Generation Why: CBC News’ digital digest of must-read news for young Canadians

If you’re a Canadian under the age of 30, odds are you’re not reading a physical newspaper every morning or sitting down each night to watch the six o’clock news — but that doesn’t mean you’re not paying attention to the world around you.

Perhaps the ways you encounter information are a little less predictable, a little more serendipitous, than the ways your parents did when they were your age.

But a lot has changed since then.

Young people today have an unprecedented amount of access to information from around the world. It comes at us constantly from a multitude of sources. In this fast-paced and ever-changing digital landscape, it’s easy to miss stories that are interesting, informative or useful.

Let’s find the best stories, together

Your peers at CBC News (self included!) are news junkies by profession, which means that we’re in a good position to keep watch for what’s new and notable. Like staff at a bookstore, we know our collection well and can help you find the best of it.

But we also know that you bring fresh perspectives to our news coverage, and may have different ideas about what should be at the top of our agenda. We really want to know which stories interest, enrage, excite or engage you.

That’s why we’ve launched Generation Why, a weekly interactive magazine curated by young Canadians for young Canadians.

Each week, readers under the age of 30 and young staffers collaborate to highlight the best content that CBC news and current affairs programming has to offer. 

Here are some example spreads:

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Our goal is not to talk at you, but with you.

The CBC audience is filled with sharp minds and great taste. It would be a shame not to collaborate and learn about which issues and ideas matter most to you.

How to become a contributor

To contribute follow these three steps.

Step 1: Choose one news or current affairs item from the preceding week that you think would appeal to, affect, or engage students and young adults in Canada.

Your item can be a story, a standout radio or TV interview, a documentary, a photo gallery, an interactive map, etc. As long as it’s CBC content we can link to online, it’s an option! (If it’s not online but should be, you can flag it for us, too. We’ll see what we can do.)

Step 2: Write a couple paragraphs (150 words max) about why this news item caught your attention and why you think other young Canadians might be interested, too.

Please feel free to write in your own voice and be conversational – the way you are when recommending links to your friends on Facebook, for example.

Step 3: Send us your write up and a link to your item, as well as your name, location and a photo of you. You can email your entry to community@cbc.ca with the subject line “Generation Why” or upload your submission to our member pages.

Would you like to design a cover? 

We are also interested in hearing from talented young artists and photographers who would like to have their work featured on the cover of the magazine. Please email community@cbc.ca for more information.

The deadline for written submissions is Friday at 12:00 p.m. ET every week. 

The magazine goes live Friday night, and is featured on the CBCNews.ca landing page every Saturday.

The format isn’t set in stone, either. We’ll be taking your feedback and suggestions on how to make it a reliable digest of the best CBCNews.ca has to offer from a youth perspective. This Monday, in fact, we’re having our very first open editorial meeting!

We thank you in advance for helping us build this resource.

- Fabiola Carletti and Lauren O’Neil
Members of the CBC Community team and ever-curious twenty-somethings

One woman’s blind date with the city of Toronto

Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present inspires local theatre student

By Fabiola Carletti
Originally published by the Toronto Star

Allison Leadley spent a day sitting with strangers in a public art experiment she called “exhausting, intense, intimate, funny, touching and totally overwhelming.” (Courtesy Allison Leadley)

Allison Leadley, 25, dragged two folding chairs to a busy Toronto intersection — then sat down, swallowed her terror, and waited.

The often-shy university student was stationed at the corner of Spadina Ave. and Queen St. W., in early March. The plan was to carve a space for intimacy in a notoriously uninviting city.

Leadley, a Halifax native who normally works backstage, had committed to nearly eight hours of sitting without eating, drinking or speaking at four different intersections. Her inspiration came from the prolific performance artist Marina Abramovic, who had done the same at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

“At first people were going out of their way not to notice me,” said Leadley, a first-year PhD student of theatre and performance at the University of Toronto.

“I started to worry that no one would sit down and that this was going to be a long and really lonely day.”

… continue reading

What would you like to ask CBC News?

I wrote this post for CBCNews.ca, and will be coordinating this project. You can view the original post here.

