Future of News debate in Vancouver

The Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC) was hosting last night in Vancouver UBC Robson campus a forum of media followers trying to answer the question “How much control does the public have?”

I attended the event and must say I was disappointed by the choice of the panel members (including the moderator) to answer the tough question of “How much control does the public have?” CBC’s Ian Hanomansing continuously defended Big News Corp. medias unlike what a moderator is supposed to do in an Internet age, i.e. let the participants engage and do not interfere volunteering own opinions to control the aqenda.

Sosnowski spoke for Big News Corp. media mainly out of nostalgia for yesteryears of the Newsroom; she was somehow chosen for a Canadian event after having spent the last several years down south. Michael Tippet from NowPublic.com did a great job of explaining web 2.0 and « source crowding » but played too the card of the existing media systems as a fully up to date “News Agency” stake holder (after having raised 20 millions of capital). There is much more to the scene of citizen journalism than what NowPublic has done.

“Non wearing suits” such as Adbusters Kalle Lasn and Kevin Potvin from the East Van Republic would have been a breadth of fresh air to add real insights into the mainstream media crowd. They certainly would have helped answering the tough question of “How much control does the public have?” or understanding the “reasons for declining lack of trust from the public in their mainstream medias”. Why were they not invited? I asked the question taking the floor and was basically ignored (I left shortly after the rebuttal).

I note too that the moderator did carefully pick the questions for the panel, not including mine on why no mainstream medias whatsoever (including the so called public broadcaster) cover the Adbusters recent court case on their right to buy airtime, its escalation to the Supreme Court of BC or the Media Carta citizen right to communicate. And yet Sonoski claimed her deep concerns about the gradual disappearance of people “looking after the interest of the public”. The corporate suit sounded somehow hollow.

I left early on with an other merde disturbeur knowing that this meeting was not going to go anywhere interesting. I trust though that the attendees learnt inadvertently from the panel actual behaviours displayed on stage regarding the important matters at stake. Let’s hope that the panel as well as the CMRC special interest group learnt some lessons too! The evening could very well have been another case where the crowd witnessing a manufactured event was much further ahead of the ones wishing to unfold the event. Perhaps even far more capable to shaping the event to a meaningful end. N’est-ce pas?