Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Dispatch from Paul Steiger's talk on ProPublica
Paul Steiger was in Toronto on Monday, sharing the story of ProPublica's first two years and the challenges it faces into the future.
Steiger reported that the organization was one year ahead of where he thought they'd be at this stage. They'd successfully overcome their three initial challenges:
1. Getting access to important information: It took time, but their calls are now returned.
2. Getting mainstream media platforms to partner with them and use their material: They've investigated pieces with the who's who of MSM and include 60 Minutes, the New York Times, the
LA Times and USA Today.
3. Ensuring they were seen as neutral and objective, in spite of the political leanings of their funders.
They're now focused on three new challenges: continually improving the quality of their journalism; improving their website and
taking greater advantage of new media and diversifying their funding base beyond that provided by the Sandlers. This year, they raised $1 million from 100 other entities, and with time they'd like one-third of their funding to come from elsewhere.
See
here for information on future Samara/Massey seminars.
Labels: Alfred Hermida, media and citizens, Meghan Warby, Paul Steiger, ProPublica
Friday, February 26, 2010
Editor of ProPublica to speak in Toronto on Monday
Samara, in partnership with Massey College, is hosting Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief, president and CEO of ProPublica in Toronto on Monday March 1st.
Recently named one of Fast Company's ten most
innovative media companies, ProPublica is a non-profit investigative newsroom that produces journalism in the public interest. Prior to establishing ProPublica, Steiger was the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal for 16 years.
There are a small handful of seats still available. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. at the George Ignatieff Theatre, 15 Devonshire Place, University of Toronto. Please
contact Joshua Knelman if you're interested in attending.
This visit is part of an
ongoing series of seminars that seek to provide inspiring examples of innovations in public affairs journalism and create a gathering space for journalists and others interested in public affairs reporting to exchange ideas and learn from one another. Please
stay tuned for information on future events.
Labels: featured, media and citizens, Paul Steiger, ProPublica
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
How to measure a good democracy
I'm working my way through this report on Canada's democratic engagement, released recently by The Institute of Wellbeing, an organization that develops and regularly produces statistical reports on various aspects of Canada's well being.
The researchers have done a very thorough job of pulling together the literature on these topics from Canadian and international sources - a tremendous service. They then list indicators grouped into three areas: individual's engagement; the Canadian government's engagement and Canadians' global engagement.
One can quibble with many of the indicators, but this is a good start. No one said democracy was easy to measure, and the paucity of current and historical data on these matters doesn't help either. As a result, the index relies on a lot of the traditional sources and concludes many of the same things about declining voter turnout and engagement.
Hopefully with time they'll consider investing in original research, and in the meantime, it's worth considering a wider discussion on what else we should be measuring.
Labels: democracy, featured, Institute of Wellbeing, media and citizens
Monday, February 8, 2010
So what about us?
Writing about the political paralysis facing our neighbours to the south, a paralysis many observers believe has worsened over the past year, Slate's Jacob Weisberg points a finger at one suspect - or group of suspects - who often escapes scott-free.
We the people.
This
very provocative piece, Weisberg suggests that instead of blaming various politicians or cable news stations, the American public needs to stop simultaneously demanding then rejecting change on any number of issues (witness health care, climate change, economic stimulus). To quote from his piece, "our collective illogic is mostly negligent rather than militant... we like the idea of hard choices in theory [but] when was the last time we made one in reality?"
It's a good question. And how are we faring here? As at least one writer
points out, we don't really do the tea party thing. We'd rather just stew in the status quo. Earlier this year, columnist Gary Mason
almost pleaded that we engage in some discussion on the host of long-term challenges that confront us - from healthcare to pensions to the environment.
That said, there are plenty of movements afoot, nearly all of them citizen-led. Last weekend,
a group assembled in Edmonton to advance discussions on Alberta's future. Next week,
another will gather in Toronto to figure out how to strengthen relationships between people and civic institutions. In March,
others will meet in Ottawa to plan for Canada's 150th birthday, and later in March,
another group will do the same. Type
TEDx into Google and you'll see lots of Canadian discussions in the works.
And here at Samara, we're
doing what we can to get at the disconnect among politicians, our media and citizens. Please stay tuned. Advice, ideas always welcome.
Labels: apathy, Change Camp, Conference on Alberta's Future, featured, Gary Mason, Jacob Weisberg, John Ibbitson, media and citizens, sesquicentennial, Slate, TEDxTO
Thursday, January 28, 2010
A view of the Ledge of B.C.
Talk to any politically-oriented person in B.C. for long enough and eventually Vaughn Palmer's name will come up. For those living east of the Rockies, Palmer is the provincial political affairs columnist for the Vancouver Sun.
A
reader of this blog sent me one of Palmer's posts, where he
recaps an interview he did with Jim Hume, who is retiring after 50 years of covering B.C. politics. I'm a sucker for these kinds of things, which are, when well done, part nostalgia for days gone by, part cute anecdote and part wise advice for the future.
I loved Hume's opening line: "You know, my mother said there'd be days like this, when journalists run out of ideas and have to interview each other. But go ahead."
He had some gripes for today's political media, reminding me a bit of
this great talk from Senator Hugh Segal. Among his comments, paraphrased for length: "It's not too ago that [media] luminaries would say after an election, 'Okay gentlemen, we've got a new government to bring down.' ... that feeling still pervades. Why do they want to bring down a government? The people elect an opposition. It's not the media's right or responsibility to be the official opposition, it's their right to challenge."
And like every retiring journalist, he was asked about the future of newspapers. His (paraphrased) words: "I think newspapers will survive. I believe that the great age of Facebook and Twitter and 'send us an email' ... and nobody checking facts - I think that will go. Maybe it's an old man dreaming of the past, but I think we saw what can go wrong with
bloggers in Copenhagen, where they did a very authentic-looking scam. It was caught, and caught in time, but eventually somebody is going to work one of those scams and the world is going to fall for it. I think that will spend the end."
Time will tell.
Labels: B.C., featured, Jim Hume, media and citizens, Vancouver Sun, Vaughn Palmer
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Journalism from days gone past?
While navigating my rental car through the lower mainland of BC on my way to interview a retired MP, I caught this
terrific interview with veteran British journalist Sir Harold Evans, who was in Toronto promoting his
autobiography.