Have you ever wondered how journalists prepare for difficult interviews?
Or how reporters train for the dangers of conflict reporting?
Perhaps you’re curious about how a key investigation came together.

We want to make it easier for you to ask questions and get answers from the CBC News team across Canada and around the world.

As part of our ongoing effort to increase transparency and engage with our readers, we are launching a new online feature: Ask CBC News.

Here’s how it works.

You submit your question.

1) Think of a question. It can be about an editorial choice we’ve made, the story behind a story, or the important issues of the day. The best questions are open-ended and have a good shelf life.

Examples:

• Do you think Vladimir Putin will win Russia’s presidential election tomorrow?
  (Weak — This yes/no question may be outdated by the time it gets to the reporter.)
• How mainstream is the movement to oust Vladimir Putin? What are you hearing from average Russians and local media?
  (Strong — Open-ended question that draws on the reporter’s unique insight.)

2) Clearly indicate if your question is for a specific journalist. If it’s a general question, we’ll track down the best person to field it for you.

3) There are several ways in which you can submit a question:

• Email your question to yournews@cbc.ca with the subject line “Ask CBC News”
• Record yourself asking the question in a short video (upload here, or send us a link)
• Write your question in the comment thread below
• Tweet your question using the hashtag #AskCBCNews

The more thought and effort you put into your question, the more likely it will be answered.

Video questions stand the best chance of standing out and grabbing our attention. Your video will be included with the answer.

Don’t forget to introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from!

Our commitment to you

1) We will present your questions to CBC News reporters across Canada and overseas, who will record their answers in a video.

2) We will post the reporters’ responses on CBCNews.ca and share them on social media.

3) We will email you to let you know your question has been answered.

Please note that our goal is to have a video response to a couple of questions each week, but we may begin with bi-monthly posts in the early stages of the project.

Although we cannot guarantee every question will be answered, we will try our best to field as many as we can.

Ask CBC News is part of our broad mission to be even more accountable to Canadians. We view it as a great opportunity for reporters to connect directly to readers.

Here is an example of what a video reply might look like.

Thank you for reading us here at CBCNews.ca and tuning in on TV and radio. We hope to hear from you soon!

Words that always make you feel better

Image by Tanisha Pina on Flickr

I’ve been thinking about personal affirmations lately — those helpful declarations that get people through their dark nights of the soul.

Some people etch a soothing phrase onto their wall, or repeat it under their breath, or tattoo it onto their skin. It doesn’t matter if it’s cheesy or clichéd or naïve. All that matters is that they have a relationship with their statement, and they believe it to be true.

It’s an incantation. A mantra. An invocation of the divine.

My mother says “everything happens for a reason” as if no one else on the planet has ever uttered those words in that order.  Somehow, she takes ownership of that overused phrase, and puts it to work.

My friend Amanda has a cursive sentence encircling her wrist: “Write! Writing is for you.” Her eyes sparkle when she speaks of the passage that inspired her ink and continues to drive her work. She doesn’t seek approval of it.

My brother once wrote a heartfelt song for his high school rock band. When he sang the refrain, he would close his eyes and sing from his soul: “No. I cannot be bothered by this.”

In a world of complexity, it strikes me how simple these affirmations can be. They remind us that our inner dialogue is powerful, and that we need to be conscious of the things we’re saying to ourselves — especially the things we say over, and over, and over again.

I’m going to wonder about this for my own purposes, but not aggressively.
Maybe my affirmation already lives in me.

Meantime, I’d be delighted to hear from you. Do you have a personal mantra?

Getting even googlier with Google+

Source: xkcd.com

Pardon me, am I too late to be an early adopter of Google+?

The service launched on June 28 in an invite-only “field testing” phase. Since then, roughly 20 million people have already blown past me. (Mostly geeks, let’s be honest — but ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.)

Still, maybe I can be among the first crop of journalists to tinker with this new-ish tool. (Too often we reporters play catch up, or even lapse into laggard status.)

