Award-winning stories for the rest of the month

Remember how I was going to try and post daily links to award-nominated stories from last year?

Yeah, I forgot all about it too.

Thankfully, someone at Black Press did a bunch of the work for me and linked to editions of a bunch of that chain’s award-winning pieces. You can find the whole list here… Actually, because it’s just a list, I think I can just copy and paste it below with few qualms. (A couple stories are missing links; not my fault)

Either way, the stories are quite impressive. In fact, they make you think that many of those stories could be collated into a half-decent bi-annual magazine, or something similar. Great idea? Lousy idea? Leave a comment.

BC Arts Council Arts & Culture Writing Award

Nelson Star ‐ Bob Hall, Pantomime Series

Williams Lake Tribune – Sage Birchwater, Urban Ink/Twin Fish Wind Up First Youth Training Session

B.C. Automobile Association Business Writing Award

Kelowna Capital News – Judie Steeves, Crushed Gold; Okanagan Wine Industry has Come a Long Way

Thompson River University School of Journalism Environmental Writing Award

Surrey, North Delta Leader – Jeff Nagel, Trash Talk

Provence Restaurants Feature Article Award

Burnaby News Leader ‐ Mario Bartel, An Afghan Basketball Journey

North Shore Outlook ‐ Kelly McManus, Chat Roulette

Feature Series Award

Chilliwack Progress – Eric Welsh, Painstaking Path to Potential Cure

Victoria News ‐ Lisa Weighton, Rebirth Through Reburial

Glacier Media Investigative Journalism Award

Langley Times ‐ Monique Tamminga, Pet Shop Dogged by Virus/ No Limits on City Dog Sales/ City Looks to Ban Pet Sales

Neville Shanks Memorial Award for Historical Writing

Langley Times – Warren Sommer, Lets We Forget: Gathering at Menin Gate

Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News – Robert Mangelsdorf, At the Heart of Whonnock

Outdoor Recreation Writing Award

Bowen Island Undercurrent – Martha Perkins, National Park Debate Unleashed; Off‐ Leash Areas

Canadian Sport Centre Pacific Sports Writing Award

Abbotsford News – Dan Kinvig, Gray gets the Point

Peace Arch News – Nick Greenizan, Conquering Uphill Battle

Deadline to register for Ma Murray bash

Wake up! Today’s your last day (or so they say) to register for the very well-organized Ma Murray Awards Gala, which are being held April 30. If you’re up for an award, you get a free ticket and a free hotel room. Par-tay.

The Canadian Community Newspaper Awards are the day earlier at the same place. No word on whether nominees get in for free. I know it’s an industry organization of, gulp, newspaper companies, but hopefully Newspapers Canada isn’t THAT cheap.

Get your e-newspaper delivered weekly

If apps are the news delivery system of the future, news digests sent directly to your inbox are the way of the Internet past.

Which is not to say they’re not a good idea.

Now, when you visit certain (all?) Glacier Media websites, you first have to get rid of a box asking if you would like to subscribe to a web edition of the paper to be delivered to your e-mail on certain dates.

This isn’t a new idea and doesn’t exactly involve advanced technology. Heck, you can sign up for an email subscription to this blog by clicking the button on the right toolbar. But for people who aren’t web savvy consumers (a group that includes the vast majority of Canadians and newspaper readers) being confronted with the option to sign up for an email digest is the best way to make the option known.

The email digest, in turn, allows newspapers another way to brag to advertisers about dedicated online readers. Each one of those subscribers is probably far more valuable than 1,000 page views.

Of course, you don’t want to make visiting the news sites annoying (like the feeling that comes from that pop-up video ad on many Black Press websites).

You can make the alerts stop by checking a box. But remember what I said above about the Internet literacy of Canadians? I bet most people will miss that. Glacier, then, will have to be careful not to make the box a permanent and regular feature of visiting their sites. (They seem to have done so. I can’t get the subscription box back up on my screen, even though I didn’t click the box).

A publisher who writes news…

Are you an overworked reporter who looks at your publisher and asks, “What exactly do you do again?” Well, next time you’re stressed because you have to write five stories on deadline day, maybe ask your publisher to pen a feature or, even better, write a feature series. Coast Reporter associate publisher Cathie Roy is three stories deep in a series on local folks making their mark in the world.

It’s by no means the first time Cathie has written for the paper. She’s written features, covered committee-of-the-whole meetings (!!!) and penned frequent editorials for the paper. To my knowledge at least, her role seems to be unique in British Columbia. True, there are those who carry the title of publisher/editor/reporter. But I haven’t come across a publisher who isn’t the editor but who frequently contributes features and news stories anyways.

I was going to question the relationship between the business aspects of a publisher’s duties and the writing aspect of a contributor’s. But then, I would like to see more editors graduate to the publisher’s chair. And I don’t have too much of a problem of someone holding an editor/publisher role. So editor/contributor should be fine…

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Elsewhere…

The Ladysmith Chronicle is hiring a reporter. Deadline is April 4.

Powell River Peak launches iPhone app

I was going to do a roundup, but then I ran into three very interesting things about which I’d like to write in detail. Coincidentally or not, they all revolve around Glacier Media properties. (Given my enthusiasm for the three, and given the conspiracy-mindedness of some people, it bears mentioning that I don’t work for Glacier). I’m going to spread them out over the next three days so I don’t have to write anything else for those days.