Sir Harold spent nearly 60 years in the news business, including 14 years as the editor of the Sunday Times in London. He pioneered the use of investigative teams, a model of journalism now used world-wide. His own work included pieces pressuring the British government to compensate victims of Thalidomide (there is a particularly touching moment in the interview on this point) and other investigations into government stories that would have otherwise not come to the public's attention.
Although I'll confess to feeling a wave of nostalgia for days that may be behind us, I did like this comment by Sir Harold,
made at a conference to journalists at the Guardian:
"I didn't want to write an extended obituary of journalism. One of the reasons I wrote this book... I wanted to do something which showed you what newspapers could do when the tried and had the will to do it."
Labels: featured, media and citizens, Sir Harold Evans, The Current
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Democracy and Journalism: Segal's view from the Hill
Hugh Segal shared his articulately-worded yet scathing critique of today's media, tempered by suggested rules that he believes would assist things, at the Canadian Journalism Foundation's annual Democracy and Journalism lecture in Toronto last week. It reminded me of Maclean's editor Ken Whyte's
analysis delivered a handful of months ago.
On the upside, Segal clearly believes in the vitality of journalism to our democracy, but on the downside, he's pretty depressed about things. He worries that national political reporting has fallen into a pretty big rut, focused on the events of Ottawa over the reality of the country.
For example, Question Period is news, he argues, "on occasion," but as something that's "utterly predictable, scripted and regularly occurring," he's unclear why it's treated as such. Acknowledging that, "it's not the job of journalists to make politics look interesting or noble when it's neither,' he nonetheless believes journos must better sort out how much of what goes on in Ottawa is actually news.
He'd like to see more a little more homework, hypothesizing that the reason the work of the Auditor General of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is so popular with journalists is that it's work they can and should be doing themselves.
He is also unsparing in his criticism of the CBC, particularly the TV part.
I liked his concluding idea: "When do we have a dinner, perhaps organized by the Foundation for Quality Politics, to talk about integrity, shallowness and quality in public life now that the good Senator has lectured us?"
He has eleven other suggestions, too numerous to summarize here. So in the the spirit of his address, please do your research. The webcast is
here; the transcript is
here (although it doesn't include the amusing banter at the beginning).
And what about that dinner?
Labels: Canadian Journalism Foundation, featured, Hugh Segal, media and citizens
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Fun with the POTUS-tracker
Last month, the washingtonpost.com's former executive editor, Jim Brady, was at Samara
talking about the various ways that news organization works to cover politics and public policy in a changing media environment.
In addition to the experiments
he highlighted, it's worth checking out their
POTUS-tracker, which uses the information from Obama's schedule to show how he's spending his time, with whom and where, as well as details on the what (where available).
Issue-wise, he spent the most time on foreign policy, the economy and the catch-all "government-politics" category so far this year. VP Joe Biden is the most frequent Obama
meeting attendee, followed by his wife and Hillary Clinton.
If you're interested in the attention he pays to Canada, click
here.
Anyone want to wager a bet on what our PM's summary would look like?
Labels: featured, media and citizens, political leadership, POTUS-tracker, washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
What's Next for News video is now available
Those of you who've been following the
various discussions on the future of journalism these past weeks may be interested in watching an edited video of the "What's Next for News" panel held at Ryerson, featuring media futurist Clay Shirky, author Andrew Keen and Globe and Mail editor Mathew Ingram. You can watch it
here.
Labels: Andrew Keen, Clay Shirky, featured, Mathew Ingram, media and citizens, Ryerson
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The G&M's Stackhouse plus their most-read stories of the past year
Globe & Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse gave an overview things in his world to to a group from the Canadian Journalism Foundation this evening. It was upbeat and refreshing, combining an overview of the industry with a loose outline of the Globe's plans for the future, both online and off. And for the inquiring minds among us, he also shared their top-read online stories this year.
He made two main points. First, he argued that newspapers in Canada, while subject to many of the same challenges as their American counterparts, won't suffer quite the same fate (in short, our companies are less leveraged, our politics less polarized and our city cores more densely populated). Second, he described how the Globe was working to compete and evolve to being a "paper of insight" (to be overly simplistic, it's a combination of commitments to quality journalism, smart design and intelligent insight in both its print and online products).
He also shared the Globe's most-read articles and coverage over the past year.
The top-read
article was the report on Harvard economist Niall Ferguson's speech in Ottawa, where he remarked that "there will be blood" as countries coped with the economic crisis. For obvious reasons, this provocative statement was picked up in the American blogsphere and traffic rose accordingly. The second was their exclusive on actress Natasha Richardson's death following a ski accident in Tremblant, aided by its pick-up in People.com. Third was a piece on the Canadian banks, entitled "
Canada envy," picked up by an NPR blog.
Their best single day was December 2, 2008 during Canada's constitutional
crisis. Their best run was the end of September 2008 when the financial crisis was at its height.
Together, it looks like the magic formula at least will mix a little of the old (good explanatory content in the public interest) with a little of the new (aggressive linking to other media sites).
Labels: Canadian Journalism Foundation, featured, Globe and Mail, media and citizens
Fun with the POTUS-tracker
Last month, the washingtonpost.com's former executive editor, Jim Brady, was at Samara
talking about the various ways that news organization works to cover politics and public policy in a changing media environment.
In addition to the experiments
he highlighted, it's worth checking out their
POTUS-tracker, which uses the information from Obama's schedule to show how he's spending his time, with whom and where, as well as details on the what (where available).
Issue-wise, he spent the most time on foreign policy, the economy and the catch-all "government-politics" category so far this year. VP Joe Biden is the most frequent Obama
meeting attendee, followed by his wife and Hillary Clinton.
If you're interested in the attention he pays to Canada, click
here.
Anyone want to wager a bet on what our PM's summary would look like?
Labels: featured, media and citizens, political leadership, POTUS-tracker, washingtonpost.com
Monday, September 28, 2009
Is this really a crisis? Pundits weigh in....
Our first set of MP exit interviews began this week, our first of what will be several dozen interviews with MPs who left public life between 2004 and 2008.
Incidentially, the period of these departures also kicked off what general wisdom has us believe to be a prolonged period of minority government in Canada. After nearly five and a half years of this not-unprecedented situation, recent media attention suggests we are in a period of democractic crisis. Time will tell how our MPs view this situation, but in the meantime, it's worth keeping up with the prevailing views of our national pundits (spoiler alert: I've saved the best for last).
In the same week,
Maclean's and CPAC co-hosted a
panel discussion titled "Our Democracy is Broken," while CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition
broadcast a different panel on "Canada's dysfunctional politics."