The Everett Rogers Technology Adoption Lifecycle model (CC)

Why my sudden interest? Well, I’ve received a handful of invites to Google+ over email, but an old friend and reformed Twitter-phobe recently called me out publicly:

@fiercefab why aren't you on Google Plus yet? You got me to adopt Twitter, I'm I going to have the same discussion with you? —
Ron Sly (@RonSly) July 28, 2011

Ron Sly is a pretty reliable content curator, and I trust him despite his last name. So, today I put my reservations on hold — see: the googlization of everything — and have spent the last couple hours reading up on Google’s new brainchild.

Sure, the New York Times calls Google+ the latest “we wanna be Facebook” project, but also notes that this time it has really got a shot. Unlike underwhelming efforts like Google Buzz, some techies say G+ may actually dethrone Facebook the way Facebook dethroned MySpace.

I’ve come across myriad reasons to get in on the action, including many lists that cater to journalists specifically. Instead of linking a whole whack of ‘um, here’s the most comprehensive (sent to me by, surprise surprise, my buddy Ron Sly):

Read: Google+ for Journalists — A Primer

Anyway, since starting this blog post I stumbled upon a red button that instantly upgraded my Google profile to a G+ account … so I guess I’m officially an early adopter among journalists! Yay me!

Oh…

Dammit. Look who’s already here: Oh well. At least I’m not a laggard.

AWAKE and answer this: Are you your brother’s keeper?

Photo from expect.org/awake. Credit: Steve Carty

“Cain!” roared the pastor, his voice thundering throughout the church.

“Where is your brother?”

The audience shuffled. The pews creaked. We all knew Cain had murdered Abel — but in that moment, not even God could force a confession.

“I don’t know,” came the flippant reply. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The words ignited something in me that they never have before.  I’ve listened to the story of Cain and Abel many times but yesterday, in the context of a eulogy, I heard it.

This despite the fact that the whole funeral was staged. The sermon was the backbone of a play called AWAKE, which premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival this year. The audience had gathered to mourn the loss of all of the young men who have fallen to gang violence, especially in  St. Jamestown and Rexdale.

The playwrights call it “docu-theatre” –  The eulogy had originally been delivered at the real funeral of 19-year-old Justin Shephard. The script was made up of verbatim excerpts from actual interviews with community members: mourning mothers, shaken friends, hardened police officers, youth from “at-risk” communities. People like me.

The altar was a stage for gospel, dance hall, spoken word, flashing lights, and a symbolic casket.

Nadia Beckles, played by Beryl Bain, spoke of her son Amon. In 2005, the 18-year-old was gunned down at a funeral for his best friend. After the shooting, his mother ran out of the church and knelt by him, covering his wounds with her hands.

Then, in one of the most poignant moments of the play, she looks up in disbelief as police arrive and ask attendees if they know the victim.

She watches his friends turn away.  They say they don’t know Amon.

Where is your brother?

The Silence

A group of young men in the audience talked throughout the entire play, and I smiled to myself. Some people may have thought they were rude — and maybe they were — but their presence made me feel like I was home in Rexdale. To understand why, you only have to ride the Finch bus after the school bell rings, try to find a quiet corner at Albion library, or watch a movie at Rainbow in Woodbine mall. The buzz is everywhere.

Peyson Rock. Credit: Steve Carty

When the silence happens, it’s deafening. Something is usually wrong.

It’s the code, says Lauren Brotman on stage.

As “Smokey,” she recalls the number of stitches she needed on her face after her ex beat her up (six, no … seven). She was furious, but didn’t snitch. There are many complicated reasons for this, too many to list here, but the code is why Amon’s friends turned away. It’s why, as a reporter, I am used to writing “no witnesses have come forward” or “police say residents have been uncooperative.”

On stage, the pastor looks into the light.

“We are not all evil. We are not all guilty — but we are all responsible.”

The Story

To get to the story, playwrights Laura Mullin and Chris Tolley had to crack the code. They had to tap into that small part of every witness that feels responsible.

The pair stood, a bit shy, during the Q & A after the play.  A man asked them why they’d been moved to write the piece. They started by admitting they were not from ”at risk” neighbourhoods as the man let out a knowing laugh.

