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Locked-Out Journalists Turn To Podcasting
An anonymous reader writes "An Interesting Canadian Press article is up on the Macleans website discussing locked out union journalists podcasting to stay on the air. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation locked out 5,500 unionized employees Aug. 15 over a contract dispute. Most of those walking the picket line are radio, TV and internet journalists and technicians. In the last few days, they've been cranking out podcasts - locked out folks in Fredericton, New Brunswick; Regina, Saskatchewan; Vancouver, British Columbia and other cities have all participated. Some have 'real news', music and interviews. Others are more propaganda-like. A whole batch of them are at www.cbcunplugged.com."
Some have 'real news', music and interviews. Others are more propaganda-like.
So basically it's no different than your normal CBC broadcast.
[rim shot]
Thank you.. I'll be here all week.
I'm in Fredericton, and I can see them out my appartment. They get a lot of honks from cars passing by, thats how they keep my attention, errrrr....
I suggest we go in there, drop a few EMP bombs, throw a few ICBMs (to remind the world we still have 'em), and go in there and LIBERATE THOSE JOURNALISTS!
I hear there's oil, too. LET'S ROLL!!
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Can't even browse old programs
Am I the only one who mistaked this for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?
This podcast made possible by listeners like you. Thank You!
am I the only one who read "Locked-Out Journalists Turn To Procrasting"
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Turning a large group of professionals loose with a medium like this would make me very nervous if I owned a TV station! :)
Agile Artisans
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
this is just further proving that podcasting is enhancing free speech
I don't know why, but I hate the buzz word "podcasting". It's streaming audio, and it was streaming audio years before the blog generation even discovered it existed. I'm still amazed by people's reactions when I tell them the ambient music in my apartment is being streamed from an online radio station from shoutcast.
1. Create a mp3
2. Put it on a website
3. ???
4. Postcast podpod castpost castpod!
A good friend of mine works with the cbc, and trust me, they want to work! Its especially depressing to see here in nothern New Brunswick since on the same street in Bathurst, there are also hotel workers on strike, nurses and healthcare workers on strike, and a mill that just shut down with a days notice, laying off about 500 people just down the road.
Two words: firefox + adblock
Good thing too, you don't want those un-ionized employees going about stealing everybody's ions.
I wonder where they were locked though... In a Faraday cage, maybe?
What ads?
One of the funniest things I've read about the lockout is how the CFL broadcasts have improved their ratings since they've gone play-by-playless.
http://adblock.mozdev.org/
Or get a browser that doesn't run slow as molasses. CoughOperaCough
"Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
Also look up flashblock.
They need to totally redo that website. Right now it's definitely got a "we're mad, and we're podcasting" feel to it. I thought, hey, let's see what the journalists are reporting about! Maybe they're some creative people who've been locked out! Let's listen to them. And the message I got was "We're mad, and we're podcasting."
They've missed the important point: you have to podcast about something. You can't just podcast. Look at the links on the right -- do you see all the journalists? All listed right there. Hey! They're podcasting! Yes, but what the frack are you podcasting about? It's like looking at a TV guide that says:
7pm: Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping
8pm: Joe Flanigan, David Hewlett
9pm: Edward James Olmos, Katee Sackhoff
which, if you're not already fans of Stargate and Battlestar Galactica, gives you no information and doesn't compel you to watch the show.
Un-ionized? Yeah, that' the last thing you'd want in journalism... neutrality.
Working in tandem with the un-ionized journalists they will canada the first plasma screen visable from space. But they still won't have anything to say.
We are all just people.
I don't think it makes a difference. The Flash plugin uses 100% of my CPU on that and a few other ads. Well, it did. Now it's motivated me to just disable Flash unless I actually want to use it (the occasional Flash game).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It is the flash ad, not the browser.
As for flash ads, they need to be burned a million times over.
I too am also in Fredericton, here is the link to the local blog on the issue: http://frederictonguild.blogspot.com/ What caused this lockout is this, the management wants to bust the union and be able to hire contract/short term workers for half the salary or less than that of current workers. The current workers are not fighting for more money, but for job security, for themselves and new people comming into the workplace. Its the same thing that happened to a lot of industries/companies in the 90's. What irks me the most, is that this is paid for by TAXPAYERS! They have been simulcasting the BBC news in the place of CBC news, and now that the workers at the BBC have found out, they are furious, as this says that they support the lockout, which they do not! Its low, and underhanded management that are trying to make a profit on a taxpayer based system.
Thats great info. Thanks. I'll be reading through the blog a little later. Its a shame what they are doing. I come from a union family (IBEW), so I know what all this is about and how it affect not only the employees but their family as well. Good luck to them.
When the NHL players were locked out, we got to see decent movies every Saturday night.
Now that the CBC reporters are locked out, the quality of CBC programming has improved immensely.
I love it!
Looked to me like a blog, with a bunch of CBC staff babbling about irrelevant trivia like most bloggers do. I can't see why anyone would want to download an audio version of the same inane comments that were in text.
Guess I just must be too old. I still phone people instead of texting, I read forums and news sites instead of blogs, and I expect "news" to have some validity and fact-checking behind it. Guess I'd have to be young and "cool" to understand why downloaded MP3 talk-only audio is a "podcast" instead of just being an MP3.
Unless the POD part stands for "Piece Of Drek" -- then it makes sense. ;)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It's good to see these former minions of the Mainstream Media cutting loose and popularizing freer forms of communication and reporting.
However, they're probably cutting their own throats, since they're the folks benefiting most from the old way of doing things. They're propagating themselves out of jobs.
Which is fine by some of us. Probably not their intent. Watch them all scurry right back to 'credible big broadcast' mediums as soon as they can.
resigned
I found the few MP3s that are actually on the site, and it seems that these goofs think you need 128KBit near-CD quality stereo MP3s for someone to talk! 20KBit mono is more than adequate for talk-only MP3s, and would save huge amounts of bandwidth.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The CBC seems to really enjoy making their stuff avaliable. I mean they have a bunch of shows on podcasts such as Quirks and Quarks. Heck they even have one of their comedy shows (royal canadian air farce) avaliable online a few days after it was aired so you can watch it online.
Any Slashdot story mentioning Canada or Canadians always results in less than 259 comments, so why bother posting them? They're about on par with response to games.slashdot.org.
A quick search of Slashdot with the word Canada brings up 9 Canadian stories in the last two months alone (2 are sort of multinational) that have greater than 259 comments.
Instead of bitching about it, I suggest you simply don't click on Canadian-related stories.
One time i tried to plant a camping tent on gravel.
Can someone make a Firefox extension that replaces words with other less obnoxious words so I don't have to look at the buzzword and many others ever again You could create it under the guise of protection children from harsh language.
When you use a slogan made popular by a true hero for petty partisan purposes, and doubly so when you get modded up as insightful.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO