Where's The Community Spirit?

Maybe it's because I'm a small town kid and have seen what good comes when a community comes together. Maybe it's because I'm a "glass half full" kind of guy and always look for the best in people.  Maybe it's because I try to inject some positive energy into everyone's lives.  But I've been absolutely perplexed about some of the things I've seen in Calgary recently.

When I was first thinking about writing this blog, the first thing that came to mind was that I was getting tired of all the negativity out there.  Then there was a bit of anger.  And now it's curiousity.  And that curiousity surrounds one particular topic: where is all of the community spirit?

I know I've beaten around the bush on this topic before, in particular when it comes to bike lanes in this city. I don't want to call it NIMBY-ism (Not In My Back Yard).  Because I don't think that's always the case.  I think it stems specifically from people not understanding how something can benefit their community, mainly because they're wrapped up in how it will benefit (or hinder) them personally.

Let's take bike lanes.  Many of those opposed to the lanes think about them in terms of "it's going to affect my drive home."  They look for the days when there's no one on the lanes and they complain about how no one uses them.  They will see people on them on certain days but turn the other cheek.  They also fail to realize that this is an option that others could potentially use.  Weirdly enough, if you're a driver, you should be cheering on those using the lanes.  Why?  Because it will mean fewer people driving.  That'll have spin-off consequences, like less congestion, and maybe even cheaper parking (because fewer people needing spots means decreased demand which should, in theory, mean lower prices).

Let's take "green fields".  How many stories have we heard about a community being built with a green space that is there only as a place-holder for a new school?  That community gets used to the green space or park, then the school board starts prepping for the school and everyone's all up in arms over how the school will affect them negatively.  When was the last time that a school was built just to become a blight on a community?  In a province that has a well-reported shortage of schools, you'd think communities would be chomping at the bit to get a school, so that their kids don't have to be bussed all over hell's half-acre just to get to class.  And for those who think it'll have a negative impact on housing prices: what?  You don't think families moving to the area won't be willing to pay a pretty penny to live right across the street from a school?

Let's take CalgaryNEXT.  The arguments are just beginning on this one.  I did a little research on this a few years ago, and then-Mayor Ralph Klein had a heck of a time convincing the people of Victoria Park that their area was perfect for an arena.  There were rumblings at one point that the Saddledome would be built out near Airdrie if the community wouldn't back down.  Eventually, it was powered through and people seemed pretty happy (at the time anyways) about the end result.  It was sold as a community gathering place, for the Flames, the Olympics, concerts and more.  I know times have changed, NHL salaries are much different, the public opinion on professional sports has shifted, etc.  But you can't use the argument that "I'll never use it" because there are thousands of people who would, for a myriad of purposes.

Let's look at the most-recent controversy.  The southwest BRT (bus rapid transit) proposal going down 14th Street.  Some residents say they haven't been consulted properly.  They packed into an open house on Tuesday and it reportedly turned ugly.  Ugly enough that Mayor Naheed Nenshi decided to cancel remaining open houses.  He says there was some pushing and shoving, some verbal exchanges and even an alleged threat.  Some residents have valid concerns and arguments, I won't question that.  Yet, it's the loud and, dare I say, belligerent few who are ruining it for the rest.

And that's the problem with all arguments in politics lately.  The loud voices are drowning out the reasonable majority.  If you're against something, the "other side" is going to lump you in with the vocal minority.  If you're a fiscal conservative, you must be a full-blown conservative.  If you're socially progressive, you must be a full-blown liberal.  That's what it's actually like out there now.  So if you're part of the reasonable middle on any topic, you end up getting upset at both sides.  We now have this inability to rationally debate and discuss what could be making our communities better.  It's become extremely adversarial.  "You're either with us or against us."  Even the slightest hint that you might be questioning something lumps you in with the rest of the dissenters.  We all need to grow thicker skin and not be so afraid to offend the opposition, but also not be afraid of being offended.

By no means am I advocating or dissenting against any of the above projects, because I actually see the pros and cons to all of them.  All I'd like to see happen is that everyone takes a deep breath to make sure they understand and respect the "other side" of the debate.  We need to be civil in these discussions.  We need to be fully educated on the projects and the options available.  We need to be able to see the GOOD and BAD in order to make the best decision possible for our communities.