Their answer, if I make take allowances, is that they wanted to see if that silence could be broken, like bread among family, and shared.

“It was hard to get people to start talking, but once they did, they couldn’t stop,” said Mullin.

But after so many in-depth interviews, how were they supposed  to make characters, and not caricatures? Which threads were they to cut? St. Jamestown, Rexdale … these neighbourhoods are the definition of diversity. How could they do them justice?

Tolley spoke of a living room blanketed in interview transcriptions, of cultures within cultures they simply could not fit in. They couldn’t include immigration stories and other important neighbourhood nuances. Because I know Rexdale, and because I know reporting, I can appreciate the difficulty of their work.

But in the end, I believe they created something worth seeing.

They managed to tell a story that outsiders could appreciate and insiders could recognize — like bridging the gap between Jane Creba and Justin Shephard for an audience that could be coming from either side.

The Sincerity

At first, I cringed at the pastor’s words. They seemed theatrical, contrived — which would have made sense if they were written for the purposes of the play.

But then I looked at my church-going mother, who sat beside me in the dark church, and noticed that her eyes were sparkling.

He was preaching to his choir.

At one point, I tuned into conversation of the young men that wouldn’t shut up. They laughed when Knowledge (played by Peyson Rock), entered the room with his back to the wall. At all times, he explained, he needs to know exactly who is behind him.

At that, one guy blurted out: “truth.”

The play, I realized, is made up of many languages and no one speaks all of them fluently. Each actor, like each person, performed many roles — sometimes roles as disconnected as your street name and your given name. It’s up to us to make the connections.

If you’re in Toronto, I recommend you catch this play before the end of the Fringe Festival — especially if you feel nothing when you hear of these deaths.

Then go home and ask yourself: Where is your brother?

AWAKE, at the Toronto Fringe Festival

July 6-10 and 12 – 17
8:00 p.m. every night.
The Walmer Baptist Church
88 Lowther Avenue
Door: $11
Advance $10
Advance Ticket Sales: (416) 966-1062
or http://www.fringetoronto.com

TWITTER FEEDBACK

@FierceFab thank you for such a great review. What you said means a lot to us.—
Chris Tolley (@christolley) July 15, 2011

@FierceFab Thank you so much for seeing AWAKE and for your kind words!—
Laura Mullin (@expectlaura) July 15, 2011

AWAKE and answer this: Are you your brother's keeper?: wp.me/psrtk-SM #toronto #fringefestival—
Fatma Yasin (@FatmaYasin) July 16, 2011

A very nice piece on AWAKE by @FierceFab – a wonderful way to end the run. Last Show tonight @ 8PM #FringeTO is.gd/8xg7B0—
Chris Tolley (@christolley) July 17, 2011

Signing off with the Rally to Restore Sanity

In the lead up to the Rally to Restore Sanity, I linked to Jon Stewart’s gallery of sanest signs.

Now that the big event is over, I thought I’d skim the image galleries to find a few gems. There are bazillions to browse.
(Buzzfeed has posted their top 100 signs, The Huffington Post has a slew of funniest signs, etc.)

Even though I wasn’t there, and this is more of a self-indulgent collection than a public service, I thought I’d re-post some that made me chuckle.

Enjoy! (in moderation, of course)

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Toronto newspapers on their choice for mayor

Image by Fabiola Carletti

As a displaced Torontonian in Vancouver, I’ve been watching my city’s election coverage from afar.

Although polls are far from perfect, it’s been interesting to follow the numbers and try to guess at what the final tally will look like. For some time now, it’s been two-choice chatter in the T-dot: Will the next mayor be Rob Ford or George Smitherman? (Joe Pantalone being the only other highly-visible contender to have kept his name in the hat.)

I, for one, am not a betting woman. Suspense gives me the spins, so someone please tell me when it’s safe to look.

Anyway, since voting day is only one sleep away, I thought I’d round up the endorsement editorials of the four mainstream Toronto newspapers to save you a few google searches.

I’ve only included the beginning of the articles, and encourage you to click through for the full editorial.

