andrewmcintyre.ca

As noted by the Inside the CBC blog, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has taken out their big black marker and begun heavily redacting their transcripts of supposedly public hearings related to the fate of the private broadcasters. How on earth does this “Independent Public Authority” justify these secretive practices? How can deliberately hiding this information “ensure that both the broadcasting and telecommunications systems serve the Canadian public” as is the CRTC’s stated mandate? The CRTC website states: “As an independent organization, the CRTC works to serve the needs and interests of citizens, industries, interest groups and the government.” When will the CRTC remember which group is at the top of that list?

On the other side of the coin, today I heard of a federal government bureaucracy getting it right. Canada’s National Film Board has opened up their archives & put hundreds of their films online. Check out www.nfb.ca/explore-by/ and make sure to share any gems you find using your favorite social networking platform. 

On the topic of sharing cool stuff using social media, my friend Doug Lacombe has written up an engaging examination on the etiquette of using twitter during events and presentations in “Live tweeting; bird–brained or brilliant?”

Lastly, Duncan Kinney, another buddy of mine and recent journalism grad, has been hard at work on two impressive local Calgary web community initiatives. YYCblogs.com is an opt-in Calgary blog aggregator that crowdsources its content from Calgary bloggers. It is an excellent way of discovering new local blogs and what topics are important to the Calgary blogging community. yycPHOTOBOOK.com is the other project Duncan is involved in organizing. The website explains its raison d’etre with a simple rhetorical question:

If you could show someone only one picture that displayed the most important part of Calgary, what would you show? Now take that idea with 32 different Calgary-based photographers and what kind of book would you get? That’s what we’re going to find out with this project.

I’m looking forward to the results.