The Maclean's/CPAC affair featured eight extremely thoughtful guys who attempted to suggest concrete actions that would fix things. This ranged from specific ideas (e.g., bumping up Question Period from its afternoon slot to earlier in the day so to minimize the time spent prepping for theatrics, theoretically leaving more time for actual Parliamentary business) to broader and more empassioned pleas for a system that would produce outcomes that truly matter to Canadians (e.g., marshalling attention to the reduction and ideally elimination of child poverty in the same way that seniors' poverty was tackled and eliminated in earlier generations).
Unfortunately, however, without a clearer definition of what is actually broken and why, and without someone to forcefully mount a defense of the system and its machinery, the panel seemed to coalesce around the need for electoral reform, ideally a variant of proportional representation. No one appeared concerned that the very minority parliaments that (I think) were seen as at the heart of the apparent "crisis" are certain to increase under this scenario. This is not to opine on the relative merits of PR or of our existing system, but only to ask that we a) identify the problem and link the solution more carefully and b) avoid the view that electoral reform will serve as a silver bullet for that which may ail us.
And I shouldn't have to say this in 2009, but at least one perspective from someone of the female persuation would have been appreciated.
The CBC's panel was wider-ranging (and twice as long), with a variety of perspectives, and touched on issues of culture, history, government rules and machinery, the role of media as well a dose of personality and politics. It didn't come to as clear a conclusion as the CPAC/Maclean's effort, and perhaps for that reason it is worth a
listen.
Admist all this, leave it to vetran CBC personality Don Newman to mount the most elegant discussion on the entire matter at the
Canadian Club (which naturally went largely unreported, save for this
piece). Placing the status of our current political state (critically) in historical context, he argues for what he called the "Pearson Plan," based on an approach to confidence used by former PM Lester Pearson during his minority rule. The Q&A was also fabulous - both funny and touching. You'll laugh at his anecdotes about Brian Mulroney's calls to him during the commerical breaks of his long-running show. Politics from a different era, I'd imagine.
You really must watch it.
And if, after all that, you have time to share your views on all this, we'd love to know what you think of all this. Are we really in crisis? If so, why and what should be done?
Labels: Alice Klein, Canadian Club, CBC, CPAC, Don Newman, featured, Maclean's, media and citizens, political leadership, Sunday Edition
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The future of journalism, Can-Con style
With September comes back to school and no shortage of great talks on, among other things, the future of the media. We've already told you about our recent lunch with the WashingtonPost.com's editor,
Jim Brady, Mathew Ingram's TEDxTO
talk and the CJF's recent
panel exploring the changing media environment.
One more to add to your collection. If you care about journalism, newspapers, public debate and democracy, you should
listen to Maclean's editor Ken Whyte's 2009 Dalton Camp Lecture, delivered at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, NB. Among other things, he provides a refreshingly honest critique of newspapers in the 20th century and an appeal for better journalism in this time of change. The research he did into his
book on William Randolph Hearst no doubt contributed greatly to the long view he takes.
What will October bring? For starters, Toronto-based media junkies may want to sign up for Ryerson's October 2
panel titled "What's Next for News," featuring media futurist Clay Shirky (read his latest ideas
here) and Cult of the Amateur author
Andrew Keen.
Watch this space for more!
Labels: Andrew Keen, Canadian Journalism Foundation, Clay Shirky, featured, Jim Brady, Ken Whyte, media and citizens, washingtonpost.com
Monday, September 21, 2009
Brain candy, follow-up
Earlier this month, we
shared a couple of events of interest to those who care about the vibrancy of our public debates. In case you missed them, here are the highlights of two and links to where you can learn more.
TEDxTO was excellent. Kudos to the organizers. The Torontoist's
summary is a good one and the videos should be on at the TEDxTO site soon. Almost all the talks were fantastic, so we won't pick favorites, but those interested in the changing media environment will be particularly interested in Mathew Ingram's talk on the five ways new media will save old media. What are the ways, you ask? This will happen, he argues, by:
- Enlarging the size of the media pie. Tools are cheap and widely available. The more the merrier!
- Making media a process and not a product that occurs in a time-specific package.
- Making the media more human, instead of a faceless institution designed to hide mistakes.
- Making media more multi-directional. People "formerly known as readers" know and think stuff too, and can now be included.
- By allowing greater choice and opportunity for trade-offs (e.g., Twitter can allow people to trade off accuracy for immediacy).
Underlying all this are ways of strengthening relationships with readers, and using trust and relationships as a key competitive advantage.
And on the topic of the media, The Canadian Journalism Foundation held its first discussion of the year, an exploration of the changing media environment. It featured Rem Rider from the American Journalism Review and Ira Basen, the producer of an excellent overview of the news in the age of social media for CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition (scroll to the June 21 and 28
podcasts). You can read the event report or watch a webcast of the discussion
here.
If you recently attended other events of interest, please get in touch if you'd like to include details of them on this blog.
Labels: brain candy, Canadian Journalism Foundation, featured, Ira Basen, Mathew Ingram, media and citizens, political leadership, Rem Reider, TEDxTO
Monday, September 7, 2009
Covering public affairs in a changing media environment: WashPost.com editor at Samara
Jim Brady, the former executive editor of the washingtonpost.com and the U.S. consulting editor for The
Guardian, came to Samara for lunch with a number of public affairs journalists, editors and producers to discuss covering politics and public affairs in a changing media environment. His talk was wide-ranging and fascinating to producers and consumers of news alike, full of great examples and a terrific Q&A.
Unfortunately, discussion over lunch does not make for high-quality recording, however, we captured some of his main points and examples in writing, retro-style.
As we well know, a massive change took place between the 2004 and 2008 elections. In '04, every candidate, advocacy group and political party has their own website, but they weren't linked up and weren't very influential.
By the '08 election everyone had a platform and the reporter was no longer relied upon to get the message out. The Post devoted incredible resources to "cleaning up the waves of information that wash up on shore," pulling the truth out of what was hurled back-and-forth online. Reporters still spend a lot more time mining records and data, figuring out what candidates do, how they spend their time and what they did or said in the past. Whether that's good or bad remains an active and unanswered debate (more on that in a future post); for now, it is a news organization's reality.
