Edmonton Headlines: Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Segregation of students
The Edmonton Catholic School District has a new plan to segregate children with autism and behaviours that may make them aggressive or prone to outbursts.
I think the chief executive officer of Inclusion Alberta says it best in this Postmedia Edmonton story:
It’s completely understandable that a school board would work to find the best way to teach students with any myriad of personal issues, behaviours and disabilities. To shuffle kids away to some other program at another building, however, seems like something we moved away from decades ago.
Deja Vu
We pointed you at a great longread from the Edmonton Journal Monday morning. It was about an Edmonton business owner who died by suicide after losing a fortune to a new kind of online investment scheme, called binary option trading.
You might have also seen the story from Global Edmonton Monday night. (And maybe other newsrooms too?)
It used to be that every newsroom had to get the same story. The idea being that your audience was so loyal they wouldn’t jump around and hear it elsewhere. Those days of media are, of course, long gone. (Full props to journalists who turn up new angles on a story and run that, though.)
In today’s thinned-out newsrooms, this kind of copycat work seems like a waste of resources. The Journal had a good story, with an important message. Point your audience at the original through social media and produce your own stories.
(This will be the first of two local media rants in today’s Headlines. Get out while you can.)
Is it a crisis?
All of Alberta’s opposition parties want the governing NDP to declare fentanyl overdosing a “public health emergency”. This could trigger certain coordination of services, and some are saying it would open up funding from the federal government.
The Alberta government isn’t going to do it. And it says we’ve already got the resources that British Columbia had to ask for from the federal government, so issuing a public health emergency isn’t needed.
Meanwhile… doctors in Alberta have some new rules around prescribing these kinds of strong painkillers.
Who’s in your story? (local media rant 2)
Look, I know that the Internet has made working in news a living hell or whatever, but can we at least give it the old college try when we’re sharing stories to the world wide web? For some reason, CTV Edmonton doesn’t want us to know who everybody in their stories is.
Example: (at the one-minute mark) “…this local history advocate hopes…” WHO IS SHE?!
Not only am I left to guess if that “local history advocate” works for the City of St. Albert, a heritage group or is just a fan of old bricks, it’s a little disrespectful to your interview subjects to not give them credit.
I am going to guess CTV puts people’s names and titles up during their news broadcasts, so they appear over the video while it plays live. Instead, they could cut a video with fonts/lower-thirds that identify people in the story (and is shareable to the web).
“…this guy with glasses says…”
I’m probably very much an outlier and just being cranky today (although CTV must hope I’m not the only one watching their stories online) but I would think anyone producing content would want it to be as clear and shareable as possible.
(Don’t even get me started on the fact their video stories have no written explanation…)
/rants
Local business news
Edmonton’s breweries are part of an “emerging sector” in Alberta. Drink up, it’s good for the economy!
There continue to be pushes (and we need them) to get more women into the trades.
Downtown Edmonton has a new co-working space for growing tech companies.
At City Hall
City Council continues to meet today, beginning at 9:30 a.m. See the agenda online. You can also watch or listen to the meeting live.
There’s an open house in Prince Charles tonight about the neighbourhood’s upcoming Neighbourhood Renewal construction. At Prince Charles School, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Parkallen neighbours have a drop-in session tonight to learn about flood mitigation strategies for their community. At Parkallen Community Hall, 6:30-8:30 p.m.