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VISTAGO

Philosophy student at the Univ. Western Ontario
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Member Since: 3/2006Last Seen: 1/03/2008

The Problem with AP and Canada

News Type: Other — Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:33 PM EDT
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I'm new to Newsvine and from what I have seen everything is great. I love the community, the interaction, and the ability to get your hands dirty. But, I have a problem: I'm Canadian.

I understand that Newsvine needs to have a solid news source and that since it aims to be international the AP is a good choice. I have also seen that seeding the vine gets some great news from great sources. But I cannot rely on Newsvine for a decently Canadian perspective when all of the genuine news that is produced in the Canadian region comes from the vine.

What am I talking about? If you change your region to Canada you will notice that almost every story in the wire is a sports story. Yes, we like hockey. Yes, we have lots of sports teams that compete with you Americans. But Paraguay has better news coverage then Canada does, because their wire is not flooded with sports stories.

I like sports, I really do. But I need politics and intrigue. A huge number of the stories that are being posted on the vine are simply AP/CP stories that get picked up by The Globe and Mail, The Star, CTV, or CBC. The big news brands are getting their news coverage off the wire. So why can't we? Because the only source of wired Canadian news is the AP and the AP predominately covers Canadian sports stories. I need more.

But it's not like I'm going anywhere. I'm hooked on Newsvine. But a good amount of what makes Newsvine such a great idea is that it is connected to a wire service. The problem for me is that the coverage in Newsvine is only as strong as Wire+Vine, and for Canada the wire coverage is weak.

I'll try to help by seeding lots of stuff to the vine (especially after I get over this whole probationary period). But I think it is kind of unfortunate that this type of great functionality is marred by a lack of decent wire service. As a result, the vine changes from being about interesting news that the wire service missed to being the only source of decent Canadian news that you can get on Newsvine. The vine wasn't built to do this.

Just the two cents (CDN) of a probationary.

P.S. I know that you can limit the tags under a region. So, I could do "Canadian Politics". Still, it's not nice to have the main page of a region be dedicated to sports - it's like saying that that is all we do up here.

P.P.S. Oh, and while you are at it, Markdown support would be excellent.

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{"commentId":92834,"authorDomain":"lscott"}
L. Scott

Welcome!

This is a subject that several articles have gone into regarding both regional and national level news. My regional pages are stock full of sports stories as well. I'm so thrilled, being a woman and all - not an athletic one, either. :) If anything exciting happens in the region, though, I'll be sure to seed it so others in the region will know as well.

Remember, too, that Newsvine is at the very beginning of what I think will be a huge arc of success. That being the case, various functionality is still in the works. So, it's good you're not going anywhere because you'll get to see it unfold.

{"commentId":92834,"threadId":"8431","contentId":"163228","authorDomain":"lscott"}
    Reply#1 - Tue Apr 11, 2006 2:08 PM EDT
    {"commentId":93082,"authorDomain":"vistago"}
    vistago

    It would be nice if there was an option to just turn the sports off. AP does do Canadian content every once in a while, but it gets obfuscated by the sports...

    {"commentId":93082,"threadId":"8431","contentId":"163228","authorDomain":"vistago"}
    • 2 votes
    Reply#2 - Tue Apr 11, 2006 4:47 PM EDT
    {"commentId":93433,"authorDomain":"prompt"}
    prompt
    What am I talking about? If you change your region to Canada you will notice that almost every story in the wire is a sports story. Yes, we like hockey. Yes, we have lots of sports teams that compete with you Americans. But Paraguay has better news coverage then Canada does, because their wire is not flooded with sports stories.

    I was actually going to mention this, and it has been quite a problem in my mind. I have switched from viewing Canada in the regional view, to watching the Canada tag - it solved the problem quite a bit, so I would suggest giving it a try until better measures are taken.

    {"commentId":93433,"threadId":"8431","contentId":"163228","authorDomain":"prompt"}
    • 4 votes
    Reply#3 - Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:05 PM EDT
    {"commentId":93757,"authorDomain":"cyron"}
    Cyron

    I don't think you need to do one or the other. I've had a similar problem. Here in Australia, the Australian region is full of sports as well. What makes it worse for us though is that it's mostly Hockey, American football etc, stuff that we don't actually watch or care about even if we are sports fans (which I'm not)

    So I've taken to entering newsvine by bookmarking australia.newsvine.com to catch the regional information. Then I also watch the "australia" tag as well. It gives some redundancy, but it's a good way of ensuring that you don't miss anything.

    {"commentId":93757,"threadId":"8431","contentId":"163228","authorDomain":"cyron"}
    • 1 vote
    #3.1 - Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:10 AM EDT
    Reply
    {"commentId":93866,"authorDomain":"visicswire"}
    Walker Hamilton

    Dude, put almost any region in. You get sports first. (chicago.newsvine.com).

    It just kinda sucks. I think that sports should, by default, get second-class billing in regions, as those stories are the most likely to have the region name in their title (_chicago— cubs, _toronto— raptors, etc)

    {"commentId":93866,"threadId":"8431","contentId":"163228","authorDomain":"visicswire"}
    • 1 vote
    Reply#4 - Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:32 AM EDT
    {"commentId":97920,"authorDomain":"tang"}
    Calvin Tang

    Welcome to Newsvine. I think the problem you describe goes beyond Newsvine. I've lived in Canada several times (Victoria & Vancouver, BC) and I noticed that the regional nightly news was mostly made up of watching the Seattle news (Q13, etc.). Canada has a relatively small population, in such close proximity to a country that puts out the most media (news included) of any country in the world. You guys are inundated with our media from all sides, and I can only imagine how annoying that is. Someone once told me that there were even regulations that newsstands had to carry at least 40% (I could be wrong on the %) Canadian publications, just to prevent being totally overwhelmed by American-centric content. I don't know what the solution is overall, but I suggest writing an email to one of your own news content providers (e.g., CBC) directing them to Newsvine and expressing that, as a user, you'd like it if their content could find a way into the discussion. Hearing from their audience is much more powerful than us ringing them up and telling them that we think Canadians would like to see some of their content become a part of the Wire at Newsvine.

    I won't name any names, but this type of situation has already occurred between users and companies from other countries, and we're actively in discussions with those companies in an effort to bring users news specific to their own respective countries.

    {"commentId":97920,"threadId":"8431","contentId":"163228","authorDomain":"tang"}
      Reply#5 - Sun Apr 16, 2006 2:58 PM EDT
      {"commentId":99740,"authorDomain":"vistago"}
      vistago

      I appreciate your commenting directly to me. Two comments:

      1) You are absolutely correct about the limitation on content. The percentage of Canadian content has been enforced since the 80's.

      2) I will do as you suggest. Most big Canadian news providers have direct RSS feeds. I will see what I can do about getting a Canadian content provider on board. My only worry is the content that they do not produce (stuff from Canadian Press etc...)

      Thanks so much for taking an interest! Newsvine is great.

      {"commentId":99740,"threadId":"8431","contentId":"163228","authorDomain":"vistago"}
      • 1 vote
      #5.1 - Tue Apr 18, 2006 3:58 PM EDT
      Reply
      {"commentId":100545,"authorDomain":"tang"}
      Calvin Tang

      No problem vistago, we're working hard to bring Newsvine to people in ways that are meaningful to them. In the meantime, feel free to seed the best Canadian news you come across, I'm sure others will appreciate it:)

      {"commentId":100545,"threadId":"8431","contentId":"163228","authorDomain":"tang"}
        Reply#6 - Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:51 AM EDT
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