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This first one is absolutely huge.

The Powell River Peak has launched its own iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app. To download it, go to the iTunes store and search “Powell River Peak.”

I don’t have one of the above devices, so I can’t properly review it, but I’ve raved before about the wonders of the PR Peak website, and I’ve no reason to believe the app will be any worse.

Here’s a screen shot from iTunes.

I’m going to try to do something more on this in the coming days, but in the meantime, a couple early notes:

1. The app is free and advertising supported. While that’s consistent with the newspaper’s business platform, I wonder if the Peak isn’t missing out on revenue, given that people have actually shown a willingness to pay for apps, including news apps, and given the fact that right now the Peak doesn’t have any local competitors in the Powell River news app field. Then again, in a small community like Powell River, where many people don’t own iPhones, you’re going to want everyone who does have an Apple device to download your app.

2. This leads one to wonder how long it will take for other community papers to follow suit. It seems likely that other Glacier papers — most likely the dailies — will be the next to adopt the technology, once any kinks are worked out of the Powell River app and if it proves popular-ish. But then again, they haven’t adopted the overall wonderfulness of the Peak’s website, so who knows.

Since the Vancouver Sun and the Province have apps, PostMedia seems like it should have all the tools to allow its community newspapers to have their own apps.  But the PostMedia community newspaper web effort has been pretty dismal to this point and there’s no indication that that will change anytime soon.

I’m going to guess that Black Press has something in the incubator, but given the fact that the chain is still unreasonably obsessed with video, one can’t be sure.

Should newspapers use RCMP-supplied images and videos?

I received the following email yesterday. I’ll post in full, then comment below. I’ve bolded certain portions.

There is a video currently live on the Burnaby Now’s website about the arrest by Burnaby RCMP of three suspects in a shooting earlier this week at Royal Oak SkyTrain station. It’s more than three minutes long, and lingers languidly on the blurred faces of the suspects, then follows right up until they’re brought into the cop shop for processing, access we would never get. The video is tagged with the usual driving.ca bumper ad at the beginning, but at no point during the video, or on the webpage presenting the video is it identified as being supplied by the Burnaby RCMP. In fact, the Now prominently links to the video on the front of their website, and tweeted incessantly about it Thursday morning, as if they were bequeathing their readers some sort of journalistic scoop.

An edited version of the same video also appears on the Province’s website, again with no attribution.
The other day, the Vancouver Sun’s website used still photo handouts from the RCMP of the same arrest going down. They were at least labelled as RCMP handouts, although that doesn’t absolve them.

It’s not the first time they’ve used photos identified as RCMP handout.

Of course, request RCMP-supplied photos or video of their officers shooting someone in South Surrey, and you’ll run into a stone wall.

Is this how bankrupt marginal staffing, reduced resources and diminished morale have made us, that we’re willing to accept handouts from the cops that amount to bumpf? Surely editors must see the peril of going down this road of abdicating our responsibility of being an impartial observer of police to ensure they remain accountable? We’re already struggling to cover them as it is, with more forces on digital radio systems that require expensive scanners or negotiations with the department to get access to a one-way radio that allows monitoring. The more we allow the police to control our access to observe and report their work, the more license they’ll take to further restrict our access; instead of keeping us one block from scenes, they’ll keep us back a kilometer and call our editors that they have photos and video they’ll gladly supply. And we wonder why journalists and the publications we work for are losing our audience.

We’re headed down a very dark path…

You can watch the video here, but be warned, it’s pretty boring.

There are a few issues at play here, and I’ll consider them separately.

1. First is the fact that the video isn’t identified as an RCMP video. It should be, for sure, but I have a hard time mustering that much outrage at the fact that it’s not. Indeed, I’m trying to remember if my own paper has identified RCMP-supplied footage as such. I can’t be sure. If we didn’t, we should have; it’s not hard to slide an attribution into the cutline so readers realize that the video was shot by, and for the purposes of, the RCMP.

2. The second issue is juicier.

Should media outlets stand up to the RCMP and declare that we’re not going to use their footage if we don’t get better access? Or should we simply not use footage, period?

That question revolves around whether The Province, Global and CTV get on board. They reach far more people than Burnaby Now or any other community paper. If The Province uses RCMP footage, then griping by a community newspaper journalist is going to fall on deaf ears.

I think the best argument is the one made at the end of the email ((FYI courtesy Kim Magi: email is now unhyphenated in the CP Stylebook); if we rely on RCMP footage, the cops have less reason to allow us near their scenes. Similarly, the better access we get, the less of a need for the RCMP video and images. So right now, they have very little motivation to not be so heavy-handed with photographers. Then there is the fact that, by outsourcing our coverage of breaking news, reporters and photographers become a little more expendable—which is not a good situation.

3. I’m not familiar with the difficulties the letter writer refers to as concerns the monitoring of emergency frequencies, so I’ll take his word for it.

4. There is one more issue: that of quality. The video is not extremely interesting. It certainly is less gripping than a single well-composed still photo would have been. A journalist would have done a better job. But a journalist, of course, would have been threatened with jail had he got that close.

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