The oncoming death of local news
Also available on the Calgary Herald’s Q.
This article by James Warren proves to be a very interesting read for those of us that like to complain there is so little local arts coverage in the Herald or Sun. (Or even those that like to complain there is not enough local coverage period.)
Newspapers are slowly dying because people are getting their news from the internet whether we like it or not. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It’s what I do. I read all my news online for free, usually via RSS; that’s how I find out what is going on – and quickly. Am I part of the problem? Is it the paper’s fault for having an outdated business model?
Maybe. Either way, it’s a reality. It’s happening and it’s going to keep getting worse.
But the big question that has been plaguing me for months is: What does this mean for local content?
Sure the Herald and Sun are trying to save their papers and cut costs, but the only way to do that is to centralize more of their work and streamline. The Calgary Sun for example had already moved the responsibility for the layout of the paper to Toronto. Recently the Edmonton Sun replaced their editor-in-chief with the editor-in-chief of the Calgary Sun, who is now doing double duty. We in the arts already are aware of the trials of getting an article into the one of the papers. Celeb focused stories straight off the news wire are always going to be less expensive than employing a flesh and blood writer to research and write specifically for that papers audience. The Herald only has two writers who have to write 365 days worth of performing arts articles. The Sun doesn’t even really have an Entrainment section – showbiz news/movie Friday hardly counts.
Even hyper-local weeklies are being hit. FFWD in Calgary has gotten thinner and thinner and I’ve been told in the past by a former editor the number of arts stories published all depends on how many pages of advertising are sold. I lost count of the number of stories in a year that they went through the trouble of sending a writer to an interview only to never actually publish the article because there was no room in that week’s paper. And in a world of instant news it certainly isn’t timely enough to leave for another week when the demands were equally as tight.
Yahoo News, CNN and others (including AP and Reuters) can produce content at a fraction of the price a local paper can because they can sell it to many papers or have readers from across the country read the articles. But does anyone other than a Calgarian care about a puppet festival going on downtown? How will that news ever make it to the front page of CNN? It won’t.
How do we fix this? How will we stay connected to local events once the local papers die? Are bloggers the right group to pick up the baton and make it all accessible?
And yes I’m aware of the irony I read this Atlantic article online after someone on Twitter pointing it out to me, and no I don’t anticipate buying a hard copy. I am the future – deal with me! (Seriously, how do we deal with people like me? We have to find a way.)
Starting over from scratch: creating a gallery of contemporary art for Calgary
Also available on the Calgary Herald’s Q.
The recent “resignation” of Jeffrey Spalding from the Glenbow Museum has created a new call for a gallery of contemporary art. The Herald is all over it. And I’ve had several of my colleagues bring up the thought as well since Spalding’s departure.
The Herald article is the one I find the most interesting however. The first thing I see is they talk to the IMCA pushers (the group that tried their damnedest to secure the old AGT building on 6 Ave SW for the gallery a couple years back) and they mention the $165 million the City of Calgary has available currently as a possible starting point. Yes, that is a good fund to draw from, but you didn’t make it to the short list last year – assuming you put in an application. The money won’t help you if you don’t ask for it. But first you need to get organized better. This is the one over riding thing I’ve heard from people: the group is a high profile group but not well situated to lead the creation of a new gallery. Trust me: after being part of building two new cultural space in the city you need to have a good solid group of people who know what they are doing and are connected in the right ways to get it off the ground.
Which leads me to the second thing I noticed in the article: the IMCA pushers think Spalding may be the man to lead there charge. This is a very good idea – but have you talked to him? I’m not sure this is the best time for him personally. The article says he is has not made any comments since his “resignation”. True, but I’ve had a conversation with him, albeit a shortened one over email. Let’s just say my thoughts are not baseless. (And those quotation marks aren’t for gramatically incorrect emphasis.) I emp
The long and the short of it is – the opportunity for a contemporary art gallery is upon us. But someone is going to have to get a supportive organization organized in the very near future it make it happen. Spalding is just one man – as evidenced by recent events. Someone else will have to step up to lead the organization.
The Glenbow will not and cannot be that gallery. I’ve said it several times over the last few days – they don’t have the space or the brand to make it happen. Don’t even try. We’ll have to wait and see if someone else can make the seemingly impossible happen.
Please stop picking on the arts so I can sleep
Is anyone else tired? Or is it just me?
