio Broadcasting program in 2010. Passionate about radio and finding Niagara College’s broadcasting program too televisionbased, he moved to Humber.

After graduating, he designed websites in Wingham, Ont. for rock station 94.5 The Bull, adult contemporary station 101.7 The One and news and talk radio station CKNX 920. He moved to Boom last year where he’s in charge of digital content. He likens his work to producing special features for a DVD. He didn’t think he would be working as much on the web design side when he started at Humber, but he’s happy where he is.

“The most important thing the professors [said] was that you never know what’s going to happen in the industry,” Saylor says.

“You learn all the technical basics, but also how to adapt to onair, web, or sales.”

60 CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

Pecoskie, a grad from Humber’s Accelerated Journalism program, was one of two Hamilton Spectator reporters honoured by the Canadian Association of Journalists with the top investigative journalism award.

Pecoskie and Steve Buist won in the open newspaper category for Born: A Code Red Project, a series that explored the link between poverty and the health of mothers and their babies. They also received the prestigious Don McGillivray award.

The Spectator reported the Pecovskie was thrilled with the win.

“I’m so proud of the series,” she said. “It means so much to know that it resonated with readers both within and outside of Hamilton’s borders.”

Pecoskie interned at The Toronto Star and joined the Spectator right after graduation.

While at Humber, Pecoskie was executive editor of Fine Cut magazine, and editor-in-chief of Convergence magazine.

OUT OF SPACE

freedom of expression in Canada An international perspective

I

want to say a few words about free speech and then relate them to my native Canada. But let me just start with this observation. The liberty only to act or speak within the bounds of agreed opinion, good taste and proper decorum and tolerance doesn’t seem all that valuable a sort of liberty to me. It doesn’t seem to carry with it many – if any – good consequences. It reminds me of the old Cold War joke when the top American official said to his Soviet counterpart: ‘In my country we have the freedom to stand before the White House and shout that the President is terrible, corrupt and stupid and nothing at all will happen to us.’ The Soviet official smiled, and replied: ‘We too have that freedom to stand up and say the same thing about your President.’

Let me begin by considering offensiveness and its relation to liberty. Imagine a hypothetical spectrum. At the near end we have only actions and speech that everyone else (or almost everyone else) likes and thinks beneficial. No one is offended by these actions and words. No one wants them silenced. At the other end, the far end, we have the most offensive, obscene, untrue and disliked actions and speech imaginable. Here, virtually everyone is offended; virtually everyone thinks the claims expressed to be untrue; virtually no one thinks the actions and words beneficial. Many want them silenced.

Now I take it most will concur that at the near end of the spectrum, where all is agreement and harmony and people sitting in circles holding hands and singing “Kumbaya,” the concept and language of liberty and of free speech does little work. Or if it does do anything, I’m not clear what that is. Being free and at liberty to say and do what everyone else wants you to say and do is not a liberty or freedom you will ever have to fight for; it will make little difference to anything.

As for the far end of the spectrum, I’m going to make an assumption. I’m going to assume that none of us is a complete absolutist who believes that in a society of 33 million there need be no limits at all on one’s liberty to say or do as he or she pleases. At the very least, I will assume we all agree on the need to prohibit the counselling of murder, or the possession of child pornography (assuming further that we agree on what that is).

But my claim is going to be that society works better if we aim for lots and lots and lots of scope for people to speak their minds and to

say things others don’t want to hear, or find offensive, or detest.

That claim falls plainly in the John Stuart Mill tradition for why extensive free speech matters. Leave people almost always free to speak as they like and in the ensuing battle of ideas truth will out – or in more pessimistic terms, it is more likely to emerge than if people are silenced. So for the benefit of getting at truth and true assertions (and from there to increased human welfare or happiness, on average, over time), we override hurt feelings, offended sensibilities, the possibility of outright lies being spread, and anything short of concrete and possibly immediate harm to others.

That is a consequentialist “truth will out” justification on behalf of comparatively wide open liberty outcomes that I believe is a very, very compelling one. It is also an optimistic one because it is, at the core, optimistic about the judgement of one’s fellow citizens.

Let’s consider a recent example that has to do with Canada’s hate speech laws, laws which I don’t like at all. This is the Maclean’s and Mark Steyn versus the Canadian Human Rights Commission hate speech example. Let me be upfront and explicit. A corollary of my take on free speech is that all citizens in a vigorous democracy have an obligation to grow thick skins.

