Would You Help Pay for Politico?

Normally on Boxing Day, I get on my high horse and look down on the people that line-up for Boxing Day bargains. But in the spirit of buying stuff on December 26, I want to suggest a possible investment in an endeavour that's not new, but is definitely different. After almost eight years, the time has come to expand Guelph Politico into a media entity in its own right, more than a blog, and it will require the help of you readers to do it. 

Guelph Politicast Extra - Today's Ford News

So it turns out that when he said he didn't, he did. Today's revelation by Mayor Rob Ford that he did indeed smoke crack though he can't remember the circumstances or the fact that somebody filmed it, came as something as a shock. But it was secondary to the revelation that Ford, having admitted his mistake (finally!), refused to step down, either permanently or temporarily, as a result of his drug use. Between the doings in Toronto and the pending vote to suspend three senators in Ottawa, it's hard to imagine a busier news day, and it seems like a great chance to engage in some of this newfangled rich media like podcasting.

Guelph Politicast Season 2 Starts With Guelph Pride

For the first episode of what I'm calling the second season of Guelph Politicast, it seemed right to make it an occasion, and I found one.

Next week, the tenth annual Guelph Pride festivities begin, with a week-long celebration of all things, well, queer. Guelph's inclusive atmosphere and progressive politics have made the Royal City a homely place for those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or any other term that covers the broad new definitions of gender and sexual identity, and that tradition continues as Guelph Pride enters its 10th year in 2013.

Information on Public Funeral for Constable Kovach

From City Hall yesterday evening, the latest update on the public funeral for the late Constable Jennifer Kovach.

News Year Resolutions

Forget the Mayan doomsday that wasn't, four more years of Obama and the devil of robocalls. For me, 2012 marked the year I finally gave up on CNN. This is both a literal and figurative remark; aside from Reliable Sources and breaking news, I have no engagement in any CNN programming anymore, and since CNN is the godfather of cable news, as it goes, so does the rest of the networks that followed it.

What I mean by that is TV news is ridiculous. It's a pandering mess that offers neither context nor analysis lest they end up offending someone by making it seem like they have a point-of-view, or bias. Unless, of course, an identifiable bias is part of their "brand," in which case they will bang on that drum all day. Balance is fine, but when its false you're not just creating conflict for its own sake, you're actively making yourself a part of the story by helping to develop it. And that, in the common tongue, is a no-no.

Garvie Wins! (No, Really.)

It may not be a seat in either the Federal or Provincial Houses, but in terms of winning elections, getting a second floor office in the University Centre isn't half bad.

Yep, Drew Garvie, four time Communist Party candidate, is now the Communications & Corporate Affairs Commissioner of the Central Student Association at the University of Guelph. Garvie ran in the CSA by-election while simultaneously campaigning in the Provincial Election, which was held earlier this month. 

Congrats to Drew, and I'm sure we all wish him luck in his new position no matter our political stripes.

Things I Read in Metro Today

I like Metro. I pick it up whenever I'm in Toronto (like I was this morning for a press screening of an upcoming movie). To me, it's a sign that the newspaper industry isn't as nearly deflated as the wags would have us believe. Every issue downtown in the subway stations is gone by noon, and that's despite the fact that a lot of Metro is re-edited, re-formatted, and re-hashed bits for the TorStar News Service.

So as I was flipping through today's issue, I had a number of reactions to some of the stories within. I thought it might be fun to put a few of those to the digital page. If you have an issue of today's Toronto Metro, feel free to follow along. 

PG 3 - "Road tolls 'not going to happen'" - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his war on people without cars continues, as his brother Coun. Doug Ford confirms that toll roads are "off the table" as a way to raise funds for the City's subway plans. I'm not for or against toll roads, but it always seems irresponsible to me to take any revenue options off the table. Especially when you've already taken option number one - tax increases - completely off the table. 