Another day, another mayor.

George Smitherman. Photo by Shaun Merritt on Flickr.

The Toronto Star: George Smitherman

With eight days left in the municipal election campaign, three main candidates remain standing in the race for the Toronto mayoralty: Rob Ford, Joe Pantalone and George Smitherman. Each has endured the rigours of a gruelling, months-long campaign in a bid to serve Toronto’s 2.6 million people. Each deserves respect for his effort. But only one candidate has the proven political skill, government experience, commitment to change, negotiating ability, compassion, drive, determination and charisma that — taken together — would amount to an effective mayor. George Smitherman is that candidate. (Continue reading…)

The Globe and Mail: George Smitherman

Toronto is a city suffering from structural problems that need to be overcome over the next mayor’s four-year term. The voters now have a choice between two flawed candidates, neither of whom has a convincing account of how he will bring about these changes; a third does not accept the fact that the city is in any trouble.

Rob Ford’s standing in the polls is a loud and clear message from the citizens that all is not well – in particular that they are at the limit of their toleration for new taxes and tax increases. More than any other candidate, he has captured the mood of voters, who are frustrated, even angry. (Continue reading…)

Rob Ford. Photo by Shaun Merritt on Flickr.

The National Post: Rob Ford

Toronto desperately needs change at City Hall. Spending has increased 43% since outgoing mayor David Miller took office — salaries and benefits by 47%. Over that same time, revenue from user fees and permits rose nearly 30% and property tax revenue by nearly a quarter — far outstripping the city’s population growth. The city has anywhere from 15% to 25% more employees than it did in 1998, depending on whose numbers you go by, and very little to show for it. All candidates in this campaign agree the city faces a $503-million budget shortfall for 2011. (Continue reading…)

The Toronto Sun: Rob Ford

The current political regime in charge of City Hall needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new era where taxpayers come first. In this election, there is only one candidate running for mayor who is both promising that kind of profound change and who has a credible record indicating he’ll deliver it. That’s Rob Ford. He’s the only person running for mayor who can get this enormous job done. (Continue reading…)

—

So, who will be able to print the “we-told-you-so” headlines? In such a tight race, it’s hard to say.

Worth noting, though: when discussing the widespread “guesstimating” with a Calgarian friend, she reminded me of a simple point: Pollsters tend to call residential house phones and, as she asked matter-of-factly, “how many people under 30 do you know who have land lines?”

But does this mean the cell-phone-touting teens and twenty-somethings will show up in droves and confound the pollsters as they seem to have done (at least partially) for Nenshi in Calgary? Or will they vote for “x-men”?

(I know one 19-year-old who seriously plans to do just that.)

As much as I hate ending posts this way: only time will tell.

“Why resist if you’ve got nothing to hide?”

Photo by James D. Schwartz on Flickr

All I could do was shake my head when I saw this headline in today’s Star:

City council commends “outstanding” police G20 work: Ford says no inquiry needed, police were “too nice”

Excerpt: “After an emotional morning-long debate, city council has voted 36-0 to laud police Chief Bill Blair, the Toronto police services and other forces for their work on the G20 weekend . . . Councillor Howard Moscoe warned his colleagues: “By wrapping yourself in the flag on this particular motion you are actually doing a disservice to the police force,” by showing a lack of confidence that the review will vindicate their actions.”

Moscoe’s point is an important one. I’m not upset because I can prove G20 abuses, but precisely because I can’t. When some civilians hesitated to show their ID on principle, they were often told: “why resist if you’ve got nothing to hide?”

Well, where is that logic now?

Without a full public inquiry, it will continue to be official version versus the testimonies of citizens on the ground–and we know which version has more weight until real evidence of the contrary comes to light.

Although I’ve stressed in the past that no group has a monopoly on virtue or vice–there are good people on both sides–there’s also a real power differential to acknowledge here. We know that the police narrative holds more mainstream weight than do the voices of dissidents and people simply caught in the “wrong place, wrong time.”

