It has been a hectic couple weeks since we returned from out west; catch-up sure can be a killer. Either way, I’m not letting my overly-tired ass stay put tonight, tomorrow, or Friday, as Toronto becomes ground zero for some of the most exciting conversation in online news, citizen journalism, and media democracy.

Thanks to Lisa Rundle, I’ve got ring-side seats for what is sure to be one of the week’s more exciting events: CBC’s The Future of the Future of News forum. Sparks are sure to fly when Andrew Keen and Leonard Brody go head-to-head on the topic of citizen journalism. Andrew is the author of The Cult of the Amateur — a book that refuses to accept that the Web is changing the rules — and Leonard is the founder of Now Public, a Vancouver-based citizen journalism start-up that is catching mainstream attention.  read more »

Marc Fest (Director of Communications at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation) asked me to pass this on:

The Knight News Challenge contest awards $5 million for innovative media ideas, however the October 15 application deadline is quickly approaching. The streamlined application takes less than 20 minutes. Anybody worldwide has a chance to win. For more information and to apply visit www.newschallenge.org.

The Knight News Challenge is one of the more innovative funding models that I referenced recently in a post about changing technology funding practices. Their approach to granting — both the application process and the fast, iterative funding cycles — is having a catalyzing effect, and a noticeable impact, on the shape of local news around the world.

If you’re involved with a citizen or local media project: get that pencil sharpened and start writing.

On Monday night, my partner Melanie took me to see a film that many might call life-changing. Viva Zapatero paints a startling picture of a crippled independent media in modern-day Italy and the implications that has for Italian civil society. It’s a documentary told through the personal experience of political satire artist Sabina Guzzanti that lays naked what is possible today in the current political reality of many countries in this world. Unstopped media consolidation, blatant corruption, backward libel laws and the targeting of journalists with lawsuits, spineless public representatives, and coerced publishers and broadcasters all pave the way for censorship, propaganda, and a complete disintegration of the Italian media environment. Again, this is happening today. read more »

The Tyee does a great job igniting the conversation on net neutrality in Canada. Thanks to the Save the Internet campaign, many folks up here know about the issue as it relates to the Telcoms in the US; however, as The Tyee points out, the issue is flying under some radars here in Soviet Canuckistan.

The examples of overzealous Canadian Telcos that have tried to shut down free speech are important to document, and to bring people’s attention to. For me, this is the heart of the issue: an independent, grassroots, media is a critical part of a functioning democracy, and net neutrality is critical part of a functioning independent media. The article does a great job laying the issue out (and you should read it, and sign the petition!), and I specifically wanted to draw attention to the comments of one of my favourite, tireless, freedom fighters — Russell McOrmond: read more »

This is just a quick re-cap of my speaking notes from a gathering that Dawn Buie, Matt Thompson, and I pulled together at the tail end of the Independent Press Association’s conference earlier this year. I felt that it was important to re-visit these thoughts, and to publish them here, as Magazines University approaches next week. A lot has happened since that gathering in San Francisco — a gathering that brought together people from Briarpatch, This Magazine, The Tyee, Maisoneve, and New Internationalist — and there are several conversations underway toward both a national Canadian gathering to explore these possibilities and several smaller events at a regional level to ensure that the necessary work happens at the grassroots and grasstops… but more on that later. First, the (slightly edited) transcript of that conversation: read more »