Jim also highlighted a few experiments his team tried, pulling together wide varieties of data with interactive content to illuminate stories in new (and mostly better) ways:
- A U.S. Congress votes database (particularly useful for those midnight ones you never hear about)
- An election issue tracker that compiled the most common terms used by the candidates on the trail (NB: "Iraq War" and "healthcare" led the way for Obama)
- Behind-the-scenes election night video commentary and live discussions with newsmakers and Post writers and editors
- On the local beat, crime, school, restaurant and real estate reports (see here for a map of crime around the White House), and a Pulitzer Prize winning investigation into DC schools that includes data on all kinds of things you should know about the places your kids learn.
- The fabulous "Pearls for Breakfast," another Pulitzer Prize-winning piece featuring a world-class musician playing in the DC Metro during morning rush hour.
He also touched on a few trends that are reshaping the news business, and ways in which U.S. newspapers are facing them:
- Push your content out: Someone under 21 will rarely, if ever, mention a traditional news brands as their major source of information and simply don't think about newspapers as the starting points of their day. Instead it's combinations of Twitter, Google and Facebook, and any news organization needs to aggressively populate these sites and build relationships with the bloggers that drive traffic (e.g., Drudge), even if you detest them. The Post and the New York Times both hire communications people to do this.
- Paywall or no paywall?: Jim does not advocate a paywall for the Post's content online. Although he believes the work is high quality, much of what they do is also covered elsewhere, so he's not convinced a paywall will work. Instead, he encourages news companies to look for opportunities to pay through mobile. For example, an alert system that would notify staffers each time their boss was mentioned in the news.
- Love your readers/comments are your friends: If you can get a reader to comment, their likelihood of converting them to a core reader goes up dramatically. Live discussions similarly drive loyalty, making readers feel like they have access to big names. Readers can even do some heavy lifting, as the Guardian's MP Expenses piece showed. In short, if readers are part of your process, and you're part of their routine, you will win.
If you're working in current or public affairs journalism and interested in future events, please
let us know and we'll add you to the list.
Labels: featured, Jim Brady, media and citizens, Washington Post, washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Brain candy: TEDx comes to Canada, future of news, Maytree conference and more...
Fall is here, and with it comes a great line up of interesting events to inject a little mo-jo into our public discourse. Here are a few we're planning to attend (biased toward, although not limited to Toronto):
1. TEDx comes to Canada: Lovers of the brain candy provided by the podcasts from
TED's various conferences will be delighted to know that an independently-organized Canadian version is coming to a city near you. A TEDx event will be held in
Toronto on September 10 with live podcasts available to anyone with an internet connection and in several viewing locations. In the coming year, TEDx hits
19 other Canadian cities (on top of
two previously-held events), and many more places beyond.
2. For media junkies, on September 15 the Canadian Journalism Foundation will host a discussion with
Rem Rieder, editor and publisher of the
American Journalism Review and
Ira Basen, who produced an excellent 2-part overview of the evolution of news in the age of social media for CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition (scroll to the June 21 and 28
podcasts). Tickets are
gratis. While they don't webcast events, they do provide reports for the curious post-event.
3. Maytree's annual leadership conference, held on October 1, focuses on the power of stories and social change and includes some great speakers and workshops. If you live in Toronto, you can register
here. If you don't, I'd still encourage you to visit their site and learn more about their work, and that of their
partners.
Any other great events dedicated to elevating our public discussion? Please comment below, or let us know.
Labels: CJF, featured, Ira Basen, Maytree, media and citizens, Rem Reider, TEDxTO
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Op-Ed in today's Globe and Mail
This morning the Globe and Mail was kind enough to publish an
op-ed we wrote, arguing that we all need to pull up our socks to get at the malaise in our public life. We've already received a number of terrific comments. Please let us know what you think and we'll share a summary of the feedback with you in the coming days.
You can read the article
here, and comment on this blog, the Globe site or
contact us directly.
Labels: featured, Globe and Mail, media and citizens, political leadership
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Watch it here: another new online public opinion site
Earlier this year, we introduced you to The Mark, an online opinion forum looking to inject more umpf into the discussion on public issues in Canada.
In a similar vein, several months ago PublicVoice.tv arrived at an internet near you. Looking to "raise voices on issues that matter," PublicVoice is a bit like a video-version of The Mark, providing an opportunity for users to watch short videos on a wide number of issues, from the funding of zoos to Aboriginal business.
Samara has done its part. In a three-part series, Alison Loat talks with Maclean's magazine's Scott Feschuck about the themes underlying our work. The first outlines some of these themes; the second explores the intersection between media and public policy and the final one looks at the role of citizens in all this.
We were disappointed we didn't get to talk more about our MP interview project or other activities, but we will provide ongoing updates over the fall. Watch this space!
Labels: featured, media and citizens, political leadership, publicvoice.tv, Scott Feschuck, The Mark
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Canada’s World: 100,000 conversations and counting...
What makes a “great conversation?” For some its lots of laughter, for others its deep discussions, close friends and a good glass of wine. For those in policy-land it may be something akin to what Shauna Sylvester has created with Canada's World, where the term the “great conversation” meant talking to over 4,000 Canadians face-to-face, plus another 100,000 online, about the future of Canada's international policy. She recently published a summary of these discussions in a report entitled "Back on the Map," which presents "a new vision for Canada in the world."
It's rare that such extensive effort is made to engage citizens in the important issues on our national policy agenda. Citizen participation is one of Samara’s three areas of focus and so we were pleased to have Shauna stop by our offices and talk to us about the process she used to create this level of engagement. Not surprisingly, it involved using everything from traditional methods such as questionnaires and interviews, newer methods that included open forums, interactive workshops and deliberative dialogues - as well as the entire Web 2.0 range of blogs, Facebook, and YouTube. She's now circling back to the participants and to a range of policy-makers to share the results.
You can watch Shauna describe this effort and its results on Samara's newly-created YouTube channel. And as our regular readers know, we're always looking to profile great examples of public service and we welcome ideas, however fully-formed, at any time!
Labels: Canada's World, featured, media and citizens, Shauna Sylvester
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Public Service Matters
Public Service Matters will be an occasional feature on the Samara blog. It will profile individuals and organizations engaged in exemplary public service. The column will be an opportunity to showcase ideas and initiatives that are having a positive impact in our communities and helping shape public policy at the local and/or national level.
For this column, we spoke to Vickie Cammack, co-founder of PLAN. The topic: the new Registered Disability Savings Plan, an innovation PLAN developed and that became available to all Canadians through the federal budget of 2008.
_____________________________
“I think we’ve been successful because we’ve had a hand in the soil and a hand in the stars at the same time.” With that, Vickie Cammack sums up the winning formula that led to the RDSP, a registered savings tool designed for the long term financial security of people with disabilities.