I’m an arts advocate (among other things – don’t try to define me!) and it turns out that has been about as busy a person as you could be lately. First I was run off my keester during the Federal election because the PM decided to run his mouth in Saskatoon there-by getting the entire arts community up in arms, and lately it has been all about making sure a proposed increase to Calgary Arts Development’s budget was approved in the City of Calgary’s 2008-2011 budget. I haven’t been alone in the crusade (wow, now that is hyperbole!), but it has been exhausting and pretty much thankless.
Those that know me, know I prefer to – to steal a theatre phrase – stay backstage and out of the spotlight. I never wanted to be an actor. I always wanted to be a designer or a stage manager. But I do have to say it has been very nice to get all the encouraging and thankful emails lately. I’m no glory hound but I wanted to say to all those folks: thanks for backing us up and appreciating what we’re trying to accomplish.
I was pushed over the edge on this front today by Stephen Hunt and his Blade Runner blog over at the Calgary Herald’s website, where he basically republished a few of my recent ‘call to action’ emails. Thanks Stephen! I was equally blown over by the congratulations offered this morning by Rick Bell at the Calgary Sun after Council rejected the proposed cut to arts funding. For all his recent bluster in the paper about arts funding it was very kind of him to offer such kind words of encouragement.
Now I beg everyone to please let the arts be for a little bit so I can get some sleep! (Will I be able to stay out of this conversation?)
Calgary’s 2008: the year of dreaming BIG
Hello all! I’ve been rather silent over the holidays so apologies in advance for the Ken Chapman-sized post…
Now that the New Year has arrived it is time for all of us to get back to work. And I think it is time for Calgarians to seriously begin looking forward at what we want 2008 to be. What do we want to accomplish for ourselves this year on our path toward becoming a “great city”.
I know I’ll have plenty to say in the coming months about the political direction we have to head in, so I want to take this opportunity to make my first post of aught eight about the quality of life in Calgary. Specifically our arts and cultural sensibilities.
During almost every one of my years of involvement in Calgary’s arts and cultural scene there has been a sense going into any new year that things are building — and certainly this year is no different. But this year I think there is something a little extra in the water: a sense that this could be the year we officially “arrive” on the arts scene. Of course nobody has any idea what that means, and I doubt anyone else will admit the same, because “arriving” is impossible to measure. None-the-less I think you can feel it in the air.
So what can we do to make sure this happens? I turn your attention to a comment I wrote on the Calgary Arts Development blog last June about “branding Calgary’s arts scene”. I suggest here that the four steps I outlined for Calgary’s arts and cultural community should be accomplished in 2008.
1. What is the problem we are trying to solve? Is it: are Calgarian’s proud enough of what their artists do? Is it: that Calgarians don’t attend enough arts events? Is it: that we want more visitors to come to Calgary for the express purpose of our arts and cultural scene? Is it: that the arts aren’t as intrinsic in what Calgary “is” as we’d like them to be?
2. Once that is done we must identify what the key issue of that problem is. What is the blockage? What is the barrier to successful communication? Why doesn’t this exist/work/happen already? We’ll need to dig deep and find the specific issue (not the symptom but the actual problem).
3. Then we can finally look at what our current equity is. What IS Calgary’s arts scene? What do all these artists and groups have in common? There is some kind of current brand, what is it? This is important because we can’t just make something up and apply it. That’s false advertising and will fizzle quickly. We also have to do this so that we get a brand that is as dynamic as Calgary’s artists are, otherwise we’ll get something lame and corporate like “js” points out in Edmonton: “The Art of Downtown”. (WTF is that? What does that mean?)
4. Then, and only then, can we bring together all three answers and state what Calgary’s arts brand is. (A brand is not a logo, that’s just a visual representation of your brand. A brand is what you are. What drives you. Its your heart, why you do what you do.)
And for a little extra cream in your coffee I’ll look back again to a Facebook message I sent Eugene Stickland that he wrote about in his weekly Calgary Herald column this past July (when he was querying friends on their thoughts about the Calgary Stampede). Hopefully this helps get the juices flowing for 2008.
I love Stampede for all the reasons I hate it. And I hate it for all the reasons I love it.
