Local journalism, Winkler bacon & downtown revitalization.

The Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe is on the verge of opening—probably Tuesdayish! I talked to John White, deputy online editor & cafe champion, about what he hopes the local news & nosh will accomplish. If you look closely, you can see John typing away inside.

He tells me Free Press publisher Bob Cox was inspired to give the news cafe concept a try in Winnipeg after hearing about its success in the Czech Republic.

Crowdsourcing and inviting the community into the newsmaking process will encourage a hub of real-life social networking—a daily news meetup, if you will. “It’s kind of funny,” John says, “to use social media to go meet somewhere in person.”

Being able to chat with journalists over a Manitoba Club Sandwich will help demystify reporting & foster trust between the community and the media. “The key thing from my perspective is transparency. When you’re trying to engage a savvy audience, it’s kind of a must.”

That sense of ownership—a stake in the news because it’s about your community—is the basis for the hyperlocal news movement that publishers are embracing to fight the glut of free online news. Other news organizations in Winnipeg are also taking the hyperlocal approach, because it’s the one thing people can’t get from the broader internet: quality journalism about homegrown topics.

John likened the energy he hopes to spark on what was once Winnipeg’s historic newspaper row to “a tangible vibe, like you’re in New York or Chicago”. See you there for newslunch!

Ending up in conversation: what should you do if your organization can’t really use social media?

For the record, I like Speak Up Wpg’s use of social media. The opportunity it presents to speak to policymakers makes me feel like I come from a very with-it city. Their case study provides a jumping off point for talking about transparency. Go Peg.

Speak Up Winnipeg, a social media-driven public consultation city planning initiative here in the Peg, has just released its first report along with participation numbers. The blog/vlog-driven site boasts 535 registered users with over 1,600 posted comments. For a city of three quarters of a million, 535 users sounds low, but the quantity of comments of this vocal few speaks of passionate participation. The subject matter—the future of our city—is one of those contentious cans of worms that can make for great, if heated, public discourse, seemingly perfect for the social media milieu. More on that later.

On the participation side of things, I was dismayed initially that the the site required registration to comment, and indeed found login laziness to be an insurmountable barrier when I later lost my password. I’d recommend opening up comments; metrics could still be obtained from IP addresses. I realize misbehaviour rises in direct proportion with anonymity, but all conversational roadblocks should be removed if Speak Up is to “grow the number of people involved” as Mayor Sam Katz requests.
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