It’s the kind of initiative that could only come from having your hand in the stars. Consider this: such an innovation has never been tried before anywhere in the world, and the potential is enormous. One way to measure it: the estimated market size is in the billions of dollars.
The RDSP is similar to the familiar RRSP in that it allows money to be invested tax free until withdrawal. Up to 500,000 Canadians who live with a disability may be eligible for the plan. There is a $200,000 lifetime contribution limit but no annual limit and matching funds are available from the Canada Disability Savings Grant as well as a Disability Savings Bond.
And it gets better: most provinces have exempted the RDSP from asset or income classification. This is crucial, Vickie explains, as those eligible for provincial or territorial disability benefits are often restricted in their ability to accumulate assets. Unearned money is usually ‘clawed back’ dollar for dollar. The policy restricts one’s ability to save and plan for future financial security without losing money and services now. The RDSP changes that, enabling people with disabilities to accumulate assets and have a safe place to build a nest egg. There is a lot more to the RDSP than that, you can go
here for the details.
How did the RDSP happen? According to Vickie, it had all the typical policy development ingredients we know and love: multiple consultations, independent research and an expert panel. The original idea, however, was born in the community. This is the other half of the formula: the hand in the soil.
Since it was founded in 1989, PLAN has talked to thousands of individuals with disabilities and their families about what they want in life. Their approach, while simple, was revolutionary. “Traditionally, the attitude towards people with disabilities has been, let’s get them services,” said Vickie, but she and co-founder Al Etmanski found that one-dimensional.
“We asked people to talk about the elements they considered critical to have a good life. Most people talked about close connections with friends and family and the freedom and ability to pursue their interests,” she said. From these consultations, PLAN quickly recognized that financial security was a big part of that equation so began to look for ways to help families achieve it. Eventually that led to the RDSP.
“The original idea was for a tax credit, but it never caught on,” explained Vickie. “Everything changed as soon as we started calling it a Disability Savings Plan.” That concept clicked with people, reminding them of the familiar RRSP and RESP.
This framing allowed them to build momentum, as the response shows. “I just gave a talk to 500 people at Community Living Ontario,” said Vickie, “and when I asked how many had heard of the RDSP, the majority put up their hands.” Not bad considering the plan has been available for eight months and perhaps just in the nick of time.
“People are realizing that we may be entering a period when government services could diminish and they want to make sure they have other options for their financial security,” she said. There are signs that Vickie could be right. After all, Canadians recently learned we face a $50 billion federal budget shortfall this year.
It’s a good thing this country has innovative and caring organizations like PLAN out there. Vickie and PLAN weren’t searching for a new financial product to make money. Rather, they saw a need for something that could benefit people in their community while strengthening our national economy and society. Their next challenge is to scale up the communities of support and
create networks of care around those that need them.
If that’s not effective public service, we don’t know what is.
Do you know someone who should be featured in this space? Post a comment and let us know your thoughts.
Labels: featured, media and citizens
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The beauty in following, in a participatory way
I attended two talks last week that helped me think about how Samara can help create opportunities for Canadians to meaningfully contribute, in small, fun and accessible ways, to issues that matter to them. Friends know this has been a
long-time interest of mine, something I've reflected on for years and regret not writing more about.
Talk #1: Kellerman was at Rotman talking about her
new book on followership. She's a leadership scholar at Harvard, and correctly points out that you can't have leaders without followers. Given technological and historical/political trends, she predicts that in this century, followers will be more important than they've ever been before.
This felt a bit "no duh" for awhile, but then she outlined two things that got me thinking. The first was a typology of followers, developed in light of the fact that we too often think of followers as a monolithic group (think "my constituents" or "my employees"). She outlined five types of followers, ranked from low to high based on their level of engagement.
- Isolates: Those who do nothing, and as a result, strengthen those with the upper hand.
- Bystanders: Those who observe but deliberately do nothing and therefore tacitly support the status quo (e.g., many Germans circa 1933)
- Participants: Favour or oppose leaders and care enough to invest something in it (e.g., Merck employees who alternately hid and highlighted the Vioxx problems)
- Activists: Those who feel strongly and act accordingly to support or unseat their leaders (e.g., the Catholics who organized to in response to the sexual abuse crises in their church)
- Diehards: Those who are prepared to die for a cause (e.g., suicide bombers, soldiers)
The second was the reminder that "most of us, on most issues, are followers most of the time." With the typology in mind, and not wanting to be a bystander when I shouldn't be, I called the
VoxBox to suggest a different angle on
a story that's really bothering me. Small step, I know, but better than nothing. I'll leave the diehard stuff to others.
Talk #2: David Eaves, who writes a terrific
blog, negotiates and thinks big thoughts for a living, came to Samara to present his thinking on how technology and social change are transforming (or should transform) public policy development and public service delivery. Building on the work of economist
Ronald Coase, internet thinkers
Clay Shirky,
David Weinberger and journalist
Chris Anderson (0f
long tail fame), Eaves argues that governments and other public service-seeking organizations need to orchestrate themselves for transparency, participation and collaboration to harness the "long tail." It is these features that will ensure legitimacy and success into the future.
My takeaway? This is going to require a little bit more of all of us. This means contributing when we can and, recognizing that things are more open than ever before, going a little easier on people to who are experimenting and may stumble from time-to-time. Samara looks to profile individuals or organizations who are working on the future of public service; ideas are very welcomed.
Labels: Barbara Kellerman, Canada25, Chris Anderson, Clay Shirky, David Eaves, David Weinberger, featured, future of public service, long tail, media and citizens, Mozilla
Monday, June 1, 2009
Star-studded week in policy wonkdom, take two
It's been a star-studded week of international policy-wonkdom here. After the
Bush/Clinton discussion last week, tonight Toronto welcomed four international development thinkers and activisits to debate whether foreign aid is doing more harm than good.
The third in an installment from the
Munk Debates, the evening was designed (in the words of the event's benefactor Peter Munk) to provide a "stimulus to people so they're more familiar and comfortable participating [in the world]." It can be tough to stay looped into important international debates from Toronto, so this is a welcomed initiative.
To give away the punchline, the guys arguing for good won.
Stephen Lewis and
Paul Collier stressed the necessity of aid as a transitional tool, coupled with other necessary tools such as governance and security, to enable capital formation and infastructure development and alleviate suffering, particularly at the grassroots.
