blue_lotus13: (Default)
2010-05-10 08:54 am

Workshop weekend

It seems that I am going to multiple workshops in May. This weekend was Edmonton media camp. It was the first one ever and was attended by about 180 people. The event was free and was held at the Shaw conference centre downtown. My friend Darrell drove down from Grande Prairie, so I got a chance to chat and hang out with him, which was cool.

The workshop was attended by numerous journalists, PR people, communications people, bloggers and all sorts of new media people. It started off with a panel discussion, then we jumped into the "unconference." I've never been to an "unconference" before, and think that the format could work well for other subjects. What happens is that people pitch their topics and write them down on big sheets of paper. Then these pitches are compiled into groups. So then you pick a topic that is of interest to you and go discuss it. I sat in on sessions about "creating a local food movement website", "how can we convince executives to use social media to market", and one on "change and new media." All interesting stuff. I met a lot of people and thought it was a good opportunity for media people and journalists and PR people to get together and learn from each other. We were encouraged to livetweet the event, so I did. All in all, it was a good event.

I spent most of last week being sick with a bad cold, which sucked. This is my first cold of 2010, and it's still going away. I wasn't able to go to dance class on Friday last week, but I should be able to go again tonight.

I also spent part of last week at the Alberta Agricultural Economists Association conference, which was highly academic.

In other good news, I won a spot at a beekeeping workshop! So I'll be spending part of next weekend learning how to take care of bees.
blue_lotus13: (Default)
2008-08-29 10:39 am

Meat recall and me

We are currently having a bit of a crisis in Canada due to an outbreak of listeriosis due to an infected meat packing plant in Toronto. Several people across the country have gotten sick and died from the disease. The plant has been set down, there are huge food recalls and a media frenzy.

Last week, I got an email from someone affiliated with a citizen journalism site. The email they sent said "your meat photos." I had just posted a bunch of pictures from a visit to an auction mart, and thought they were referring to those.

Unfortunately, the person was actually referring to photos I'd taken during my visit to a meat packing co-op in the Philippines. The person thought that my pictures would be "excellent to illustrate the story on listeriosis."

I emailed back, telling them that the pics were taken in a coop in the Philippines and were completely unrelated to anything dealing with listeriosis, or Canada. I told them that I was a journalist and that I did not want my photos to be used for that purpose. I'm still shaking my head over this issue.

****
One of the components of my job is to include stories about research that affects the agricultural industry. I like this aspect, because it allows me to be a science geek. Today I called the manager of the Lacombe Research station, which also does research into food safety and safe handling of meats in processing. I should be going down there to meet with scientists in the upcoming weeks. I'm really dorkily excited about this.
blue_lotus13: (Default)
2006-05-24 07:08 am
Entry tags:

Journalists walk out of press conference

I find this story fascinating

Stephen Harper was holding a press conference, and refused to answer questions about aid to Darfur. Journalists, fed up with his attempts to control press conferences and information dissemination, walked out of the conference.

Good for them.
blue_lotus13: (write)
2005-11-08 09:55 am

(no subject)

Very quick because I'm at work, but it turns out that UBC's journalism school is doing a media comb to post articles, info, blog reports etc about the upcoming municipal election.

It's extremely informative and can be found here here