Monthly Archives: May 2011

Posted by on 31 May

Local Media Access at City Hall: A Joint Statement #HamOnt

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

We, the undersigned, call on the City of Hamilton and the Mayor’s Office to adopt a policy of openness and transparency that recognizes the right of ordinary Hamiltonians to access information and speak to local officials, in the spirit of democracy and civic engagement that is one of the hallmarks of this city.

We, the undersigned, represent a number of local independent media entities, whether as media professionals, citizen journalists, independent bloggers or as engaged citizens.

Recently, statements were made in local press regarding the relationship between City Hall and media, and how the current policies may change in terms of how people in media access City Hall. These statements were made largely by Peggy Chapman (a member of the Mayor’s political staff), who states she is working closely with the City Manager’s office to revise and develop these policies.

While we recognize the city’s interest in developing a comprehensive media policy, we have concerns about its purpose and objectives. A media policy should be geared toward ensuring citizens and the media have access to information that ought to be public and transparent.

It should be seen as a concern that political staff would have influence on the development of that framework- it is not hard to imagine how policies could be developed that would result in influencing how information is gathered by media, and how that information is accessed.

“What I’m trying to bring in is a press gallery. What that means, and it’s going to bother a few people… is I will recognize you and give you as much access to the mayor, as need be, or information that I have – and especially at council, if you have a boss. If you’re a journalist that has a boss that I can complain to, if I think that information is incorrect. If you don’t have that, it’s, you know- how do we control, um, the information? I don’t mean control like I want to control what’s being said, but my first priority is the public. I would hope in media your first priority is the information to the public too. But that’s not my responsibility. My responsibility is information coming from City Hall, to the public. And how do we get that?”

- Peggy Chapman on The Bill Kelly Show, CHML, Wednesday May 25th 2011

The statements above by Ms. Chapman seem to suggest that at Hamilton’s City Hall, private media companies will be given preference over citizens who are engaged as independent media, perhaps simply because there is a perception that one group is more responsible than the other.

In making these statements, Ms. Chapman is making an implied accusation that independent media are less accountable than media owned by private companies. In fact, many citizen journalists are far less legally protected than media professionals who can access legal services at no cost to themselves, but rather the private companies they work for.

We believe firmly that any attempt to restrict access of the media to City Hall, whether professional or independent, would result in restricting the flow of open and transparent information to the general public, and inappropriately give political staff the unilateral ability to pick and choose who has access to information.

In the absence of a formal procedural framework, access to media seats in City Council chambers has been a confusing issue- some media outlets have gained access to the resource of a media desk when others have not, or have been dissuaded by the City clerks department to access those seats.

We are asking that Council and Staff develop a formal policy on media relations which is fair, clear, and does not allow political staff to unduly influence the free flow of information at City Hall. We would also ask council to make this dialogue public, by council and by civil servants who can be held accountable by the public. We believe that this issue should not be handled by political staff, who may be motivated to develop these policies in a way that is favourable to their employer rather than in the interest of informing the public.

We would like to request that the City Manager’s office, and/or the Mayor’s office publicly respond to these concerns promptly, offer clarity on what our rights are as engaged citizens and independent media and how those rights will be protected going forward, should any new policy be enacted at City Hall.

Sincerely,

Joey Coleman
Journalist www.joeycoleman.ca

Teresa DiFalco
Publisher, The Hamiltonian www.thehamiltonian.net

Adrian Duyzer
Associate Editor, Raise the Hammer www.raisethehammer.org

Martinus Geleynse
Editor and Publisher, Urbanicity www.urbanicity.ca

Matt Jelly
Blogger, www.mattjelly.com

Dave Kuruc
Publisher, H Magazine www.hmag.ca

Ryan McGreal
Editor, Raise the Hammer www.raisethehammer.org

James Tennant
Program Director, CFMU 93.3 FM http://cfmu.msumcmaster.ca/

Matt Thompson
Community Organizer

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Posted by on 24 May

The future is the past? Journalism and Twitter

Is this the Twitter of the 1940s? Sure looks like it.

The Boston Globe in the 1940s provided breaking news before the story was in the paper. I’m assuming people still purchased the paper.
(The people standing outside are likely the sub-species of Homo sapiens known as news junkies)

There isn’t much difference between the picture above and today. We can still break news on the modern chalkboard – Twitter – and people will still buy our product if it the full story adds context and assists with their understanding of the world.