The "harm" team consisted of
Dambisha Moyo and
Hernando de Soto. de Soto stressed the need for property rights, without which there would be no peace (witness 15+ recent African wars over property and boundry rights) and no ability to generate capital (witness our First Nations' reservations, an example he cited several times). Moyo argued that 60 years and $1 trillion of aid has done nothing to help Africa grow or reduce poverty, and worse, allows African countries to abdicate their responsibility to provide public goods to their citizens. Instead, she encouraged a mix of foreign direct investment, capital market activity and trade.
My favourite moment was in Collier's closing when, in reference to
pending decisions Canada must make in Haiti, he turned to the audience and explained, "you get the aid policies you deserve. [Those you've received] have been gesture politics... you have to get up to speed [so] we can repeat the successes of 60 years ago when aid helped Europe." This reminded me of a
similar comments fromGeneral Andrew Leslie in reference to the army being at the service of we the citizens.
You can listen to the full debate on
CBC Radio's Ideas on June 8, and it'll be available on
CPAC too (previous Munk Debates are available to watch too). You can also get a flavour for the discussion now by reading some of the
advance media or following the
live-blog discussion.
Labels: Dambisa Moyo, Hernando de Soto, media and citizens, Munk debates, Paul Collier, Stephen Lewis
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Bush, Clinton and public service
As most Torontonians likely know (particularly if they attempted to drive along Front Street yesterday afternoon), former American presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were in town talking to each other, ably facilitated by former New Brunswick premier and Canadian ambassador to the US Frank McKenna.
I've posted a longer report on the talk
here, and of course, you can read about it in the MSM too.* In this space, I'll mention only a few highlights.
The first, wearing my Canadian political observer hat, was that mature, statesman-like tone of the discourse. Both men clearly respect the office of the president and the function of American government and service far more than they aspire to score cheap shots. It's a sad statement on our own state of affairs, where I struggle to imagine a thoughtful public exchange such as this between two former Canadian political leaders, never mind ones of such differing worldviews. And even if there were, would anyone pay attention, never mind pay to see it?
The second, wearing my Samara hat, was Clinton's commentary on public service and the need for it to be part of all our lives. I've elaborated on his three points
here, but the upshot is this: our world is interdependent and can't escape each other's fate, so we all should do something to improve the world. The internet makes it easier for us all to do our bit to contribute to a larger goal (e.g., we can all help Afghanistan through
kiva.org). Finally, there are always gaps that public policy and a vibrant economy won't fill, so all of us need to help them and ourselves with the how. "I try to find people in a how mentality who want to be in the how industry," he said, citing the ultimate failure of Kyoto not as the unwillingness of certain governments, including the US, to sign it, but more of the failure of all but four signatories to actually solve the "how" part and meet their commitments. Naturally, these points were not reflected in any of the media coverage I read.
The third, wearing my policy junkie hat, was McKenna's passionate and deftly-worded question to the former presidents on the
need for passports when crossing the Canada/US border for the first time in over 200 years of peaceful co-existence. I was touched by the question and annoyed but not surprised by the answer. Bush claimed his administration had a very different strategy and he had no idea why this happened (those working on border policy since 9/11 may have a slightly different take). Clinton also acknowledged that he, like most Americans, had no idea. His explaination was this, "in an interdependent environment when insecurity goes up, the [need] for control does too" and assured us that we had his attention and he was "going back home" with this.
I'm not optimistic.
The fourth, wearing a combination of all aforementioned hats, was Clinton's response when questioned about the Rwandan genocide. "One of the greatest regrets of my presidency," he said. Part description of what happened and why (no White House meeting on it, no clue it would get so bad so fast, hostility in Congress in the wake of Bosnia and Somlia), part explanation of what he's done since to help the country rebuild and part testament to the capacity of the Rwandans to forgive (complete with several moving anecdotes), it was honest, touching and thoughtful.
There were also some funny jokes, where Bush in particular shone. He had a good one about his mother calling Clinton a son, about picking up his dog's droppings (the Star's Rosie DiManno mentions them both in detail
here), and another about Laura telling him how dish duty was to be considered "his new domestic policy agenda." He subtly referenced the speaking fees, noting "Clinton and I used to believe in free speech." My favorite from Clinton was his response to a question on Cuba, where he said, "my view is influenced by what the Secretary of State says on the matter." Hopefully he can be similarly influential on the border. We'll see.
* To save you the Googling, here are a few links: the Globe's Ian Brown
here, the Star's Rosie DiManno
here and the New York Times'
here.
Labels: Bill Clinton, featured, Frank McKenna, George Bush, media and citizens, political leadership
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A few of my favourite things (lately anyway)
We've had a good few weeks, welcoming people to our
growing team and gathering some excellent advice from a number of former MPs on our
MP Exit Interviews. We're also hard at work developing some thinking on the evolution of the news media and what it might mean for our journalism projects (details to come in future posts).
In the meantime, I'm digesting (or aspiring to digest) a wonderful list of Samara-esque tidbits friends have shared recently:
1.
Tim sent me Newseum's
interactive map that allows you to click on the front pages of the world's newspapers. Readers of
earlier posts will know this isn't helping my problems any!
2. Some big names in US news media (including Google's Marissa Mayer, the Washington Post's Steven Coll and the needs-no-introduction Ariana Huffington) testified at the US Senate's
hearing on the future of journalism. Several people have asked me if I think Canada would engage in such a conversation.... thoughts? Anyone keen?
3. From TVO,
a beta site that attempts to lift the veil on the often obtuse world of government, politics and policy. It also links to
The Agenda, my favourite source for Canadian issue-oriented podcasting.
4. And while we're on the topic of public broadcasting, a
survey on Canadian's perceptions of the CBC. They were more positive than I would have thought.
5. A new book,
Open and Shut, from Globe & Mail columnist John Ibbitson on "why America has Barack Obama and Canada has Stephen Harper." I still miss Ibbitson's columns on Ottawa and I'm looking forward to reading his book. If you care about these issues, the Globe apparently has a wiki and blog dedicated to them, but with their new design my links are dead and I can't seem to recover them.
6. And last but not least, one of the few pieces that tries to humanize politicians and reward those who are doing a particularly good job. Maclean's annual
"Parliamentarians of the Year" recognizes Jason Kenney (best overall), Bob Rae (best orator), Megan Leslie (best rookie), Peter Stoffer (most collegial), Bill Casey (best represents constituents), Paul Szabo (hardest working) and Joe Comartin (most
knowledgeable). We don't say it enough - thank you for your service.
