Free information -- for a little work

Freedom-of-information legislation can unlock government files but not all bureaucrats know how to use it, Red River College Journalism students have discovered.

Sometimes you need to ask a librarian.

At the start of the Creative Communications term in the fall of 2009, I assigned the second-year Journalism majors to see what secrets they could dig out from the Manitoba government and the City of Winnipeg.

Now the Winnipeg Free Press has published the intriguing results. Wendy Sawatzky, the paper's online content manager, worked with the students to prepare their stories for publication.

Guided by Mary Agnes Welch, the newspaper's public policy reporter, the students paired up to create 11 requests for information ranging from wait times on the city's controversial 311 telephone information system to the workings of its cash-grabbing red-light cameras.

At the outset, the system generally worked well. In most cases the freedom-of-information co-ordinators in government responded to the requests within 30 days as the law requires.

But after that, it was as organized as the Wild West.

Some civil servants helpfully provided the information at no charge. Some said it would cost hundreds of dollars. Some said it was already available free and pointed the students to the source.

The students persisted. Some revised their requests so that the information could be found within the two free hours of searching that the legislation provides.

Then there was the bureaucrat who insisted that the requested information about the ages of people convicted of impaired driving did not exist, and that creating the software to find it would cost thousands of dollars.

That didn't sound right to students Joel Marcoux and Heather McGowan. They dug deeper, and they found an information hero in Leesa Girouard, a librarian at the Manitoba Legislative Library.

She found their answers and charged them 30 cents for photocopying. Oh, and they had to drop 50 cents into a parking meter while they visited the Leg.

Props to the helpful librarian who knows more about how to access information than one of the official guardians.

World's worst book cover

Is this the world's worst book cover? The ugliest? The most geeky?

Clip art, anyone?

What slippery surface is our winsome lass sliding down? A book page? If so, it must have the consistency of wet concrete to sustain those scratches. But why don't her knees or any other body parts leave marks?

Why is her ponytail undisturbed by her fall?

What is she staring at?

How can her Simpsons-style three-finger hands leave four tracks? Why doesn't her thumb leave any?

Poor girl. Even if she breaks her fall, she won't be able to stand straight, handicapped with legs of different lengths.

But the competition for world's worst book cover is tough. Even a brave author can criticize the cover of her own book.

How much harm does a bad book cover do, anyway?

In he case of The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, it ain't just the cover that's bad.

Page 73: "Any reviewer should be aware of these differences so if they are asked to do a pre-publication review of a book instead of a post-publication review, they will keep the use of such in mind."

Page 106: "Try to review books in the order in which you receive them. This will help in keeping up with deadlines and is only fair to the person who submitted it."

Any more rhetorical questions?

This is a Tiger Woods-free zone

Not going to mention him.

Or link to any of the many sources of information, disinformation or prattle about him.

Not even to the New York Post copies of his inane alleged text messages to Bimbo.

A writer he ain't.

Wanna read love songs?

Pick up the Song of Solomon, especially the King James Version.

Wanna hear yearning?

Check out anything Lucinda Williams has written or recorded.

Forget it, Tiger. You don't qualify to compete on this tour.

Go play with your balls.

Censorship or moderation?

Websites, blogs and other online commentary are the Wild West of modern discourse: loud, full of colourful characters, and far from the law.

This raucous intercourse is creating new communities.

That exciting prospect drives entrepreneurs such as Keith Bilous, whose company ICUC Moderation Services helps organizations encourage and manage online feedback about their products.

"I don't believe in censorship," the energetic Bilous declared to Creative Communications students at Red River College on Dec. 1, 2009. During his vigorous exchange with students, Bilous sipped on a soft drink manufactured by one of his clients that is not Pepsi.

Well, who does believe in censorship? Other than government of China, that is.

The Web has effectively ended real censorship. Anyone who wants to say something can find a way to say it to the world.

But that does mean that any particular website or blog must cary that person's comments. Every online source is responsible for its content, whether that content is created by a staff person, a customer of the company or anyone else. Controlling that content is not censorship, it's moderation.

For example, on Nov. 23, 2009 the Globe and Mail, a deadly serious Canadian newspaper, published an online story about a toddler who had died in a fall at Pearson Airport. Instantly the comments went up -- anonymously, of course -- including one accusing the child's mother of committing a criminal offence.

That's the classic definition of defamation in Canada: saying something false that lowers the reputation of a person in the minds of right-thinking members of the community.

The Globe did remove the comment from its website a few minutes after it was posted. That's moderation, not censorship.

Of course, while the comment was online, some people read it. I read it and copied it. Then I discussed it with my Journalism students.

Hurray for moderation.

A mobile black hole of information

To the dark-clad bicyclist sneaking through predawn Winnipeg at 7 a.m. today (the one who jerked toward the curb on Bannatyne Avenue when he or she finally spied the headlights on my car): You're not invincible, you're just invisible.

Dark street, dark bike, dark clothing: you're a mobile black hole of information.

How about investing in a bit of reflective clothing? A light or two? Anything to provide information for drivers and protect your sorry butt.

Information is life, my friend. If you value yours, you'd better provide some.

A privileged witness to history

Dawna Friesen (left) talks journalism

with student Emily Baron Cadloff

 (John Pura, Red River College)

Journalists are privileged observers of troubling events, an Emmy award winner told students at Red River College on Nov. 20, 2009.

Reporting from the Gaza Strip and Iraq reminded Dawna Friesen, London correspondent for NBC News, just how privileged reporters are. As she was covering stories in those violent areas, citizens would beg her to help them leave, she said.

Friesen, a graduate of the Creative Communications program, was honoured by the college as a distinguished alumna. 

Before the alumni dinner, Friesen recounted highlights of her career and dropped some nuggets of advice for current students in the program.

Double-check your work, she said -- especially when you are taking information from unverified sources such as Twitter. Postings on social media from people on the scene provided vital information during recent post-election unrest in Iran, whose government severely restricted reporting and even arrested and tortured journalists.

Friesen's bottom line on her job as an international television journalist? "It's not a glamorous life."

She told a vivid story about getting sick after eating lousy food in one unpleasant corner of the world.

But it's worth it Friesen said.

"You're witnessing history."

Horizontally bisected eyelids

Screw good writing.

Here's some bad stuff.

My nomination for the dubious title of worst-written book set in Winnipeg – in the 21st century, anyway: Langside, self-published in 2006 by prolific Vancouver punk Chris Walter.

Check out Page 22 for the comma-free musings of Walter’s lovelorn protagonist Sky:

“But of all the features that captivated him it was Cindy’s eyelids that made his heart burst with desire. Her heavy lids made her appear as if she had just woken from a long and restful sleep. Bisected horizontally with a gentle crease the lids covered her beautiful brown eyes like a curtain of the most delicate material known to man.”

Walter vomits his creations on the world through GoFuckYerself Press.

Hey, you! Got a better nomination?