PG 5 - "Camera did not go off in Tory's pants: Party" - Tory Candidate George Lepp had his Blackberry stolen and someone posted a picture of a live male phallus on his Twitter feed, but an erroneous report said that the camera went off in his pants and then posted the picture to his feed accidentally. To me, that's the "magic bullet" theory of social media posting, but it gave New Democrat Peter Kormos a chance to get on his soapbox in Queens Park and demand that the speaker band Blackberries from the chamber. Silly season in the campaign has begun, and "Penisgate" is its name.

PG 5 - Photo Cap: Further proof that politicians need to stop playing dress up for the camera

PG 9 - "Royal couple's tour bypasses Toronto" - How dare they! Doesn't the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge know how important Toronto is, and that it's the Centre of the Universe? Come on! They're stopping in Charlottetown, PEI for two days, apparently because the Duchess is a big fan of Anne of Green Gables. Sure, nice spin Buckingham Palace!

PG 11 - "Girls' guide to surviving NHL playoffs" - Oh, our boyfriends and husbands are perpetually obsessed with hockey and its the Stanley Cup finals. What are we going to do? How will we deal with the rowdiness and excitement?! Really, we're still doing this? Please, I know women who get just as excited, if not more excited, about hockey as man. What a tired stereotype. 

PG 13 - "CityTV shows off its talent" - And most of it is American-made except for two shows: Canada's Got Talent, and Secret Millionaire Canada. Nice.

PG 14 - Drive Angry DVD Review - Peter Howell's review is pretty spot on with my opinion of the film.

PG 17 - "Jones won't snitch on her baby-daddy" - Matthew Vaughn's got a hot movie coming out this weekend, but he's in hot water at home with accusations that he's the father of X-Men: First Class star January Jones' baby. Of course, it's hard to feel sorry for the guy that's apparently traded Claudia Schiffer for January Jones, but...

PG 28 - Blue Jays pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes avoids becoming the losingest pitcher in MLB history. He'll have to settle for being tied for worst with Oakland's Matt Keough and Boston's Cliff Curtis. Reyes' last win was June 13th, 2008. 

PG 31 - Today's sudoku was ridiculously easy. Finished it in 10 minutes.

What's Right with this Picture?

Sending out a little love to my brothers and sisters in Guelph-based journalism today (as I nod to the oratory-style of Cornel West), because The Guelph Mercury has finally launched its new website. My short review is positive so far. It's as easy to navigate as the old site once you get your bearings. It took me a while to find the links to the Mercury blogs, like 59 Carden Street for example.(For the record, you click on the "More" tab in the middle of the task bar under the flag, or logo), but I do like how the blog now pops open in a new tab on browser. So far, so good!

Death of a Legend (And his Voice)

It's hard to imagine CityTV Toronto without the voice of anchor Mark Dailey, whether it came from the assignment desk, the anchor desk or the bumpers between station programming, but now it looks like we'll have to...

Well known TV personality Dailey passed away today after a long struggle with cancer. He had survived a previous bout of prostate cancer, but this past fall he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Last week, Craig Fee of Kitchener's 107.5 DAVE FM wrote on his blog that Dailey had gone into a coma after the cancer had spread to his lungs, which is now followed by the news of the journalist's passing just a short while ago.

If there was ever a news anchor truly worthy of the title "TV personality" it was Mark Dailey. His distinct voice and occasionally sardonic oratory style made him a favourite for many. And he was so well known for those golden pipes of his that he was occasionally only referred to as "The Voice", and once more you knew who they meant.

Along with his marathon man-like 36 years on CityTV, Dailey lent his voice to animated series like Medabots, The Ripping Friends and Beyblade and appeared in movies like Boozecan, Childstar and Spliced. However, he did not contribute the "Subdivisions" line to the Rush song of the same name, despite years of rumours and denials to that effect.

