Conventional Wisdom

Moving Pictures II

I'm posting this on-the-spot video report from Visuals Editor Robb Montgomery despite the fact that he stole my idea to ennumerate the swell swag handed out at this year's joint CNA/CCNA/CCMA convention.  The point here ain't the topic or who thought of it first, rather it's the ease and speed with which he was able to produce this brief video report - and others.
(See his Visualeditors.com web site for other videos - include senior newspaper people dancing. WARNING: seeing senior newspaper people dancing may cause drowsieness, headaches and a complete loss of hope that we can ever be seen as anything other than hopelessly outdated by the "young kids" of Canada.)
More later
Bill

Click To Play Video

                                                                                                            
         

And the winners are?

Friday evening  I stood on the second floor of Delta Winnipeg lobby with my bags at my feet, and the taxi that would take me to the airport waiting just beyond the front door. As I watched the National Newspaper Award nominees arriving for their gala, dressed to the nines, their spirits bright and tightly wound, I felt a little like Moses watching his compatriots cross the valley into the promised land. Not that we've had to endure any plagues this past week during the convention — from what I've read the locust don't hit Winnipeg until June.
No, it's just that for the past several days it's been all about the business of newspapering — readership and circultation and innovation; moving online and finding the "jobs" our readers need done for them. Not a word, really, about the quality of the writing, the picture making, the digging.
Hell, my online hero Rob Curley even suggested we make sure to drop "writer" from our staff titles and replace it with "reporter", a not-so-subtle way of reminding everybody that their jobs, their roles, have changed.
I can't argue the last bit — in my newsroom they hand out earplugs to the unfortunates sitting near me so they don't have to endure my endless repetition of that mantra.
But as someone who chose this career as a teenager precisely because it meant writing for a living, I'd argue long and loud for the necessity of  recognizing and celebrating great writing (and photography). Happily, I don't have to — we have the National Newspaper Awards. Founded in 1949 by the Toronto Press Club, they're now housed in the CNA offices and administered by an independent board of governors (since 1989).   Here is a list of  the winners. Oh, and don't forget the Edward Goff Penny awards for  promising young journalists. Although they were announced in March, both winners — Elisabeth Johns, a reporter with the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder, and the Ottawa Citizen's Katie Lewis — were presented at last night's gala. (That's Elisabeth with CNA president Anne Kothawala at the gala.)
(As an aside - am I the only one who thinks we all cheapen the awards by only publishing details of our own paper's winners, rather than offering readers the whole list and maybe reprinting an award winning photo or two? It turns it form a celebration of the best of our work into something of a jingoistic excercise...)
Bill
(Photos courtesy David Gollob)
ps: check back Sunday - I'll be posting some more on what we learned in the seminars about video and the newspaper.

Lunch with the Aspers

Okay. This "live" blogging stuff gets harder and harder when you're half dead.
And even harder when you spent the night umm sipping, yeah, sipping, scotch and debating journalism with executive editors, publishers and other journalists.
So I'm running a little behind and will try and catch up with a couple of  quick posts before heading back into the fray for the "Opportunities Through Effective Partnerships" seminar. (I'm sure it will be more interesting than it sounds.)
Yesterday's lunch, (sponsored by the Abitti people, who, like the Tembec people must hate listening to all these newspaper people talk about new delivery platforms and web -only products and e-paper...) was, well, a hotel lunch with a couple hundred folks sitting around round tables. You've been there. Food was fine, so was the company.
After the Bryan Cantley tribute, our luncheon speaker Leonard Asper, president and CEO of CanWest Global Communications, bounded to the podium.
Asper went to some length to entertain his crowd as much as inform them. He had two short, humourous videos (I'm trying to get my hands on them to post them here): a mock 50s style public service announcement by the "Winnipeg Film Board" with emergency and disaster survival instructions that paired up with a bag of swag they'd taped under every chair (water wings for floods, repellant for mosquitoes etc), and a collection of newspaper front pages showing the way Canada supposedly thinks of Winnipeg and the Aspers and the way those paper's would look if the Aspers every really exerted editorial control across their chain ("Winnipeg the Real Paris of the Prairies" "Jets down Flames to take the Stanley Cup" etc.)
And then he got down to business.

