The number of journalists in Canada has been shrinking. Per-capita, there are fewer in B.C. than in Canada as a whole.
Meanwhile, the communications profession (PR, marketing, advertising) is booming. @chrischeung reports: https://thetyee.ca/News/2022/12/16/Losing-Journalists-PR-Jobs-Rising/
Another way to put it: B.C. now has 18 communications professionals for every one journalist.
https://thetyee.ca/News/2022/12/16/Losing-Journalists-PR-Jobs-Rising/
I wonder what your thoughts are on the proliferation of comms professionals and demise of much of professional journalism.
In the past commercial comms were limited to stale rack cards and cut sheets updated annually while journalists overturned every rock every day.
Today, businesses create high-frequency engagement ad buzz just to survive while and so-called citizen journalists creating content force journalism into a seemingly exhausting do-everything-all-of-the-time profession.
@jenstden comms budgets and overworked journalism have certainly been my own observation. Also, that it's getting more pronounced.
It's also awful how that leads to so easily seeding stories to (too) many a frazzled journalist who doesnt have time to consider why this is happening.
Journalism's independence is its core value proposition to democracy, and it is far weaker than it should be.
@jenstden Clearly,
As far as FOIable content goes, I feel all public aggregate data should be open and easily accessible. FOI systems should use AI and privacy considerations automatable, with a turn-around timeframe in minutes and not not months.
It's public-owned after all.
Who knows, maybe ChatGRP could handle this out of the box :). I would welcome that and the re-focusing funding to the core purpose of government: a thriving province.
That's disturbing on many levels. People stressed, lack capacity to understand & digest what isn't easily consumable w/ immediate gratification -- a distraction. The really important stuff in life, long-term health & well-being, gets ignored.
It creates an enviro for mis- & disinformation (last 3 yrs of crazy + current 🦃 platform). The public needs good, real journalists to shine a light on what matters.
Jen St. Denis
Sabrina Rani Furminger
Morgane Oger
Cindy