Saint John

A few days ago I posted You are what you post. While I had something completely different in mind, that same headline is even more relevant to today with the Telegraph-Journal, the primary newspaper in Saint John, New Brunswick. Today they printed and posted an apology to Canada’s Prime Minister and two of it’s reporters for a story, “… that was inaccurate and should not have been published.”

The apology included the reporters because what they submitted, “… did not include these statements in the version of the story that they wrote.”

With the traditional news business in its current state of chaos as it tries to figure out how to survive with the huge shifts that are occurring due to economics and the Internet, this is the worst time possible for something like this when so much of the debate regarding the value of traditional news rests on credibility.

What the apology does not state, and what must be made clear, is how did something like this get into the story? If it was not part of what the reporters submitted, who added it? And what will the consequences for this be?

As much as the PM is owed an apology, as well as the reporters and many others (not the least of which is the family of the late Govenor General Roméo LeBlanc), journalists and the public should be provided with an explanation of how it occurred and what will follow from it. In a digital world, New Brunswick is not off the beaten track and this is not something that affects a small few. It affects journalism and, today, even its survival.

Credibility is not something news can afford to not have, even in New Brunswick.

Update:

As the CBC updates the story (Wafergate leads paper to apologize to PM, reporters) it just gets more interesting and troubling. “This is another in an embarrassing string of events for the Telegraph-Journal.”

See also:

Craig Silverman: New Brunswick newspaper apologizes to Canadian Prime Minister over made up accusation

Update #2:

From the Globe and Mail posted at 1:30pm ET titled Newspaper apologizes to Harper :

A secretary for Jamie Irving, publisher of the newspaper, referred questions about the apology to Kevin Publicover, acting general manager for the company that owns the Telegraph-Journal, Moncton-based Brunswick News.

Mr. Publicover said the company would not make any further comment on the apology.

“Our position is that the statement in the newspaper today is self-explanatory and that we have no further comment on it,” he said in an interview.

Sorry. But that’s not acceptable. It may be self-explanatory as far as stating there was a screw-up. It does not say how it happened, who is responsible or what the consequences will be, if any.

And one last update (a biggie):

From CBC: Publisher, editor out over wafer story

I guess there were consequences.

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I’ve been tearing my hair out with frustration because of a Facebook problem. It’s one that, as I think about it, indicates what I think is a big flaw in their system – one compounded by their indifferent support.

I’ve set up a pretty barebones web site for a small business in Saint John, New Brunswick – the Urban Deli. I tried to keep it pretty simple for several reasons: 1) I think simple works best, especially if you’re small, 2) I’m not a site designer, I just do the simple, Wordpress stuff, and 3) as important as a site may be, I thought effectiveness lay in setting up social media.

I set them up with Twitter (@urbandeli) and also on Facebook. Twitter is fine but the Facebook account – good grief.

The problem began with making a change to my own personal account. I’m transitioning from one email account to another and made a change in that personal Facebook account to the new primary email. But … that was also the email I had used for the Urban Deli’s in the set up. When I was setting them up I had used it as a temporary one until it was determined what address they wanted associated with it.

I suppose it was my fault for not realizing that Facebook uses email addresses as usernames — as the “account.”

So when I made the change of address in my personal account I received an auto email from Facebook to Urban Deli that read:

Someone else has registered and verified the email address <email address>, which was previously tied to your Facebook account. Because they were able to confirm this email, <email address> has been removed from your account. You can no longer use this email address to log in, and we will not be sending notifications for your account to that address.

You can still log in using <email address>. (Your same old account password will work with this email.) We will be sending notification emails for your Facebook account to <email address>. You can change these settings at http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php

Please contact us at info@facebook.com if you have any questions.

Thanks!

The Facebook Team

Am I misreading this or do the first and second paragraphs contradict one another? “You can no longer use this email address to log in…” followed by, “You can still log in … Your same old account password will work with this email.” As for that second quoted sentence about still being able to log in and the old password working –it doesn’t. So I can’t adjust settings, I can’t do anything.

It appears, then, that if you have someone’s email address, the one they associate with their Facebook account, you can just shut down their access any time you please. Is this an accurate assessment?

I have no idea because, the second problem with Facebook is that they ignore all attempts to contact them. It’s been about a month, I’ve sent a number of emails to a number of their “contact” addresses, and have received nothing except one email that said they would forward my email to the correct area. Otherwise, they have been completely silent.

I’ve even tried their “reset password” at login, thinking I might have it wrong (I’ve also tried myriad variations of the password). They are supposed to send an email with a link but I’ve no idea where they send it since I receive no emails from them.

Do I just ignore the problem and set up a new account for the Urban Deli? That may be what I’ll have to do but they already have a large number of “fans” for the account we can’t access and it would be confusing for anyone seeing two accounts for the same thing. It’s a poor solution though in the end maybe the only one.

It may well be that all of this is due to something obvious that I have missed and is easily corrected. But if that’s the case, why does no one seem to know what it is? When I talk to people about Facebook pretty much everyone is in the dark about how it works. And Facebook continues to say nothing.

What a schmozzle!

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I’m a creature of habit. Anyone who knows me knows this, to their great exasperation. But every now and then, to keep people on their toes, I change my habits.