They don’t get to play the victim. They have to respond, if they don’t like some speech, and tell us why it’s wrong. They ought not to be able to drag people through some human rights commission, with their side wholly funded by the taxpayer while Maclean’s has to cough up some $2.5 million in lawyers’ fees. Those sorts of costs are known as having “chilling effects”on speech. They incline people to censor themselves, even if they might ultimately prevail – as did Steyn and Maclean’s when everything against them was eventually dismissed.

So my sympathies as regards to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights act, and Canada’s hate speech laws lie firmly in favour of repealing these laws in all jurisdictions, federal and provincial. Concerns about tolerance and perhaps social cohesion ought not to trump the freedom and liberty to speak one’s mind just because what is said is offensive to some subgroup in society.

And saying that is wholly consistent with conceding that any liberty or free speech worth its name would not be absolute, would put in

qualifiers about, say, publishing how to build nuclear bombs or selling state secrets that endanger lives or counselling murder.

A strong, vibrant democracy requires all of us to shun playing the victim, to grow a thick skin, and to enter into debates over highly emotive and contested issues in the knowledge that in the long run truth will out and that government regulation does more harm than good.

James Allan, Garrick Professor of Law, University of Queensland.

James Allen, a professor at the University of Queensland School of Law in Australia, spoke at a conference on press freedom in Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, at Ryerson University in March 2012. He studied at Queen’s University, the London School of Economics, and has a doctorate at the University of Hong Kong. He was born in Canada, has practied law in Toronto, has taught law in New Zealand and Hong Kong, and is the author of a book published in 2011 called The Vantage of Law.

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012 61

IN MEMORY

MiKE wallace 1918-2012

The veteran 60 Minutes journalist who won his last Emmy just four years ago, died April 7, 2012. He was 93 years old.

By Jeff Doner Mike Wallace, a man who helped define a new generation of hard-hitting journalists, died on April 7, 2012 at a care facility in New Canaan, Connecticut at age 93.

Best known for his work on 60 Minutes, Wallace put world leaders, actors, and public figures in the hot seat over a 60-year career in journalism.

“All of us at CBS News and particularly at 60 Minutes owe so much to Mike,” Jeff Fager, CBS News chairman and long-time producer of 60 Minutes was quoted as saying by the CBC. “Without him and his iconic style, there probably wouldn’t be a 60 Minutes. There simply hasn’t been another broadcast journalist with that much talent. It almost didn’t matter what stories he was covering, you just wanted to hear what he would ask next.

“Around CBS he was the same infectious, funny and ferocious person as he was on TV. We loved him and we will miss him very much,” Fager said.

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts on May 9, 1918, Wallace spent the majority of his life as a journalist, but also served in the US Navy as a communications officer during World War II. His news career started in Chicago in the 1940s, where he worked as a news writer for the Chicago Sun and then as a reporter for WMAQ radio.

In 1951 he moved to CBS as an announcer and game show host.

Wallace got his big break when he became host of Night Beat in the mid-1950s, which went national in 1957 as The Mike Wallace Interview.

Having built a reputation for his tenacious interviewing style, Wallace held a variety of jobs at CBS until becoming a full-time news

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reporter in 1963.

60 Minutes was born in 1968 and Wallace was involved right away as a reporter and coeditor. His work on the popular newsmagazine earned him 21 Emmy Awards, his last when he was 89.

As a veteran journalist, Wallace tackled the important issues of the time.

“I was scared of him and intimidated by him,” said Fager.

“He knew it and he would just make you more miserable. That was Mike. He always had a twinkle in his eye, and even if you were intimidated by him, it was hard not to love him.”

It was with that amiable but forceful personality that Wallace conducted memorable interviews with Malcolm X, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Barbara Streisand.

His last interview was with disgraced

CONVERGENCE Spring 2012

baseball player Roger Clemens in 2008.

As reported by the Associated Press, Wallace’s late colleague Harry Reasoner once said, “There is one thing that Mike can do better than anybody else: With an angelic smile, he can ask a question that would get anyone else smashed in the face.”

Wallace always seemed to get the interview he wanted.

“The person I am interviewing has not been subpoenaed,” Wallace once said. “He’s in charge of himself and he lives with his subject matter every day. All I’m armed with is research.”

Wallace is survived by his wife Mary Yates Wallace, son Chris, stepdaughter Pauline Dora, stepsons Eames and Angus Yates and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

His son Chris carries the Wallace name in the journalism world as a host on Fox News Sunday.

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