Ev Delen

RE: https://glammr.us/@carkner/116268383744946592

I attended the #Canadaland 2016 US election viewing party at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto and sat down with Jesse for a chat about the state of journalism in Canada.

I pointed out not all reporters have the aptitude for business, or being an influencer, that there is a place for organized journalism as well.

He expressed what I would now call Tech Bro Views to me - journalists need to be entrepreneurs, the cream will rise to the top, competition will make everything better - which shocked me considering at the time some of his episodes had been on Robyn Doolittle and how she would not have been able to do her work on the Rob Ford Crack Video case if not for her having been at a large organization like The Star, how social media was regularly getting things wrong (and still does), etc.

It made me realize how much he's just a populist, not principled, and I don't think I've listened to an episode since.

Mar 21 at 7:22pmWeb
Show threadMay Likes Toronto2d ago

@evdelen Jesse built Canadaland with the money from selling Bitstrips (you might know them now as bitmojis) to Snapchat.

Must be nice to be able to bankroll a media company with such a windfall.

Show threadEv Delen2d ago

@mayintoronto

Yes, he made money on the sale of bitstrips, but that's not something to hold against him IMO.

In fact, I think more people should invest in journalism in Canada, not as an investment for profit, but as an investment towards having a more informed population in a non-partisan, un-biased manner.

Idealism set aside, every outlet is going to have some degree of bias - the mere act of deciding what is and isn't newsworthy right off the bat introduces a bias - and my issue with Canadaland is purely with its editorial stance and founder.

Show threadMay Likes Toronto2d ago

@evdelen It's the attitude that I'm commenting on. It's easy to talk about financial accountability in journalism when you know you'll be fine even if everything collapses.

But yeah, the financial model is completely broken.