When I hear that, I don’t think of a particular street corner on a particular weekend, I think of everywhere injustice occurs in our supposedly enlightened times. For instance, this man was nowhere near the red or yellow zone when he was confronted:

Do you believe him? What about the next man, who says that the police ate chocolate strawberries in front of starving and thirsty detainees?

Here are some of the testimonies that have convinced me that we need an independent reviewer to investigate the events that occurred in an unrecognizable city. If all these people are exaggerating, we need to know. Scarier yet, what if they’re not?

• Amy Miller (Montreal-based independent journalist for the Dominion):

“So you think you’re a journalist. You won’t be a journalist after we bring you to jail,” the 29-year-old recounted an officer saying to her in her complaint. “You’re going to be raped. We always like the pretty ones. We’re going to wipe the grin off your face when we gang bang you. We know how the Montreal girls roll.” (CBC)

• Matthew Beatty (Ajax high school teacher)

A volunteer legal observer with Movement Defence Committee (MDC) for the G20 weekend, Beatty was following a protest march down The Esplanade on Saturday evening when he was arrested. “I was on the sidewalks, never jeered or chanted with the crowd,” he said. He was handcuffed and put in a “cage” with 20 others at the Eastern Ave. detention centre. “There were 40 people in one cage — it was brutal, and it was cold.” People were asking for toilet paper to wrap their arms and legs because of the cold, he said. During 18 hours in custody, he was given three cheese sandwiches, three cups of water and a cup of flavoured juice. (Toronto Star)

• Tommy Taylor (Play director)

Detained for over 24 hours, found himself begging for water and passed out before he received some. Wrote a detailed and publically available Facebook account of his arrest, including assertions that a man with cerebral palsy, a man who had been leaving a restaurant with his partner, a 16-year-old boy, a TTC driver in full uniform and a homeless man (who asked “what’s a G2o?) were among those in the detention center with him. He says many were sent back onto the streets without charges, and without shoes. (Self-published testimony)

• Benjamin Elroy Yau (TTC driver)

“I told them I wasn’t resisting arrest, that I was on my way to work. I was in full uniform with TTC shirt, pants, full ID, my employee card, everything,” Yau said on Wednesday. “They said, ‘Really? Well, you’re a prisoner today.’” Yau was detained for 36 hours. The booking sergeant told him he was in the “wrong place at the wrong time,” said Yau, who’s worked for the TTC for three years and never been in trouble with the law. (Toronto Star)

UBC J-school students win prestigious US award

Lewis Kelly, 1st year UBC j-school student, shoots footage for a story about UBC farm

It’s that other j-school in the west—at least, that’s how I used to refer to the UBC School of Journalism.

Call me a self-centered Torontonian, but when considering graduates programs in journalism last year, I had my sights set on reputable Ryerson.

Nevertheless, I applied to the Vancouver program as a kind of flight of fancy, mostly wanting to contemplate the thought of skipping back three time zones and settling into that rainy city on the Pacific coast. (Okay, and maybe I thought it’d be pretty cool to report during the Olympics. Slight influence.)

Long story short: I ended up nixing my acceptance (and paid deposit) to Ryerson and making the last-minute switch.

After a wonderful first year at the school, I should really give the program some much-deserved kudos—especially given their students’ most recent accomplishment.

Ten students from the school’s International Reporting class, which is taught by former 60 Minutes producer and UBC Associate Professor Peter Klein, have won the Society for Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award, a top U.S. award in journalism.

The international reporting team put together an impressive news documentary called “Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground” on the global crumb trail of electronic waste. It aired on the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE/World last year.

The documentary is also nominated for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in the International Category.

Our director and Associate Professor Mary Lynn Young has called the recognition “a tremendous honour for a new, innovative Canadian journalism program.”

And Peter Klein is proud of his students as well:

“People work their entire careers to get either of these awards,” he said, “so it’s pretty special that our students achieved this recognition for the great work they’ve done.”

But before this all seems way too self-congratulating, I really have to encourage you all to see for yourselves:

Not only did the international reporting team make me rethink all the e-waste I’ve created in my time, they’ve also challenged me to see the word “student” as a mere modifier–and not a blight–on the word “journalist.”