A disrespectful headline

In all the servile coverage of the British royal family's wedding plans for Prince William and Kate Middleton, I am pleased that nobody has published a headline such as

Royals select latest brood mare

Same old job description: Produce an heir and a spare

That would be disrespectful.

Here’s some honest feedback

Are books dead? I say no.

Are book publishers dead? That’s a tougher question.

Is literacy dead at book publishers? Apparently so.

At least it lies whimpering in the gutter at McGraw-Hill Ryerson, according to an email notice of a survey conducted by the venerable Canadian company in October 2010. The message I received announced:

This customer survey has been designed to help McGraw-Hill Ryerson refine our skills and knowledge in order to offer you the best customer experience possible.

Our shared purpose is to be the leading learning solutions provider source:

- dedicated to excellence

- recognized for our collaborative learning solutions

- enabling instructor’s to provide the best learning experience possible for their students.

We ask for your honest feedback.

OK, here's some.

Please translate into English: "the leading learning solutions provider source."

Please learn to use apostrophes properly: "instructor’s."

Then you can ask me to fill out a survey. Or to buy a book. Preferably one written in proper English.

A mighty voice, barely heard

Almighty Voice and His Wife, a compelling piece of theatre playing in Winnipeg, lacks only one thing: a good-sized audience.

It’s a double retelling of the story of Almighty Voice, an Aboriginal man killed in 1897 by the Northwest Mounted Police in Saskatchewan. His original offence: Killing a cow owned by the government.

The first act tells the story conventionally, ending with the death of Almighty Voice.

The second act imagines Almighty Voice and his wife as characters in a Victorian entertainment, tormenting each other while singing and dancing their hearts out but ultimately unable to escape their original story.

Derek Garza as Almighty Voice and P.J. Prudat as White Girl inhabit the characters brilliantly, particularly when they don whiteface for the second act.

The play, written by Daniel David Moses and directed by Michael Greyeyes, is serious but not depressing. There are liberal doses of the sidesplitting humour and wordplay that characterize much Aboriginal drama. Think of the possible meanings of Chief Magistrate, for example.

Oh yes, there’s sex, too.

What a shame, then, that many of the seats in the Rachel Browne Theatre in downtown Winnipeg were empty at the Sunday matinee that I attended.

Get your tickets from Theatre Projects Manitoba for $20, less for students.

Almighty Voice and His Wife plays in Winnipeg until Nov. 14 and in the J.R.C. Evans Theatre at Brandon University on Nov. 17 and 18.

Untold stories of social media

Social media, especially Facebook and Twitter but also a host of others, are changing the way we live, learn and communicate.

Facebook claims 500 million active users; on any day, half of them log on.

That’s a lot of users for a six-year-old system, a lot of users and a lot of stories.

Odd, then, that nobody has yet told the Facebook story in a really engaging way.

The movie The Social Network focuses tightly on Mark Zuckerberg, the nerdy Harvard student and entrepreneur who started it all and became the world’s youngest billionaire after surviving the usual lawsuits.

But the movie fails to tell even one story about a Facebook user whose life has been changed by the medium.

Catfish is a bit better. A self-indulgent New Yorker goes looking for love on Facebook and finds that all is not as it seems.

But the unbelievable, unsympathetic protagonist and the annoying pixilated transitions suck much of the life out of this one. Bring back star wipes!

Searching for a good story about the effects of new media, I fell for a review by Hal Espen in the New York Times of a book about the Washington Post, the first American newspaper to take online news seriously and invest seriously in it. Espen proclaims:

This excruciating, suspenseful inter­regnum between the dying of print prosperity and the rise of minimally commensurate digital profits is itself a huge story, and the version playing out at The Washington Post has been singularly dramatic.

But Morning Miracle: Inside the Washington Post; A Great Newspaper Fights For Its Life by Dave Kindred turns out to be a disappointing sentimental tour through an old-fashioned newsroom.

So come on, writers and critics. It’s time to prophesize with your pen.

Powerful journalists, conflicting visions

In the last week Creative Communications students have heard two powerful Canadian journalists argue for opposing visions of the future.

Margo Goodhand, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, told students on Oct. 21 that the iPad will save newspapers, including hers. She has asked for an iPad for Christmas, by which time she hopes her newspaper will be available on it.

But on Oct. 26 Dawna Friesen, television anchor of Global National, pooh-poohed the whole social media thing.

The Free Press is moving somewhat cautiously into the world of online journalism. Readership of its website is growing, particularly for big news stories such as last weekend’s double killing in the city. With circulation of the dead-trees edition slowly sinking, online is the obvious way to go.

Goodhand’s vision involves the withering away of the newspaper into just two departments, news and advertising. No more presses, no more trucks.

Friesen, who described herself as an “old fart” and “dinosaur,” is much cooler on this newfangled stuff, especially Twitter and blogging.

Her bosses want her to tweet, she reported. Hmm … that’s often a strong hint of the proper course of action. But her most recent tweet was almost three weeks old.

"What am I supposed to say?” Nobody would be interested that she just had a coffee, she told us.

After some love-bombing by students, who are required to maintain a Twitter feed and a blog, Friesen acknowledged that maybe she should give social media another chance.

Sure enough, within a couple of hours she tweeted three times, including once about being hungry for a cinnamon bun.

Good on her for trying it again. Let’s follow her Twitter feed to see how she keeps it up.

Goodhand does not tweet but her newspaper is quite active on Twitter. And it is experimenting with online delivery, including a surprisingly addictive live streaming traffic cam at one of Winnipeg’s contentious new traffic circles.

From my online consumption of journalism I would say that many newspapers and magazines are moving online faster than broadcasters, with notable exceptions such as BBC and CBC.

The old farts and dinosaurs need to catch up with the students.

Found poetry?

I found this.

Harman

Machine wash in cold water

Separately. Do not mix with

Dark colors. Do not use bleach.

Lay flat to dry. Iron if necessary.

Is it poetry?

You just can't look away

The online coverage of the sentencing of Russell Williams for his reign of depravity has been impossible to ignore.

As The Globe and Mail reported: "Col. Williams was formally convicted Tuesday of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of sexual assault and forcible confinement and 82 fetish burglaries in which he stole women’s underwear and other intimate items."

I found The Globe's blogging, updated every two to five minutes, impossible to stay away from. On Monday my Journalism students and I spent several hours following it.

Several students commented, from strikingly different points of view, on their blogs.

Jessica Cable says some events shouldn't be tweeted about, and provides a couple of startling examples.

Tammy Karatchuk says that just because we can divulge horrifying details instantly, that doesn't mean we should.

Shelley Cook asks whether editors wondered if pictures of Williams wearing women's and girls' underwear would offend the legitimate cross-dressing community.