Anything else come across your desk lately? Please feel free to add it in the comments, or
send us a note and we'll include it in future posts as appropriate.
Labels: featured, media and citizens, political leadership
Monday, May 4, 2009
New Cdn media product emerges: The Mark
One of my favourite elements of my job is the opportunity to meet Canadians doing innovative things to make our country a more vibrant and exciting place. A bunch of months ago I met two guys working to get an online news and opinion forum off the ground. Their project is called The Mark, and today, it launched in beta.
Their premise is that there are thousands of thoughtful Canadians, living here and abroad, with interesting experiences and ideas who lack a forum in which to publish their ideas. The Mark hopes to change that and become "a national movement to record Canadian ideas and propel the people behind them."
I'm having fun scrolling through the articles, many by people I don't know. I loved this one about the social media fatigue by California-residing Canadian who studies what sounds like a topic near and dear to my heart. I enjoyed learning a bit more about Obama's time in law school and I'm looking forward to following the indomitable Tzeporah Berman's posts on the environment. I also did my bit, and wrote about the game of mutual destruction underway between media and parliaments and how we're working to help.
The upside? It's a new, fresh media product emerging from the rubble of the old. They're keen to hear from a wide range of people interested in contributing to their ideas and are willing to work with you to make that happen. In fact, they've already amassed an impressive and diverse list of contributors, few of whom I've ever seen in the mainstream media.
The downside? Well, you won't get paid which, given the challenges facing our dear old media industry, makes me further worry about how we sustain good public affairs journalism (more on that in future posts!). However, for those out there with a love of ideas (or who, like me, are wannabe journalists at heart), we can do worse than taking the time to participate by checking out the site regularly or if the inspiration strikes, consider contributing.
I'm curious what you think of this new site, and of course, I always welcome feedback on my own article.
Labels: Alex Mazer, featured, media and citizens, Mike Ananny, The Mark, Tzeporah Berman
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Good idea of the day, second in a series: safely getting rid of dangerous stuff
I was away in early April so somehow missed the annoucement of
this very cool website that makes it a little bit easier to get rid of old dangerous garbage. You know, the stuff that can't go away through the normal garbage or recycling process so instead takes up room in basements across the province.
If, like me, you've actually MOVED this stuff from one residence to another, this site is a particular godsend. Last spring I moved neighbourhoods, packing up and taking with me a collection of dead batteries, an old television and a spyware-infested laptop (the latter making its second move). A combination of laziness and lack of car prevented me from hauling it to the appropriate municipal depot, so instead it's been busy collecting dust in the otherwise unused garage alongside the paint cans left by the previous owner.
Now I can type in my postal code and the hazardous or e-waste I want to get rid of, and voila, a long list of drop-off points appear before my eyes. Who knew there were 11 e-waste options within 5 kms of my house?
If the stuff is still there next year, I only have my laziness to blame.
Labels: environment, media and citizens
Advice please: how to manage a love affair
I really loved
this piece by Jonathan Kay on his love affair with newspapers (the paper kind): how he came to love them and why he loves them still. His point on the responsibility they provoke on their readers is bang on and he put into words a sentiment I, as an active subscriber to dead trees, have never been able to do.
Newspapers (and other forms of the printed word), by sitting there, remind us that "the world is sending you homework." And doing homework is an important part of everyone's responsibility to themselves and the world around them.
I share Jon's love and his belief in the importance of the daily reminder not to be intellectually lazy, even if it means waking up with newsprint on your cheek. It's something that the web, in all its fabulousness, just doesn't do. Newspapers and their brethren remind me why it's important to remain curious about lots of things. Furthermore, like my mother did when I was young, they remind me that I have to do my daily bit of homework.
Perhaps my mother was too successful, though, as I have dug myself into a paper habit that threatens to overtake me. I share Jon's newspaper (albeit more limited...
this one comes Monday-Saturday and
this one on Sunday), and an even worse magazine habit. Like with a good bar of chocolate or bottle of red wine, once I start I can't stop.
I'm overwhelmed. My house is stacked with dusty reading material that I can't part with until it's at least skimmed. I'm killing trees. I think it's important to stay in touch, challenged and engaged, but I'm feeling guiltier by the day. And there's only so much guilt one can healthily handle.
Dear readers, I need your help. Here's where I'm at:
I've tried to cull, to some success (e.g., I cancelled
this one, this one and
this one, as they were the last ones I'd read, but my decision on the latter made me feel guilty for not supporting the Canadian magazine industry so I resubscribed one year later).
I've tried resisting, to greater success (e.g., sometimes Rogers sends me Canadian Business and Chatelaine for free for a couple of months and I so want to subscribe, even though the copies are still sitting unread beside the toilet, but I don't; when Conde Nast launched Portfolio I confined myself to the newsstand copies only,
thank goodness).
I've also tried aggregating, largely through an ever-growing list of web tools (including
this one, great for headlines and for following the future of news discussion, and
this one) plus the wisdom of friends. However, I'm finding all these feeds and recommendations are only furthering and not alleviating my guilt (e.g., I have so many unread blog posts and browser windows with half-read Twitter links that I'm drowning).
And this doesn't include my book habit, which is another matter all together, or my favourite podcasts or my attempts to get a
more global perspective.
So here's where I'm at now. I get Maclean's for a general overview and out of loyalty to the publication (I'm a third generation subscriber), to friends that work there and to a belief in the importance of strong current affairs magazines to any country's democracy (i.e., it's not going anywhere). I get Spacing and the Walrus and read Corporate Knights for the same reason.
Toronto Life is fun, so it comes monthly, as does House & Home, a great gift for an otherwise design-impaired new homeowner (thanks
SCR!).
I get the New Yorker to make me smarter and remind me what I loved about living in the US when I did. And the NYT magazine comes on Sundays. Oh, and I also get
this and
this at work, and recently
this, due to another generous gift, also turned up.
What's a girl to do? Advice? What do you read? What would you recommend?
Labels: featured, media and citizens
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
"The business model for newspapers isn’t toast, but it’s in the toaster"
Because
I promised, and you already know I'm slow, here's a dispatch from the investigative journalism conference I attended in Berekely, CA in early April.