Tourist Time

It's waaay too early Friday morning for me to file the conference report I'd planned on filing. CanWest Global Communications sponsored a fun night at a local nightclub — complete with  a Scotch and cigar tent outside and a live performance by Purity, a local garage band composed of precocious 13 year olds. A fine evening. Really. (Actually the kids were pretty impressive, even if they're musical style - think Greenday meets The Tombstones. Sort of. Nice moment: when the drummer's mom took to the dance floor in an effort to kickstart the crowd, which was having none of it. The kids ignored her just like a real band would.)
So.
Instead of my report, I offer you three pictures taken by Spec managing editor (News) Jim Poling during a morning walkabout this week.
(Click on the thumbnails for a good look at the pic. Or not.)
The first is the marker for the burial site of Louis Riel. While much of Canada thinks of him merely as "that fellow who led the revolt and got hanged" out here in Manitoba, he's regarded more as the father of Manitoba.
Next is the home of Bishop Tache,  the second bishop of saint-Boniface. Someone needs to take responsibility for that roof. I'm not being critical, I'm just saying ....
And lastly, and keeping with Jim's religious theme, we have .. Saint-Boniface Cathedral. This is the outer shell and all that remains after two fires. If you look closely, you can see that there is a new church built into the back of the building.
The hotel is now being overrun by eager NNA nominees, shoes shined, hair licked down and hope gleaming in their eyes - not that there's anything wrong with that. I'll return after a few hours of sleep.
Bill
(Photos by Jim "shutterbug" Poling)

Cantley Tribute

Today's luncheon began with an emotional tribute to Bryan Cantley, vice-president of member services for the Canadian Newspaper Association who is "retiring" this June after nearly 30 years with the CNA. (Although there's some doubts as to how "retired" he'll actually be - as Steve Buttrey of  the American Press Institute put it 10 minutes ago - "I think he's doing what we call 'retiring to full time hours'")
The tribute included video greetings from across the counry from the likes of John Honderich and Paul Godfrey (who held up a Toronto Blue Jays jersey #26 with Cantley's name on the back). Clark Davies called Bryan "a great and giving respository of institutional memory aabout the black art we call journalism ... where will we ever find his like again?"  Several other speakers spoke of him as a valuable mentor.
Video ended, Cantley was brought to the podium and presented with the original of an Aslin cartoon of Cantley,  ripping open his suit and shirt to reveal a Montreal Canadians sweatshirt beneath. "Where's my Blue Jay shirt?" Bryan grumbled good naturedly before thanking everyone for their thoughts and applause.
Bill

Passports and peanuts - US Ambassador speaks

The formal part of Wednesday's agenda  concluded with a speech from Dennis Wilkins, US Ambassador to Canada.
He was engaging, well-spoken, well-meaning, defensive and on one point, wrong. He referred to Michael Wilson, Canadian Ambassador to the US, as Michael Jackson.
Wilkins has been ambassador to Canada for 22 months and has logged more than 150,000 miles in this country. He said, respectfully, he has seen more parts of Canada than the average Canadian and is in a good position to reflect Canadian views to his US constituents.
He called Canada and the US, "two great, but different democracies" and continually referred to Canada as a good partner and friend. He visited Shilo, Man. earlier this week and thanked Canadian soldiers for their participation in the conflict in Afghanistan.
During the conference, Wilkins took questions from the floor. He acknowledged tensions at the border over the US requirement that all people crossing have passports, but he said that is now the law and encourages people to obey. He urged folks to get a passport and said 1.5 million passports a month are being issued in the US and eventually narrowing the necessary id to present to border patrols will make it speedier to cross. He said driver's licences containing personal data, or a wallet passport card, would be a better way too. He said border guards now have hundreds of types of documents to examines and reducing the number of options to two or three would be more efficient. "We are in a post-9/11 era and we cannot turn back the clock," Wilkins said.
He left the conference with an insight into a southern US favourite: boiled peanuts are a popular and favourite snack food. Not salted in the shell, roasted or ground into peanut butter, but boiled and canned.
Blogged by jpscribbler
jpoling@thespec.com

Extravaganza- Manitoba Style!

