Re-imagining journalism in Canada
What should the role of public policy be in Canada’s journalistic process? With the advent of today’s modern technology, can anyone take on the role of journalist? Do we still need professional journalists and public policies to support journalism?
These were just some of the questions addressed at Where to From Here?, the public panel discussion at Concordia University on April 19 that kicked off the first night of the Journalism Strategies Conference.
The three-day event was organized by academics from Quebec universities in the field of journalism as one of many efforts to re-imagine journalism and the role of journalists in the country.
Thursday night’s billingual panel was moderated by Mike Finnerty, host of CBC Montreal’s Daybreak, and featured a wide range of journalistic figures, including Tony Burman, Dominique Payette, Kai Nagata, and Judy Rebick.
Members discussed public policy, job cuts, social and open media, and even the KONY 2012 campaign. The view of most panel members in regards to the current state and quality of mainstream media in Canada? Pessimistic.
“There has been an incredible narrowing of media opinion,” began Rebick, founding publisher of rabble.ca and former CBC Newsworld host. “There has been an incredible decline, in my view, of quality in the media, and there has been an increasing cynicism about the media that I think is well placed.
“I think we’re in a very sorry state of media,” she later continued. “It’s sad, I would say it’s very sad. I think the media has become highly elitist.”
Payette, an author and professor at Laval University and former Radio-Canada journalist, explained how citizen journalism is also threatening the practice of journalism.
“I think it’s an exceptional event in the story of humanity that anyone can share their opinions or can take pictures of an accident that is happening on the street corner, but that isn’t journalism,” she said. “That isn’t what journalism is about. And that’s what worries me, not just the disappearance of journalists — it’s the disappearance of the journalistic method, and I think that as a society, that’s where we’re in danger.”
The Canadian media’s coverage of the Quebec student strike against tuition increases was also a hot topic at the panel.
“There is no coverage of the student strike in English Canada until there is violence. Zero,” said Rebick. “I think we’re going into a period where we have a lot of social struggle. I’d like to see more coverage in the mainstream press and I think for that to happen some journalists, and particularly young journalists, are going to have to take some risks.”
The three-day bilingual event continued at McGill University with topics ranging from media policy advocacy to paying the bills with a career in journalism.
Related links:
• Journalism Strategies Conference
• Concordia's Department of Journalism
Mike Finnerty was on campus in February 2011 when he hosted a live broadcast of Daybreak. Photo by Concordia University.