Convergence - never thought it'd hit me
There's no media but one media
by David Russell
It has finally arrived directly on my doorstep: convergence.
A creature of habit I have long found it near to impossible to give up my Vancouver Sun (http://www.vancouversun.com). After nearly twenty years of daily reading I've continued my subscription, despite what I view to be a continuing decline in the quality of just about every aspect of the publication: from journalistic and writing quality to grammar and proofreading. But in short, I still like to read the paper over breakfast and it's what was available.
True, for a while I wanted a wider perspective and actually had dual subscriptions to the Sun and National Post. And to be fair, in its early days, The Post had far reaching news bureaus, one of the best design layouts of any Canadian daily and some outstanding writers, despite how often I may have disagreed with them.
It wasn't long, however, before I found that not only was the same material being covered in both papers, very often the exact same copy was carried. And as more and more of the stellar scribes at The Post jumped ship, it became even less likely I would want to read the same piece by the same writer in my two dailies.
Thus, one of them had to go.
In deference to my wife, who likes more local coverage than The Post can provide - and whose distaste for then part owner Conrad Black was even greater than mine - The Sun became the staple of our daily diet. It wasn't long, however, before my need for a greater national and international focus led me to subscribe to the Globe and Mail, where many of said favourite writers ended up (Blatchford, Taber, et al.) and where one could safely presume the copy being devoured - particularly the weekend edition, awash with such fine columnists as Rex Murphy, Heather Malick and Doug Saunders - would be free of the same prose posed by the CanWest company.
Or so one thought.
While the two companies may be competitors who loathe to share resources with one another, both the Globe and CanWest seek ways to fill space with inexpensive reporting. Thus, a weekend ago I took in a piece in the Globe and Mail, only to find the exact same story a couple of hours later in the "seriously west coast" weekend Sun.
Not the same topic, you understand: the same story. By the same writer. Word for word.
Both papers ran a Canadian Press story detailing the quirky life of chief Ottawa Peace Tower bell-ringer Gordon Slater, not exactly an earth-shattering news story worthy of a double read.
Certainly neither The Globe nor The Vancouver Sun have any way of knowing what CP or other wire service stories its competitors may choose to run on any given day. And it wouldn't be fair to suggest any sort of story sharing practices going on between these ostensive competitors the way papers inside CanWest's organization do (The Halifax Daily News, The Guardian in Charlottetown, and The Edomonton Journal all ran the story the same day as well).
But it highlights once again the shortcuts and diminishing resources papers are dedicating to their final product. Canadian Press, as a service covering stories all over Canada - its network of stringers is second to none in this country - is a useful tool to ensure papers can cover news even should they be unwilling or unable to fund a reporter to the centre of the action.
But this "story" came from Ottawa which, last I heard, was a centre of significant national importance whose population of journalists is second in number only to politicians and their hangers-on.
In this age of increasing electronic, citizen-journalism mainstream media bemoans as a potential threat to its revenues, the big boys are going to need to do much better than running full-page feature fluff in dailies across the nation.
by David Russell
It has finally arrived directly on my doorstep: convergence.
A creature of habit I have long found it near to impossible to give up my Vancouver Sun (http://www.vancouversun.com). After nearly twenty years of daily reading I've continued my subscription, despite what I view to be a continuing decline in the quality of just about every aspect of the publication: from journalistic and writing quality to grammar and proofreading. But in short, I still like to read the paper over breakfast and it's what was available.
True, for a while I wanted a wider perspective and actually had dual subscriptions to the Sun and National Post. And to be fair, in its early days, The Post had far reaching news bureaus, one of the best design layouts of any Canadian daily and some outstanding writers, despite how often I may have disagreed with them.
It wasn't long, however, before I found that not only was the same material being covered in both papers, very often the exact same copy was carried. And as more and more of the stellar scribes at The Post jumped ship, it became even less likely I would want to read the same piece by the same writer in my two dailies.
Thus, one of them had to go.
In deference to my wife, who likes more local coverage than The Post can provide - and whose distaste for then part owner Conrad Black was even greater than mine - The Sun became the staple of our daily diet. It wasn't long, however, before my need for a greater national and international focus led me to subscribe to the Globe and Mail, where many of said favourite writers ended up (Blatchford, Taber, et al.) and where one could safely presume the copy being devoured - particularly the weekend edition, awash with such fine columnists as Rex Murphy, Heather Malick and Doug Saunders - would be free of the same prose posed by the CanWest company.
Or so one thought.
While the two companies may be competitors who loathe to share resources with one another, both the Globe and CanWest seek ways to fill space with inexpensive reporting. Thus, a weekend ago I took in a piece in the Globe and Mail, only to find the exact same story a couple of hours later in the "seriously west coast" weekend Sun.
Not the same topic, you understand: the same story. By the same writer. Word for word.
Both papers ran a Canadian Press story detailing the quirky life of chief Ottawa Peace Tower bell-ringer Gordon Slater, not exactly an earth-shattering news story worthy of a double read.
Certainly neither The Globe nor The Vancouver Sun have any way of knowing what CP or other wire service stories its competitors may choose to run on any given day. And it wouldn't be fair to suggest any sort of story sharing practices going on between these ostensive competitors the way papers inside CanWest's organization do (The Halifax Daily News, The Guardian in Charlottetown, and The Edomonton Journal all ran the story the same day as well).
But it highlights once again the shortcuts and diminishing resources papers are dedicating to their final product. Canadian Press, as a service covering stories all over Canada - its network of stringers is second to none in this country - is a useful tool to ensure papers can cover news even should they be unwilling or unable to fund a reporter to the centre of the action.
But this "story" came from Ottawa which, last I heard, was a centre of significant national importance whose population of journalists is second in number only to politicians and their hangers-on.
In this age of increasing electronic, citizen-journalism mainstream media bemoans as a potential threat to its revenues, the big boys are going to need to do much better than running full-page feature fluff in dailies across the nation.
posted by david russell | 10:09 PM