Stampede is the one time of year all Calgarians come together in clearly defined community, if you will. Downtown becomes alive. People actually talk to one and other on the streets. And judging by the CHR post-Stampede STD stats: Calgarian’s love each other during those 10 days. They love each other a lot.
I’m not a Stampede fanatic (I doubt I’ll go down to the grounds this year) but Stampede is the only thing that I have found that offers Calgary an identity. That’s why Tourism Calgary and Calgary Economic Development created the “Heart of the New West” tagline that now greets all as they enter our fine city’s ever expanding city limits. But what the heck does that mean?! Those who know me have heard me say it a thousand times however: you might as well have called it “Heart of the Old West”.
Sure those agencies make pretty posters with ballerinas. But they’re wearing cowboy boots. This only perpetuates the redneck myth. But the Stampede can be used as a cultural beacon. Let me explain…
I used to be one of those arts community folks that said the Calgary arts community would be better off if the Stampede disappears. Calgary artists are doing some amazing things and breaking some rules and creating art unlike anywhere else. But on civic, national and international levels the Stampede is all consuming and people rarely notice these artists. Everything Calgary does is framed by the Stampede. The amazing offerings of Calgary artists don’t stand a chance. It’s like sleeping next to a giant. Nobody really pays attention to you. Least of all the giant.
But over the past couple of years I’ve been spending a lot more time with business people in the downtown core and I’ve notice that their “stories” are not so different than those of the arts community. However they have tended to find a way to frame them better. This is what I call the “Calgary maverick” story.
Calgarians in both the business world and the arts community are breaking new ground (or a new trail if you want to use old west language). We’re constantly creating new things and thinking in ways that are different than in the past. We’re all mavericks in the same way the cowboys of the old west and founders of the Stampede were. And certainly Calgary has a maverick mentality: if you want to do it, go to Calgary, you can make it happen there.
That is how the Stampede can be embraced instead of reviled.
This means we as arts organizations have to start re-shaping our stories (or key messages). Think of the Alberta Ballet’s Fiddle and the Drum. They could have just said look at the beautiful ballet we have created. But no, instead they said, look at how Jean tracked down Joni Mitchell from self imposed exile and worked with her to create something unlike anything Joni’s music has been used for before. That is a maverick story.
As an added bonus the media love maverick stories! (They love pretty much any personal story but if it is one of someone overcoming odds it’s even sexier). Everything about the High Performance Rodeo is a maverick story. That’s why it gets so much coverage every year. Why did the Grand Theatre re-opening get three double page spreads in the Herald? Because it is a maverick story of both a theatre company and an old building breaking the boundaries. (Tooting my own horn, yes. Sorry.)
Let the Stampede continue to form the identity of the city, but let’s all start framing our stories as part of the cities identity. There’s no need to fight it when we can make it work for us.
Also, just an observation: the Stampede used to be about family fun like Carnival d’Hiver in Quebec City but it has turned into a more adult oriented booze fest a la Mardi Gras. I wouldn’t say either of these events is better than the other. They’re just different but equally fun for different reasons.
The ‘I hate’ Stampede part of me is excited for August to hit so our downtown will stop smelling like stale beer and urine on every block. (And go back to just smelling like urine on every other block.)
More to follow for sure! Have a great year everyone! One filled with creative ideas that help make Calgary an even better city.
Oh, Herald… hallelujah the RSS works again at last
As you have probably seen me post about before here, here and here I have a love/hate relationship with the Calgary Herald’s presence in the online universe. The latest issue of which was the fact their new Top Stories RSS feed crashed after only a week or so, and they haven’t bothered to fix since. So I took matters into my own hands today and emailed the Herald.
Well if you don’t know, it is finally fixed!
They’re not sure why it wasn’t working, but its working now. (I know others who had the same issue with their RSS so I’m not just a techno-moron who couldn’t figure it out! So stop thinking that!)
But here’s some other exciting news about the Herald and the Internets: in a subsequent email I got from Andrew MacDonald, Assistant News Editor – Digital (fancy title), he let me in on a little known fact: the Herald just launched a Facebook app! Hot damn. Now that’s progress. Maybe this is the start of the Herald actually building a decent presence online. A presence that can actually fill the void that is Alberta online news. (It’s such a large void!)
I’ll install app tomorrow and after testing it out I’ll give you all a review. (Fingers crossed for a good Herald online experience. Come on Herald, you can do it! I know you have it in you.)
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