When there were numerous newspapers in a city, people didn’t have to buy any single newspaper. They could choose the one which did the best job that day. The web is no difference, the only substantial change is the acceleration of timelines. It’s now who is covering the story best this hour.

What’s happening now isn’t the end of journalism, it’s the return to the journalism of olde.

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Posted by on 21 May

Finding time for my website

One of the great regrets I have about my website is that I can never find time to work on the design and scripting of it.

This domain was once cutting edge – a century ago on the Internet back in 2007 before my recruitment by Maclean’s.

It’s amazing how much PHP and HTML have changed in even the last year.

Thankfully, my move into open data journalism means my journalism and scripting is finally converging allowing me to overlay web design with my writing.

As my regular readers, who bless your hearts have remained with me for years, have noticed, I’m playing with my server again.

Watch for data.joeycoleman.ca (sadly without an API for now) to appear shortly as I work to organize the piles of data I’m producing.

After two years of drifting, with the exception of last summer when I was covering my hometown at The Spectator, I’m finally reconciling my passion for journalism with the need to regulate that passion.

Most important, I’ve really found that passion again. I don’t know if I’ll go back to two or three stories a day plus a few blog posts. At the least, I’m going to be back to two-to-three good stories a week with many blog posts between.

I’m starting with short posts and maps for now. (The maps can be time-consuming)

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Posted by on 21 May

Hamilton Council improving due to transparency of live streaming video

Andrew Dreschel of The Hamilton Spectator wrote that Hamilton’s City Council “appears to be getting along more harmoniously than it has in years.”

Dreschel attributes this to Mayor Bob Bratina’s leadership style.

I attribute this to live-streaming of all meetings. Let’s face it, transparency is more effective than shuffling the chairs for improving any government.

This is the topic of my Urbanicity piece for June.

I throw in a pitch for open data as well.

I can’t wait to see the words on pulp.

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Posted by on 20 May

The political wife – prop or problem?

Is the political wife a prop or a problem?

I read an interesting piece on Poynter this morning which argued the US media seems only capable of defining the political wife as one or the other.

The column is a response to recent US media coverage of political wives which always attempts to find a simple narrative. In Canada, we tend to ignore political wives. We also don’t have the an “Office of the First Lady” for Laureen Harper.

It is for this reason that the column is not as relevant in the Canadian context. Sure, the political wife is political prop on election night, (I refer to the wife’s appearance beside the husband during his victory speech) but is quickly forgotten.

We do, however, take an interest in Laureen Harper when she acts as a patron for the Arts and other organizations. I believe the Canadian media does a good job of proving insightful analysis of her influence upon her husband, The Prime Minister.

When rumours became openly public that the Harper’s had split – rumours that which effectively public before their publication by Norman Spector – the media quickly and frankly ended them by noting the its repeated investigations had not found a shred of evidence.

The Poynter column closed with a strong statement: “Marriages are complex, and so is politics. Journalism is at its best when it reveals that reality.”

Something we should always strive to keep in mind.

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Mapped: Hamilton’s heritage interest properties (All 7490)
Posted by
18 May

Mapped: Hamilton’s heritage interest properties (All 7490)

A few weeks ago, Matt Jelly requested from the City of Hamilton a list of all the heritage properties in Hamilton. The city responded promptly by providing a list of buildings of heritage interest to city staff.

Jelly provided the list to me for the Open Hamilton initiative. The listing is now available as open data with the Open Hamilton repository: Hamilton’s listed heritage interest properties.

Below, you’ll find all 7490 buildings of interest plotted on a map. The map is a work in progress and I will be adding options over the next week.

The properties are not designated heritage properties which is a legal categorization, they are of heritage interest. Some are being considered for designation, the overwhelming majority are not.

Data source: Cultural Heritage Planner, Planning and Economic Development Department, City of Hamilton
Data repository: OpenHamilton (Get the data)
Data updated: April 5, 2011
Map Version: 1.2
Map updated: May 20, 2011
Map created by: Joey Coleman
Map created using: Google Fusion Tables

Version History:
1.0 – May 18, 2011: Map of heritage properties using Fusion Tables geocoder.
1.1 – May 19, 2011: Added javascript to filter by former municipality.
1.2 – May 20, 2011: Corrected all geocoding errors.
1.2 – May 22, 2011: Added link to OpenHamilton data source.

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Posted by on 17 May

The demolition permit for 30 King Street East, Hamilton, Ontario

I’ve received a copy of the demolition permit for 30 King Street East.

