Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to today's episode of Red Eye. I'm Jane Williams. Coming up in this episode, Andre Goulet joins Arantism to speak about the new independent media project Unrigged .ca.
Speaker: As finding solid progressive journalism gets harder in the face of social media bans on Canadian news, there is some good news. A brand new independent media platform launched last month.
Speaker: Unrig .ca is a non -profit journalism collaboration featuring 20 publishers of online articles and op -eds, print magazines, community newspapers, and podcasts covering news and current events across Canada. Red Eye is proud to participate in Canada's largest progressive podcast platform, the Harbinger Media Network, which is an integral part of Unrig.
Speaker: But what does this platform mean for these alternative media producers? And more importantly, what does it mean for people like you and me who want to use real, values -driven, progressive media? André Goulais is our partner in podcasting and the executive director of Harbinger, and he's on the steering committee of unrig .ca, and he joins me now from Montreal. Hello, André. Lorraine, hi. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Speaker: Oh, it's super great to talk to you, and I'm really excited about Unrigged. The name of the new platform, as we've been saying, is Unrigged. What's the reason you called it that?
Speaker: The idea is basically that the news is rigged, right? What we get on a post media website is very driven by values of like profit of, you know, right wing corporatist ideas. So the media is rigged. We are on rigging it by providing a collaborative news platform that provides up to the hour news and excellent progressive journalism to Canadians across the country. I think the name is a bit cheeky, which I like.
Speaker: Now, lots of people and many of my activist friends have expressed real frustration with the recent news ban on Facebook and on Instagram, which folks use to share information in their networks. How has the fallout from Bill C -18 disconnected the flow of progressive news for all of us?
Speaker: In 2022, who could have predicted that in 2023, have Canadian news eliminated from the platform that's used by the most Canadians? And it's no coincidence, also the platform that helps to amplify and basically works as an engine for misinformation and the sort of far right detached from reality radicalization of Canadians. So the elimination of Canadian news from Facebook and also from Instagram
Speaker: basically completely obliterated what model the new journalism has been using for the last three years, five years, 10 years, since this renaissance in progressive Canadian journalism really began. And so unrig .ca is really an answer to what does it look like when suddenly we're all underwater. How do we rise above the waves? How do we share a boat? How do we paddle together?
Speaker: and row in the same direction so that we can really amplify and strengthen Canadian media. And that's really what Unrigged is about. How do you see this moment in the journalism landscape in Canada? I think I heard you describing it as the unraveling of Canadian journalism.
Speaker: That is definitely how it's felt and it's been kind of like the frog in a pot of boiling water thing where it slowly heats up and the poor frogs like, oh no, that's where we're at in Canadian media. Post media owns most of the newspapers across the country.
Speaker: The Torstar, Toronto Star's parent company is also dying a slow death. The CBC is under attack from right -wing interests in Canada. So when it comes to online news, it's tricky, like things aren't looking good. And this unraveling is really, I think, what's driven the progressive media growth and evolution over the last
Speaker: three to 10 years. Harbinger's been part of that, and that's been really exciting. But with this community of publishers at Unrigged, one of the things that was so exciting about the launch is just the scope of publishers participating, because it's the progress report in Alberta. It's Briarpatch and Sask Dispatch in Saskatchewan.
Speaker: It's the Hoser, upping the anti -Midnight Sun and the Grind in Ontario. It's the Rover, Ababaal, and Le Coopse du Soleil d 'Erits et Pivo in Quebec. It's the New Brunswick Media Co -op. It's the Independent in St. John's, Newfoundland, and National Publishers, The Breach, The Resolve, Media Co -op, Canadian Dimension, Ricochet, The Maple, Press Progress, and the Harbinger Media Network community. This is a huge team. The scope is incredible.
Speaker: And every day on the website, all of the stories from these 20 publishers, everything newly published, auto updates to this website so that Canadians can have a one -stop shop to go and get the news that they're not finding anymore on social media.
Speaker: Well, just the list of great alternative publishers just makes me smile. How does the journalism on Unrigged differ from what people get on the mainstream and corporate media? And it seems like I'm asking a naive question because these producers are incredible.
Speaker: Listeners might read a lot of these already, but on the front page of unrig .ca right now, there's a story from the rover in Quebec talking about the massive public worker strike happening right now, half a million people. And the headline is, Quebec teachers are winning this strike. Wonderful. The breach is
Speaker: New article where the title is, in covert op Israeli consulate backed poll, inflating support for Gaza war, press progress. Their headline, labor and community organizers push for British Columbia to ban case -based discrimination.
Speaker: And at Ricochet, for Indigenous communities in Alberta, the oil industry has left an ugly stain. That's the sort of front page, the five featured or highlighted articles that readers would find when they go to unrig .ca. And then below, there's more from Ricochet. There's more from New Brunswick Media Co -op. Human Rights Observer tells Moncton Audience about life in occupied Palestine. The Resolve has a piece, can plant -based diets enable a more ethical food system?
Speaker: There's new stuff from Canadian Dimension, from Ababau, from PIVO.
Speaker: from Briarpatch, the workers, artificial intelligence hides. And then on the front page as well, there is new videos released from the breach from Ricochet. There's all the podcasts from the Harbinger community. And there's newsletters from progressive journalists like Nora Loretto, David Moskrop, Paris Marks, and more. So really the intent is with unrig .ca that Canadians who are hungry for
Speaker: really top shelf journalism by people who are well trained in the field, do the sort of work for publishers like The Breach, like Ricochet, that really reflects the values of the kind of people who listen to Red Eye and who listen to community radio.