Overall, it was a good couple of days that largely showcased various investigative stories on corruption and the journalists who uncovered them (
this Frontline doc was the feature). It was a clubby affair of many long-serving journalists from the major branded news outlets, and I was generally fascinated listening to the undercurrent of it all, which was naturally the "what the heck happened to our industry?" My favourite quote was from Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, who began his remarks with the quip, "the business model for newspapers isn't toast, but it's in the toaster." [As an aside,
later that week I read that he equated saving the Times to saving Darfur, so he obviously has a gift for the soundbite.]
The most interesting and useful session, given Samara's objectives, was the last one on the future of investigative journalism (glad I didn't duck out early). You can read the details
here. My favourite panellist was
Esther Kaplan from
The Nation Institute. The group has been around since 1966 and was created to address the bias in the independent press to write opinion pieces since no one had the resources to do reporting. These days she's getting more and more requests from freelancers, bloggers and new journalists for mentoring and support since there aren't a lot of older people around newsrooms to help anymore. She said, "I feel like I'm the social safety net for independent journalists." This jives with some of our early thinking at Samara, where we've identified some big gaps on the professional development side for those doing public affairs journalism - regardless of the medium. For example, there's really no media and public policy course taught in our journalism schools, save for a bit at Carleton. Nor is there much support provided to practising journos, whether attached to media organizations or working independently. In any event, we've promised to stay in touch on our respective efforts.
I was also reminded of some of the things I miss most about living and working in the States (of course, there's much I don't miss). Specifically, despite my best efforts, I didn't know the half of the tremendous proliferation of interesting media experiments happening all over the US. I lost count of the number of foundations and wealthy individuals funding journalism and investigative work of varying sorts. There were also a number of local news experiments (
this and
this were particularly interesting, and these examples don't even begin to scratch the surface on the local news front). I also learned of some neat university collaborations,
news literacy projects,
workshops and incubators, legal collaboratives,
global networks of reporters.... the list goes on. In short, a lot for us to learn from, and we'll share what we find with you as we get into the details.
On a final note, one of the major threads running through the conference (besides the "what the heck" stuff I mentioned earlier) was the need for journalism to be more "collaborative." There were a couple of examples of people doing apparently radical things like talking to each other and even going as far as sharing ideas and sources within and across news organizations! The horrors! I was a bit shocked, frankly, as none of these "radical" things seemed all that radical to me. I suppose I didn't appreciate how the old model, where resource constraints weren't so real, may have limited creativity quite so much. I'll leave it to
Dave Eaves to analyze that nut further.
Labels: David Eaves, Esther Kaplan, featured, media and citizens, The Nation Institute
Friday, April 17, 2009
Good idea of the day, hopefully the first of a series
In yesterday's post I complained that I wasn't reading enough about
what we little people could do (or are doing) to carve out some meaningful space for debate, discussion or action on our public challenges.
Well, leave it to my inspired colleague
Reva Seth to coincidentally pass on
this cool little storyabout two Brits who, after ranting in person and on
Facebook about those free commuter newspapers that litter public transit 'round the Western world, decided to offer an alternative. Called
"Choose What you Read," they hand out free books at various London Underground stations every Monday to encourage those who want an alternative to these insipid dailies. At its heart, however, is a desire to encourage diversity of thought and active choice about the ideas one consumes.
A small example, but an important one.
Worth a read, and a thought. Or two.
Labels: media and citizens, Reva Seth
Dispatch from McGill's Public Policy in Crisis #2
It has been nearly two weeks since I was in Montreal for the
Public Policy in Crisis conference, which I appreciate is a lifetime or two in blog-land. However, many of you* wrote to say that you enjoyed the dispatch so I thought I'd make it the first of at least two.
In Russell's analysis, crisis number one was our fiscal and economic policy (basically a badly- crafted budget that lacked consultation and ignored the economic crisis). The prorogation, he argued, improved this crisis by allowing the implementation, in record time, of a budget that was better and developed with debate and consultation.
With crisis number two, which is our policy for dealing with parliamentary government, especially in a minority situation, Russell argued that we Canadians are not so lucky. The request to prorogue laid bare the fact that too few of us, including the PM and his advisors, are either a) aware of or b) willing to adhere to the principles of parliamentary government or the functions of those within it. The details are less important, but the upshot is that if, like me, you a)believe we're in for a series of minority parliaments in the years to come and/or b) want to improve the function of government in Canada, we should do our part to learn a little more about how it's supposed to work.
Fortunately, Russell and a gaggle of experts constitutional have made this a little easier for us by
writing down the rules in the Toronto Star. He also pointed out that, "we're not in good shape if a handful of constitutional experts need to say this when... we need consensus [among the governing party and the public] for Parliament to work and we don't have that." So please do your bit!
He closed with a small rant on the weakness of our Parliament and its disconnect from policy making and from citizens (incidentally, one of my hobby horses of late). Proving he was an equal opportunity critic (the PM and his crew took a real beating), he expressed frustration at the sentiments of one Liberal MP, who said in this Parliamentary session his party would focus on enforcing the government's "probation," rather than proposing policy ideas that can be stolen by the Tories. "Have we not had enough?" Russell asked. "Policies should be discussed!" Amen.
*I say many meaning more than "a couple," however as a new blogger I am heartened by any reader feedback, so please keep it coming! And feel free to use the comments section too.
Coming up: More dispatches, this time from the Reva and David Logan Investigative Reporting Symposium I attended in Berkeley this past weekend. It reminded me of a few things I missed about living in the U.S., in particular, the willingness of private philanthropy to step in creatively in issues of public importance (although not always for the right reasons or with good outcome). If your curiosity is getting the better of you,
Mark Glaser blogged from the event. See his
April 4 and
5 posts.
Labels: media and citizens
Shameless friend plug: The importance of making it happen in public life
Congrats to my friend
Naheed Nenshi on this
wonderful profile in the Calgary Herald. It is terrific to see a media story on someone like him, who mixes smarts, passion and
community activity to make a difference to the quality of life in our cities.
I have known Naheed since my first days at McKinsey & Co in Toronto. For awhile, he was obstensibly my manager, but largely due to the bonding that takes place between policy geeks working in management consulting, we soon became friends.
While we were nefariously starting
Canada25 after hours, Naheed often stopped by to offer his help. "No job too big or small," he said. Quite quickly, he was promoted from midnight photocopy boy (!) and skillfully undertook the thankless, unpaid task of summarizing the contributions of hundreds of young Canadians into a sassy policy document,
Building Up, that
still resonates today.
I'm proud of my friend and hope his story encourages many of you as it does me.
Labels: Canada25, media and citizens, Naheed Nenshi