Hi Folks:
Yesterday, I wrote a journal diary on the formation/creation of IWT – Independent World Television – which had several former strategists of Howard Dean and other very prominent people on its advisory comittee.
I am following with an update to this story. BlogsCanada, which runs an ‘E-Group’ for multi-partisan political punditry, had a Vancouver correspondent attend an informational screening + a question and answer session in Vancouver Tueday evening. This is a summary of what he found out.
James Burns is the name of the fella who covered the event (nice guy – I also write online columns for BlogsCanada as well, and he always writes good editorials). Here is some of what he discovered:
The screening was held in the approximately 50 seat main theater at the Vancouver Film School. It was packed, and hot…But one thing the whole crowd seemed to share was rapt attention to the proceedings, perhaps generated by an intense curiosity at the possibility of journalism neither bound by special interest nor leashed to private profit.
A 15 minute introductory video was played, briefly explaining the reasoning behind IWT. As mentioned in the prior diary, Paul Jay is the mastermind of this concept; he is a former executive producer of CBC Newsworld’s debate program Counterspin.
What is Paul Jay’s goal?
He hopes to create a television news network that will “change the economics of journalism.” Jay is looking to create a network beholden only to the interests of its audience donors. Jay’s slogan, “No corporate ownership. No corporate underwriting. No government funding. No commercial advertising.” A news network free to do “fearless journalism” that focuses on the facts and avoids the plague of self-censorship afflicting most corporate and government funded newsrooms in North America today.
Testimonials in the video included statements from Naomi Klein and Lewis Lapham on why they wanted to put their name behind this effort. Besides repeating Jay’s statements above, they condemned the current state of North American journalism.
Following the video, a Q & A session ensued with Paul Jay from the gathered crowd.
On where it would be based – Jay said probably Toronto:
Jay said with tongue only partially in cheek, that avoiding a US headquarters was partly a concern that the U.S. might be two al Quaeda attacks away from suspending the constitution. He did insist, however, that a headquarters location was not yet set in stone, and would largely depend on “where the action was” presumably at the grassroots level in providing the momentum to establish the network.
Another question asked was concerning the Tyee’s feature article about trying to build ‘a left-wing CNN’ and if that was an accurate statement of IWT’s goal. Jay’s response:
Jay shook his head saying the whole idea was to promote fearless factual reporting and provide a forum for journalists to actually be able to live up to the standards of professional journalism without the fear and self-censorship that working for corporate media so clearly brings…Jay reiterated that the point… was to emphasize that chasing the facts revealed a far more complex picture to world events than that packaged by most of the nightly news, and that even a relatively well informed journalist, with his own set of preconceived notions about what was taking place, had a lot to learn. Jay argued it wasn’t about providing balance for balance’s sake, it was about reflecting accurately the events taking place and the motivations behind them.
Our intrepid BlogsCanada correspondent decided to ask a follow-up to that question:
I managed to ask Jay to expand on a statement he made earlier about not simply creating IWT as a means to bring real professional journalism back (or perhaps finally) to the mainstream, but also to expand on what he stated as a desire to bring in citizen journalism, and create a real movement to strengthen democracy. Jay said that initially IWT’s focus would be to drive a journalistic process that would cut through a lot of the bullshit and fear engulfing much of journalistic practice in North America today. He was a little hazier on how the actual citizen participation would be implemented. He explained the still formulating plan was to give citizen journalists a forum, but to provide access to professional editors to help focus the content and accuracy of what would be broadcast, with an emphasis on fact not partisanship.
And what about blogs… would they play a role in the new IWT network? According to James Burns,
Jay knows about and has likely read blogs, but his focus at the moment is on generating interest in an idea that will allow the practice of professional journalism that is not beholden to power brokers, whatever their stripe. Jay did mention that IWT experienced a small taste of the sort interest that could be generated by blog coverage and the possibility of internet based funding. He said that the articles both from the Toronto Sun, that had been picked up by CommonDreams.org, and the article in the Tyee, had led to a sudden spike in contributions, all without any effort on IWT’s part to organize any sort of funding drive, most of which was being planned for 2006.
Obviously he didnt know about the diary I had posted at Daily Kos or here, but I wont begrudge him that 😉
James personal view was that he was enthusiastic about the project, but that they were still in their early stages and still planning how best to implement ‘citizen journalism’. He also mentioned Jay is currently tourning Canada and the US to provide info sessions and to lobby for seed money. If they can raise the stated goal of money in their 2006 drive, their aim is to be on the air to do 6 hrs of initial daily programming in 2007.
IWT’s website has also been revamped for the official launch, and that URL is here. I’ve been there and you’ll see they’ve decorated the page up quite a bit from a couple of days ago.
James and BlogsCanada will continue to follow the IWT story as it develops, and I’ll provide updates here as interest warrants. James’ original story is here