But most of all, we need to get back some sense of community spirit.  Build back up that "can do" attitude instead of hunting for the reasons why not to do something.  It's the only way we'll build the "world class city" so many claim they want.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

What does the future have in store for "traditional media" and journalism?

That's the big question as the last couple of years have really been tough on the industry.  It's particularly been difficult over the last few weeks, as PostMedia has merged newsrooms in a handful of markets, including Calgary, where the Sun and Herald are essentially one and the same now.  It led to a lot of layoffs of some extremely talented people who did some great things for Calgary and for Alberta.

This has led to a number of conversations ranging from the "eventual demise of print" to "how many stories will go untold" to "will the same thing happen to TV and radio."

I don't want to re-open those discussions and I don't pretend to know all the answers.  Make no mistake, I have my ideas and inklings on what could be on the horizon.  Maybe one day I'll share them all.  But I wanted to blog about just how much change I've seen in my fairly short career.

It's actually quite amazing to think how much has changed since I started in radio.  I marked my 10th year in the industry last July (July 15th, 2005) and my 5th year during this second stint in Calgary (August 3rd, 2010, although I did spend 14 months here in 2007-2008).

So to take you back to 2005 in Lloydminster, we have a pretty basic website.  There was no "news" component to it.  You couldn't listen live to the station.  It was essentially a place for us to blog and post biographies.  I don't even think I had the capability of posting stuff on my own.

My first stop in Medicine Hat in 2006-2007 was pretty much the same.  I think we played around on MySpace and a little Facebook at that point but it was still really basic.  For news, we'd update it once a day by emailing the stories to someone upstairs (newsroom was downstairs).

In Calgary in 2007-2008, it was a little more involved.  We still weren't pushing anything on social networks (or we were just starting) and the web was starting to become a more regular thing.  But it wasn't really a major part of the day-to-day operations.

It wasn't until my next stop in Medicine Hat from 2008-2010 that I noticed a monumental shift.  We were actually considered to be "cutting edge" in the 'Hat, as we were pumping stories out on the web as fast as we were putting them on-air.  We were pushing those stories onto Facebook and Twitter by 2009.  The web was quickly becoming the place to go for news.

Then I came back to Calgary in 2010.  I remember helping launch new Twitter and Facebook accounts in early-2011.  By 2012, the website and those two mediums had almost eclipsed the on-air side when it comes to "what's important" for a newsroom.

This has led to a few challenges, to say the least.  As mentioned in a previous post, spelling and grammar of the written word suddenly became important again.  For a radio guy, I've only ever really known it as "if I can say it, that's all that matters."  Now punctuation matters.  You need to make sure past, present and future tenses are consistent through a story (I'm still bad for that).  And then there's the more-obvious challenges, like trying to focus on what actually makes the station money (radio) versus where many people are going to get their news (online) and how you strike that balance to make sure you're making everyone happy.

The most interesting part of this is when I look at where I am in my career now.  I've had this discussion with a few friends, as we've debated what's next for our industry.  We've actually been witness and been a part of that shift from on-air only to on-air & online.  We understand the importance of the platform we have with the traditional media outlets, in terms of making voices heard and providing a place for discussion you can read, see or hear.  We also understand that the online portion can supplement that discussion, or act as a completely different arm of that discussion.  I went to a conference in 2014 where some young broadcast students admitted to not having cable.  How do these wanna-be TV stars expect to understand the on-air portion when they don't even watch the evening news?  On the flipside, there are those in the industry who think the web is an inconvenience and they shouldn't have to bother with it.  In what world does it make sense to completely write-off a possible generation of readers/listeners/viewers, only because you don't want to deal with the big, bad internet?

And that's where we get to the crossroads of this industry.  I talked about this a bit on my last post.  But how do you successfully integrate online into your already-established platform?  And how do you make sure that already-established platform stays relevant in an ever-increasing online world?  Will the readers/viewers/listeners be okay with the growing pains or will they turn to other avenues (if they haven't already) to get their information?  And if the already-established local platform does die off, will the online be close behind (because where do you think many of those "sites with some local news" actually get their local news from?)

Having seen as much change as I have in the last few years, I can only imagine what more is on the way.  I wish I could predict even a fraction of it, just so that I knew what we were getting ourselves into.