Sampling Culture http://samplingculture.posterous.com Most recent posts at Sampling Culture posterous.com Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:59:00 -0700 A coup d'état in Ecuador? http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2010/10/10/whats-happening-in-ecuador http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2010/10/10/whats-happening-in-ecuador

The following is my guestblog for TVO's The Agenda. The article originally appeared here, but I've also posted it here. Read on for more:

The news of the attack on President Rafael Correa by protesting police in Quito last Thursday came as a surprise to the international community. Like most countries left out of the elite G20, most of the national politics and news in Ecuador go completely unnoticed in North America until something boils over. Sometimes, it’s only when we have a personal connection to world news that we want to find out more. In my case, I have family and friends in Ecuador. Though I was born in Toronto, my father was born in Ecuador and lives there now. I knew there would be several perspectives circulating amongst media sources and my friends and family in Quito. The first news I heard was reports of President Correa being rushed to hospital after he was tear-gassed by police protestors. The attack came after he yelled to them “If you want to kill me, kill me,” according to an article by Eduardo Tomayo G. on Vancouver.MediaCoop.ca. BBC journalist Irene Caselli wrote it was the lower ranks of police and military rebelling against Correa's presidency. Under a new law it would take seven instead of five years for a policeman or woman to get a promotion. However, government ministers pointed out that during Correa's presidency, salaries for police increased from around US$700 to US$1200 a month. Despite the improvement overall, police want to maintain their additional benefits. According to Caselli's report, the protests on September 30th occurred after growing controversy over civil service laws that Correa proposed many months ago. The initial deadline to pass the laws was mid-October 2009 but it was repeatedly pushed back because Correa lacked a majority within his assembly and even within his own party, Alianza Pais. “Earlier this week Mr Correa was, according to the local press, considering the possibility of dissolving the assembly and ruling by decree until new elections because of the deadlock,” writes Caselli. “This move would have to be approved by the Constitutional Court first, and this seems more likely after Thursday's events.” There are many opinions about whether escalating violence against Correa was actually a failed coup d'etat, as President Correa has claimed. The questions of whether a coup had been planned and whether Correa is manipulating a volatile situation in order to gain more control are being hotly debated. I found a range of opinions from family and friends in Quito. Jose Unda, a visual artist and my dad, was at his home in a small town outside of Quito yesterday when the protests started. He is adamant that Correa’s version of the events is correct: there was an attempt at a coup and that former President Lucio Gutierrez, who is supported in the assembly by the Patriotic Society Party, was likely involved. According to the BBC, Gutierrez denied the accusation by Correa, although it is noted that Gutierrez was prominent in an uprising in 2000 that brought down then-President Jamil Mahuad. Meanwhile Guitierrez himself was ousted by massive protests in 2005. Back in 1995 former Vice-President Alberto Dahik Garzozzi was charged with embezzlement. As history reveals, Ecuador is not immune to corruption and popular uprisings that get rid of presidents. Some people are concerned about what kind of power Correa will exert after the events of September 30, 2010. Daniel Fernando, my cousin who is studying journalism in Ecuador said, “What happened yesterday was a big problem, but it was also bad for people like me who don't like the president. … Now our president is kind of like a victim and he will have more power than he had one day before.” Carmen Carreño Ossa, an artist in Quito, said she does not agree with Correa's twentieth century socialism, but believes that the police protesting violently was not the way to move forward. “Besides we already have enough security problems every day and now that we have problems with police it means that we are totally unprotected,” she said. She emphasized that she doesn't like the polarizing division between left and right ideologies that often come up when discussing politics. “We just need to solve our problems and forget about political names,” she said. “We do not need to change presidents every time we have problems because that means we are very unstable and immature. … Violence is never a good solution. Never, even if we do not agree with his ideology.” Melinda Maldonado, a Toronto-based freelance journalist and Spanish-English interpreter, also with family in Ecuador, said she had been in contact with relatives. Maldonado said Ecuadorians were already disappointed in the country’s police. “Expectations of corruption run rampant in a country where when you're stopped for something minor you can say, 'how can we work this out?' and pay your way out,” she said. The majority of people in Ecuador want to respect democracy while maintaining a right to protest and the ability to go about change in a transparent way. But in a country that is often polarized along political lines with serious policy issues and people's livelihoods at stake, all we can do is work toward calm negotiations and greater social justice.