Sadly, the death of Dailey isn't just the loss of a great newsman, but also a sign of the times. CityTV just hasn't been the same since it was picked up by Rogers after the empire Moses Znaimer built was taken and fragmented in the buy out by CTVglobemedia. CityTV was hit hard by the economic crisis and lost a number of its talented staff members and had to cancel some of its original programming, but through it all, there was still "The Voice." And now, even that too is gone.

Condolences and good wishes go out to Dailey's wife and daughter in this sad time.

Am I Next? (The Curious Case of Politico Ownership Issues)

A fan named Martin sent this link to me today. It's from the US political blog The Huffington Post, and it's an article about how The Politico, a US political magazine based in Washington, has issued a cease and desist order to a British blog called Tory-Politico. Basically, The Politico doesn't like the 120,293rd most viewed site in the UK using the name Politico and has demanded... well, I think the Media Bistro article summed it up best.

"In a cease and desist letter to the blog's founder, Politico counsel Dow Lohnes demanded that the UK blog (1) cease all use of the mark and name Tory Politico (2) cease all use of confusing design and graphics (3) transfer the url tory-politico to Capital News (Politico parent) (4) verify in writing the permanent cease of any future use of mark, trade name, domain and trade dress that is confusingly similar to Politico within ten business days."

To his credit, Tory-Politico's Jason Brown says that they're not going quietly into that good night and that The Politico, for all intents and purposes, can step off. But he puts it better than I can saying, "For the record I have no intentions of ether changing the name of this blog or transferring the domain name to Capital News, though I do not know how long I will be able to hold out with the wolves at the door. I am anticipating escalation on their part as I am refusing to comply with demands 1 and 3, so in the next couple of days I will be considering my option, this could involve launching a 'Save Tory Politico' campaign and a fundraising operation to fund a defence."

For the record, at least according to Merriam Webster, the word "politico" dates back to 1630, so The Politico is about 380 years to late to stake a claim, but if they had it would probably been under public domain at this point anyway.

Let me state for the record that I stand with our fellow Politicos in Great Britain in an act of transatlantic blogging solidarity, in the hopes that if the boom falls on Guelph Politico they might be so good as to return the favour.

Thanks to Martin for the link, and thanks for reading.

Saving Local TV

If you've been watching your local CTV or A-Channel station lately, then you know about their campaign to "Save Local TV." Well Saturday, CTV Southwestern Ontario in Kitchener held an open house to drum up support on their end, and by all accounts it seemed to be a rousing success.By the time I got to CTV's King St. location, just before 11 o'clock, there was already a line-up that extended around the front of the building and down the side. All that was involved was a basic tour of the newsroom and studio area; about five stops over 30 minutes. And for that, people lined up in the warming Saturday sun for about 30 minutes to an hour. (My wait was closer to 40 minutes.)

The crux of the situation is that ad revenues are way down for local TV stations, even in spite of the fact that satellite and cable companies are making billions just by carrying the channels. None of that money makes it back to the stations, however. And with time-shifting there's less incentive to tune into your local station when you can watch your favourite program anytime in a six-hour window.

If I may offer my two cents though, I think this is emblematic of deeper problem: how are you to encourage people to watch their local station when everything on it, with the exception of local newscasts, is exactly the same as the others? Sure, there may be one or two different programs squeezed in between network mandated programming line-ups, but there's actually very few hours in the day that a local station can call their own. Not to mention there's a real lack of separate identity: it's CTV Southwestern Ontario now, not CKCO Kitchener. The irony is, in the case of the A-Channel stations at least, that before being folded into the A-Channel network, all those stations were pretty individualistic.

But no matter how we got here, the point is still important and timely. At the very least, information that affects you daily, that has or will have an immediate impact on your life, will be seen on your local newscast. It's like why I say voting in municipal elections is important: it's where 99 per cent of the things that affect you a daily basis happen. The national news covers national issues, you want to know about school funding, property taxes, local festivals and sports, you go to your local TV station. It's worth saving and supporting.