As people who know me also know, I like beer and the beer I’ve been drinking for ages is Stella Artois. Don’t ask me why. Back when I tried it, it clicked. And I’ve been drinking it ever since. However …

For some time now, I’ve been thinking I should change, not because I had lost my Stella fixation but because another aspect of my personality – let’s call it the joiner – has been trying to persuade me to go another route. That route is “local.”

Like many people, I like the idea of local – local food, local news, local … beer.

Here in New Brunswick, we have Moosehead out of Saint John. And we have Pump House, out of Moncton. And from Fredericton (where I live), we have Picaroons. Unfortunately, my Stella focus has held me back. But now that has changed.

I was at the Urban Deli in Saint John on Saturday – they’re a restaurant opening on Monday and are owned by a good friend of mine, Liz. One of her goals with her restaurant is to be as local as possible. Part of that has been to go with the local breweries: Moosehead, Pump House and Picaroons. So when I was down at the deli for a “preview evening” prior to their opening on Monday, I went with a local beer: Pump House Cadian.

Today I went to liquor store and bought more. Yes, I liked it! I’m drinking it right now.

Is my Stella on the ropes? Possibly, possibly …

I am not a connoisseur of beer. If you’ll pardon the boorishness of it, I like what I like. I wouldn’t know an ale from a lager from a stout. (Well, actually, I do know a stout. But ales and lager? I dunno.) But I do know I like this Cadian from Pumphouse. They describe it as, “A golden coloured ale lending itself to the wonderful malty aromas layered with just a kiss of spicy hops for a clean, smooth finish …” You can read a bit more here.

Now, I’ve tried Moosehead. Here in New Brunswick they’re fairly ubiquitous. But while I’ve tried some of the Moosehead brews, and generally like them, none has swayed me yet.

As for my local brewery, I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t tried Picaroons yet but it now rests at the top of my list of things to do. I’ll probably start with either their Best Bitter or Blonde Ale. As a general rule, I like beer that tastes like beer (whatever that means). Once again, that’s the boor in me speaking. As with coffee, I like things to stay true to themselves and not add additional flavours to jazz them up (like lime).

Yes, I know that brewing techniques and ingredients affect what the final brew tastes like.

(If this reads as if it ends aburptly, that is because I was interrupted as I was writing it. For what it’s worth, I wrote this yesterday afternoon but didn’t post it till this morning. So, no I’m not drinking beer at 9:00 in the morning. Morning equals coffee in my world.)

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I recently used Facebook to do a very informal survey. I wanted to get outsider perceptions so I asked of friends and family outside the province, “What do you think of when you think New Brunswick?” The answer was essentially this: “We don’t think of New Brunswick.” Words and phrases like forgotten, vague, don’t know and generic popped up in the answers. More disturbing than this was the fact that many of them had pretty distinct ideas of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. It was interesting to find the Confederation Bridge was quickly associated with P.E.I. but no one seemed aware that the place where it connects to Canada is New Brunswick.

Here’s the irony: since coming to New Brunswick everyone I’ve met has a very distinct idea of what this province is, who they are and what it means to be a New Brunswicker.

I started thinking about this lack of identity outside our own province and started to do some searching. As far as I can tell, New Brunswick is not on Facebook or Twitter. Fredericton is not on either. Moncton appears to be but it is done independent of the city government. (On the other hand, NB Power is on Twitter. So is CBC New Brunswick. And Saint John may have recently joined Twitter.)

How in the world can the province and cities of this province talk about bringing people to the province, particularly young people, and not be using social media tools like Twitter or Facebook or Flickr? That is where the country is; that is where the world is. Where are we? It doesn’t matter whether we like tools such as these. If we need to get our message to people we have to be where they can hear it. You don’t go to northern Saskatchewan to speak to the people of Montreal. You don’t go to a retirement home to speak to young people.

Since coming to this province about 2 ½ years ago, I have spoken to many people in western Canada and most of them have been intrigued about the province. Some have entertained the idea of moving here. Some want to make a trip here, at the very least. Where do I speak to them?

Email. Facebook. Twitter.

I took a walk with friends around Fredericton soon after I arrived here. I took a lot of pictures. I made a video of them and posted it on You Tube. So far, it has been viewed by about 2,000 people. Some have left comments, including someone from Scotland who had visited us and said our city was beautiful. There were some negative comments, which is to be expected, but most were positive and many were from people who had left New Brunswick and felt homesick.

Although it may seem as if I’m arguing for these social media tools, that is not my point. My point is that we seem to talk only amongst ourselves and not the country or the world. Yet it is outside the province where the message has to be communicated. Some of the easiest ways to do this are through social media and, other than time and attention, they cost next to nothing.

Our slogan is, “Be … in this place.” You can’t be in a place if you don’t know what or where it is.

An aside:

Of the top seven Intelligent Communities in the world, two are Canadian. Where are those Canadian cities? Both are in New Brunswick! Why is the provincial government not making noise about this? I see no reference to it on the NB government web site. It’s certainly not on the home page. (Admittedly, the page is so cluttered it could be there and I just didn’t see it.) I can Google it and find stories about this fact, but none are from the New Brunswick government.

Why?

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