Speaker: What are your hopes for how publishing on a platform that brings together these different media projects might create synergies that strengthen independent media beyond just sharing a common platform?
Speaker: This is kind of the secret ingredient in why unrigged is something really special. And that's because these dozens and dozens of journalists, podcasters, video creators, a lot of us are like friends in real life. Like we hang out and we create solidarity by doing small scale collaborations. But when we have a space like unrigged, it really allows for
Speaker: new collaborations to happen, for the door to be open for conversations to happen that might not otherwise. And even having something like a meeting every couple months where all the publishers come together to talk about where we've been and where we're going, having this sort of community, like capital C community, deliberately and intentionally created is a secret ingredient that mainstream journalism just can't create.
Speaker: So that's one of the things that's really exciting about it too as a project that is super new. We launched a month ago, but which with that launch, it was really the first step in like a thousand steps. This is going to be an ongoing project that we're excited to see how it develops so that we can be a hub
Speaker: for an alternative kind of journalism that is extremely high quality. So the Canadians with values, like the values that listeners of this show have, will be able to actually go and get the news without having to depend on, you know, post media or something. So yeah, this is like, it's a new initiative and it's something that has just begun, but we are really excited about where it's going.
Speaker: Well, you sort of started in on what I was going to ask you next, which is where you see the project going. Obviously, you know, more media outlets, but what's the vision for connecting out to the community and who might listen and watch and read from this platform?
Speaker: Okay, that's a really good question because with the collapse of Facebook being a functional platform for actually sharing things like news and not just being a marketplace and not just being a place to avoid your old high school friends.
Speaker: When the news ban happened, and when Facebook just decided to drop all of us from sharing on the most popular social media platform in Canada, there was a big conversation about like, well, what's next? And that's where Unrigged came out of. But there was also the conversation about, okay, so we all thought that social media was the way to grow these new platforms, but how well did that actually work?
Speaker: And so we're rethinking what does it look like to actually connect with the communities in which this journalism is happening. And so what that's looked like so far is that there were launch parties across the country for Unrigged in Calgary, in Toronto, in Montreal, with more to come in the coming months in Regina, in Ottawa, in St. John's.
Speaker: We are experimenting with live shows, which Briar Patch did really successfully in Regina a few months ago. With Unrigged and Harbinger in Montreal, we'll be putting on a show on January 13th in downtown Montreal with three Harbinger hosts talking about media, talking about Gaza, talking about stories that matter to people who share our values.
Speaker: It's like creating a space where it's not just the social media, people on their phones, finding ways to connect with the news, but also going out into communities and not only reporting on the stories, but creating spaces where people can come together and
Speaker: Have fun with live events. Things like that I think are going to be part of the strategy for how we connect with readers, listeners, viewers in the future. And unrig .ca ends up being just a real hub point and an engine for driving a lot of those kinds of collaborations.
Speaker: Well, this is a big strategic move by the progressive indie media community. Yay, hooray. I'm pretty sure almost everybody listening to this would like to see this really take off. So let's talk practical tactics on the side of our audiences. How can someone who's listening today best plug into and engage with this new resource?
Speaker: First of all, bookmark it. This is something you're going to want to come back to every day as your hub for news, because it's going to be up to the minute. The algorithm on our website automatically posts all the new content from the 20 publishers. So first off, you will want to have this not only bookmarked, but maybe homepage it. Unrig .ca is going to make you feel connected to the news when you log in first in the morning.
Speaker: And you know, it's the simplest thing, but like tell a friend, tell people when you're home for the holidays, this is the kind of organizational space where these 20 publishers are going to be existing at the same time and connecting the work we do with a shared space. It's, it's, it's a big deal. People are going to want to know about it. So definitely tell people, tell your friends.
Speaker: And subscribe to the newsletter. We have a weekly newsletter that gives a bunch of highlights from the community every Monday morning in your inbox. And if you're still on Twitter, you can also follow us at Unrigged Media. That is the one social media space where we can sneak in and still promote our work.
Speaker: So that's just like some of the ways that people can actually feel connected to this. And I do believe that as the months go on and as we move forward with the project, there's going to be more and more ways that people can be involved. We do have plans in 2024.
Speaker: for expanding the community and bringing on more publishers. We already are in talks with a lot of big names that I'm really excited about. And we're also looking forward to eventually being able to create an app for our phones so that people can go directly via app to check out all the new news. It is a website that's created for mobile and desktop. So whether you're someone who likes to read the news on your computer or on your phone,
Speaker: Both ways are going to be extremely easy to navigate as a user at unrig .ca. Well, it's just been great talking about this and I want to say a big thank you to you because I know you've been a real mover and shaker in this and I just think it's such an important and really exciting new project.
Speaker: We're living through a crisis moment in journalism in Canada and Bill C -18 has really like driven that point home. So having a space like Unrigged be a place where we can see as a hopeful evolution of Canadian media, I think is really important. And that's just one of the many reasons I'm super, super stoked about Unrigged .ca. Thanks a lot for the opportunity to talk about it on Red Eye Radio.
Speaker: Thanks, Andre. I've been speaking with Andre Goulet. He is the executive director of Harbinger Media Network, and he's on the steering committee of Unrigged .ca. So go to Unrigged .ca and get started with this new all Canadian progressive news and podcasting site. And you can find Redeye and our partners at Harbinger Media Network in the podcast section of Unrigged.
Speaker: The Red Eye Collective is based in Vancouver. You can check us out at coopradio .org slash redeye.