I'm feeling the pressure from my Blog colleagues to pull myself away from the fun and festivities of "the Peg" and post some Day 1 content for our CNA friends ...
I found David Wilkins, US Ambassador to Canada a dynamic speaker despite his faux pas in calling Michael Wilson the slightly more flamboyant Michael Jackson. Wilkins speech had political undertones, yet he managed to entertain the audience quite well with amusing tales of how the Canadian media have portrayed him.   
Toronto Star Editor in Chief Fred Kuntz stumped Wilkins with a question about what qualities Americans could aspire to adopt from their Northern neighbours. Wilkins recovered with a response about talented Canadian performers and the ability of Canadians to respond to our American friends in times of need. Post 911 and Katrina were used as examples.
We were lucky to secure front row seats (thanks to Hamilton Spec. Editor-in-Chief David Estok who spotted Wilkins sneaking out of the entertainment portion of the evening and grabbed his table) and be entertained 'Winnipeg Style with the Opening Extravaganza hosted by the Winnipeg Free Press. Kudos to the organizers who coordinated this opening night social held at the Regent Casino. The food was delicious and entertainment very impressive.
Fiddler Sierra Noble had us all foot-tapping and the world-renowned Royal Winnipeg Ballet presented an outstanding performance. The Ukrainian Men's Chorus and Russalka Dance Ensemble closed the evening's entertainment. I'm positive that the entertainers thought Managing Editor Jim Poling was the Ambassador and performed their hearts out for him!! (an honest mistake considering we stole the Ambassador's table) Between the entertainment, our table had lively conversation about the day's program. We compared notes on whose children under 30 actually read newspapers (not so many!) echoing the content of futurist Ian Morrison and also managed to conjure up some great new ideas to capture these readers and support our 'second curve' (see Jim's earlier blog). Looking forward to another full day tomorrow...
Kelly

Manitoba Nights

Just back from the "Opening Extravaganza".
The Winnipeg Freep threw together a higher class of party than most journalists are used to— offering a 3 1/2 hour parade of local talent that ranged from an illusionist to stomp your feet Ukrainian dancers to a powerful male choir and a marvellous Leonard Cohen set danced by young members of the Winnipeg Royal Ballet. We were greeted by the lieutenant governor and the premier and were joined by US ambassador David Wilcox, er Wilkins.
We noshed on bison and turkey and sushi in the cavernous lower level of the Regent Casino.
No jokes  here - just a tip of the hat to the Free Press folks who obviously put in a lot of hours to pull this off.
Thanks.
Bill

Stylin'

We've landed.
I shared a ride in from the Winnipeg International Airport (4 minute wait for my bags) with Spectator editor-in-chief David Estok, advertising VP and (now) erstwhile co-blogger, Kelly Montague and two other nice people who have done nothing to deserve having their names dragged through this blog.
We didn't just share a ride, however.
We shared a sttttreeeeeeetch limo. White. With a bar, a sunroof, and loooong leather seats. I think there was an 8 track.
Someone suggested popping up through the sunroof, and whooping loudly as we arrived.  David made everybody promise not to tell we'd taken a limo.
Ooops.
Bill

You Can Get there from Here....

....but are you sure you want to do it wearing that tie?
For those new to Winnipeg (or just those who like their information geo-spatially anchored) we've built a little annotated map  with push pins at relevant locations and pop up info boxes containing information that may or may not be useful (i.e. photos, phone numbers web links etc.) . I'm not sure this convention will range widely enough about this city's downtown to make the map terribly useful, but you never know. So I built one, just in case.
You can see our Winnipeg '07 interactive map by going .... here. Click on the index of  links on the left to navigate to that spot on the map, or push one of the push pins.
Bill