As noted in a earlier post, and a later Hamilton Spectator article, the demolition of the building is underway. The building was subject to attention following a minor fire on May 3, 2011.

The demolition permit I received from the City of Hamilton is pretty standard. The summary is that the City approves demolition with the supervision of a professional engineer.

You may view the permit for yourself by clicking here.

All identifying information is blacked out by the City, including the names of public officials who signed off on the permit. Under provincial law, city staff merely check the paperwork to make sure it is in compliance with provincial safety conditions, they do not have discretion to stop a safe demolition.

I’ve requested the site plan attached to the permit. I’m hopeful that I will receive this by the end of the day Tuesday.

I made my first request for the permit with the misunderstanding that all buildings in the Hamilton Downtown Core required replacement within two years or fines could be levied by the City. In fact, the demolition control by-law with replacement provisions only applies to buildings with residential units and enforced city-wide.

The Demolition Control Area By-law, BY-LAW NO. 09-208, requires Council approval of conditions attached to residential demolitions. Council approval is not required, as per provincial regulations, for non-residential demolitions. Hence the misunderstanding in the community about how the demolition process occurred without any mention on Planning Committee agendas.

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Posted by on 06 May

Why I’m buying into the cloud

I’m going to purchase some space on Windows Azure and entering the world of cloud computing.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The primary motivation is to work further with large data sets, especially open data, to improve my journalism 3.0 skills.

I plan to move my blog posts, files photos, videos, and audio into the cloud as well. Hopefully, when the new OpenPublish for Drupal 7 is published in late summer, I’ll be able to migrate my content easily.

NPR is benefiting from the versatility of having APIs. This quote has stuck with me for a while:

“Due to the foresight of folks at NPR before I got there, we had all of our content in an open API. That doesn’t mean developing all of our applications is free, but it enables us to do more much more faster, and much more nimbly. We built our iPad up in matter of a few weeks. Without an API, that would have been impossible, or at least we would have had to stop whatever else we were doing [to build it].” — Vivian Schiller (http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/10/notable-moments-from-the-2010-ona-conference301.html)

Faster and more nimbly – always worth striving for.

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Posted by on 06 May

Poll-by-poll live election result mapping

Monday night, for the federal election, I conducted one of my latest experiments in online journalism.

I produced a live poll-by-poll map of the results in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek. As far as I can tell, this is the first time that a Canadian journalist as attempted to break down results in real-time at a hyperlocal level.

The experiment was successful – I was able to offer a proof of concept for real-time mapping.

With the success Monday night, I’ve committed to building live maps of the five Hamilton area ridings for the provincial election in October. It will be an ambitious project and I can’t wait to tackle it.

In the short-term, I’m requesting poll-by-poll results from the local returning offices and will complete maps of all the ridings locally.

 

 

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Posted by on 05 May

Demolition work and fire at 30 King East Hamilton

Fire crews responded to 30 King Street East early Tuesday, May 3, 2011

There’s been some chatter online the last couple of days about the building at 30 King Street East in Hamilton which once housed Caesars and more recently Zig Zag Zebra.The chatter follows a fire incident at the site around 2:00 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Yes, a contractor is demolishing the building. No, the fire was not arson.

The fire occurred during demolition work being done during the overnight hours to minimize impact upon nearby businesses and to allow demolition crews to use the parking lot behind 30 King.

The fire did not cause structural damage and “accidental ignition” was determined to be the cause. Fire crews returned the building to the contractors upon finishing their work.

There is demolition work underway at the site and all permits are in order. I’ve emailed the City of Hamilton requesting copies of the permits issued for the work at the site.  (I could not find the demolition permit on any of the planning committee agendas)

It is city policy that demolition permits in the downtown core include a requirement that a new building must replace the structure within two years or fines are imposed. This condition does not apply in the case of an unsafe order requiring the building be demolished in the interests of public safety.

I’ll post the permit information as soon as I receive it.

The Fire Department did upgrade the scene at 30 King East to a two-alarm as a safety precaution. With the building partially demolished, the district chief ordered extra crews.

This created the impression to passersby, myself included, that the fire was a bigger deal than it was. In addition, the Fire Department had to respond to another small fire at the same time.

A transformer fire on Robinson Ave required the dispatch of units from Hamilton Mountain. For a brief time, sirens were echoing throughout the downtown core.

Hence the chatter – the two small events sounded like one big one.

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