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Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:49:00 -0700 'Inside Disaster' in Haiti http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2010/10/10/reporting-on-international-crises http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2010/10/10/reporting-on-international-crises

Space is a funny thing because the world shrinks with technology and with the relative ease of air travel. But, how does where we are located affect how we (as journalists) report on important issues? Recently I've written a bit on journalists covering issues that occur abroad. My article "Inside Disaster explored Haiti from within," was originally published in the Ryerson Free Press here. You can also read on for the full article here: 

The devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010 became the subject of much sensational media coverage in the months that followed and then it slowly faded into the background as different news items filled out the daily news cycles of major news networks. However, the earthquake's destruction lived on in Haiti and so it became the subject of an in-depth three-part documentary series directed by Nadine Pequeneza, as well as the subject for an innovative website, also aptly called Inside Disaster. As soon as the PTV Productions team who were responsible for creating Inside Disaster, heard the sad news of the quake they immediately went to Haiti to document the momentous events. Katie McKenna, the in-house internet producer at PTV Productions in Toronto hired Nicolas Jolliet, an experienced internationally travelled photographer and filmmaker, to be their website producer from the field. He landed in Haiti with the film crew, carrying only his backpack, camera, laptop, GPS and satellite modem in order to produce photos, videos and blog entries four times each week. He worked separately from the film crew, uncovering the stories of survivors and humanitarian aid workers. Jolliet's mandate was clear, recalled McKenna, “find out how people are surviving without humanitarian aid.” Flash backward several months to September of 2009. McKenna was a recent graduate from the masters program in humanitarian studies at the London School of Economics. She had just become the internet director at PTV Productions and was securing funding to build an interactive website that would run parallel to a documentary film which would follow the international Red Cross to their next destination, wherever disaster would strike. On October 1, 2010 PTV submitted their Bell Fund application, and they ended up receiving several grants to produce an interactive website. They proposed using existing web 2.0 tools and some savvy media techniques to deliver in depth content and a historical context to current events. They also offered educational resources for those interested in learning about humanitarian efforts, volunteer work and fundraising. They were going to produce a unique website that was in an innovative form for distributing important information. Their website also served as a platform to connect desperate audiences of people from Haiti and people in Canada, as well as the Haitian community living abroad. By February of 2010 they had already begun developing their experiential interactive component to their website; a flash website with video clips from the film embedded. Flash forward to September 2010. McKenna discussed the lessons she learned while working on the Inside Disaster website to a room full of interactive web producers and film producers who want to create similar projects. The event was hosted by the Documentary Organization of Canada's Toronto chapter, and by the DOC Shift project. McKenna explained how she and her team were able to pull off fabulous results in both the real world and online, by providing critical information and unique perspectives. The results of their project were remarkable. Inside Disaster produced over 60 blog posts and garnered 7000 flickr photo views.They produced 30 videos which were seen over 43,000 times on youtube and and they had coverage on all of the major Canadian news networks. They received over 400 comments on their content and approximately 31,000 visitors went to the website in a number of months. Even more tangible than the online results were the results that came about because of their reporting efforts. Haitians in Canada were able to learn more about what was going on with their loved ones and could connect with a broader community of Haitians around the world to make sense of it all. McKenna retold the story of how a Haitian they hired to write a blog for them, Emmanuel Midi was able to launch his own successful career as a fixer for other news organizations after he worked with Jolliet, putting him in contact with people so Jolliet could document their stories. With PTV's support and testimonial, Midi now widely offers a fixer service (haitifixers.com). One of his more light hearted blog entries that he wrote for Inside Disaster, which was about two innovative brothers doing good in Haiti also got redistributed on globalvoicesonline.org and received hundreds of reader comments. McKenna said, “This is the power of the web – You create someone who exists and now they exist online too.” How can others interested in creating an interactive project like McKenna, succeed? McKenna advises, “Write a confident funding application... Get a blog and mailing list up fast... Don’t be afraid to be simple... Hire someone for outreach... Crowdsource and talk to your audience.” Finally, she said, “Prototyping works!” She also reminded film producers that the website has to be beneficial to the filmmaker, and that they need to be involved in the website development process. Hiring a writer who knows the web medium is a good idea too, she said. Finally, McKenna was enthusiastic about working with young employees who have a lot to gain, and a lot to give, on the job. For more on the new Inside Disaster website now in BETA, visit: insidedisaster.com.

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