Jeff Ansell discusses the impact social media has on the news industry.

Ed Schreyer, who was the current Governor General of Canada, invited Jeff and his wife Annie to Rideau Hall for dinner. Jeff is a recipient of the Governor General's Award.

While there, the previous GG, Roland Michener, who was also in attendance with his wife, took Jeff and Annie on a tour of Rideau Hall, Michener's former residence. Jeff recounts the experience in this video.

Jeff talks about his first love being radio, and how he used to listen to the big old radio in his parent's bedroom on Sunday night when he was a kid while the rest of his family watched Ed Sullivan and Bonanza on TV in the living room.

Journalism is a 24/7 business. Quite often a passionate reporter works on their own time and dime.

When a tip comes in you don't say, let me get back to you Monday morning. You follow up on Saturday night before it goes cold.

Many people think reporters are callous and calculating, and some are, but most have feelings. Good journalists learn to appropriately manage their emotions. Bad ones become almost sociopathic.

Many investigations I worked on affected me in a deep and profound way. It changed my life. It actually made me more connected, and compassionate. It also taught me to identify fakes, greed, and corruption.
 

Speaking to media is dangerous, even for experienced media trainers. It seems I'm no exception.

Sometimes the best laid plans go awry. Just imagine what could happen if you didn't know what you were doing?

The first time Bob Holiday called me about working for him at CFTR I said no. He called again a couple of months later and I figured he probably wouldn't call a third time so I agreed to do the interview. They flew me from Montreal to Toronto to did the interview, and much to my surprise, I got the job.

It's dumbed down.

It's moronic in many cases.

It's extremely shallow.

And I think we as a society are suffering as a result.

There's a whole bunch of reasons for it.

I received a call one day from a woman who said her twenty-seven year old husband died of a drug overdose while under the care of his physicians. The drugs were prescribed by his doctors. She asked if I could do something. Other news companies had turned her down. I felt for her and agreed to investigate.

My partner, Tim Lang, and I went undercover for over a year, and, wired with hidden microphones became patients of these two doctors. We visited them often and received a number of prescriptions, but not once did they ever do a physical examination. The resulting hour long documentary caused both doctors to lose their licences, unfortunately though only temporarily. We were nominated that year for the Governor General's Award.

It was the first time ever a radio station was nominated, and to our delight, we placed second. It was a very proud moment for me knowing we had such a positive impact in our community, and more importantly had also helped this distraught woman whose husband was taken so tragically.

I came from radio and ended up on television at CityTV.

Learning to be a TV news producer on the fly was very stressful, so much so that I started smoking cigarettes again after quitting for five years.

I knew nothing about TV news production when I arrived at CityTV from radio. Cameramen and editors taught me on the fly.

Thankfully, I didn't remain a producer long and quickly moved to becoming a TV news jounalist when a reporter left and I took over his position.

Relatively speaking, radio is a one man show, while television needs a team. 
 

CFCF at the time was one of the biggest radio stations in Montreal. 

When I was ten I wanted to see it, but they didn't give tours unless you were a part of a group.

So, I persuaded seven or eight of my friends to come with me for a tour. My mother took a day off work to act as chaperone, and we all went by bus.

I still remember to this day the buzz I got when they showed us the news room.

When you're dealing with an issue that:

Has a high level of concern

Has a low level of trust in your ability to confront this concern

Where you can't carry on your day to day business affairs because the crisis is all everybody is talking about

Has politicians talking about you

Is front page in major dailies across the country above the fold

When all that comes together, you're in crisis

Reporting is NOT what it used to be for a wide variety of reasons.

The media are downsizing and reporters are losing their jobs.

Reporters who still have jobs are forced to do more with less.

The workload for reporters is bigger than ever.

Not only do they have to write the front page for tomorrow's story, they have to put a story on the web ASAP, and they need to carry a camera so they can put video on the web.

They're doing their research on the run while they're writing history in a hurry.

Today anything & everything qualifies as news!

And everyone everywhere is now a reporter.

All you need to be a reporter is a smartphone and an internet connection. That's all you need.

It's like Matt Drudge said, "We're all reporters now."

More so thanks to Twitter and thanks to Facebook.

Information is instantaneous.

No sooner done than said.
 

If heaven forbid you find yourself mired in news,
get on the front page and take your shot on the kisser
. . . and tomorrow it's on the bottom of the birdcage.

Be there! 

Because if you jump in too late realizing, 
Holy Cow!, we blew this, you've lost credibility. 

Everything you say from that point on is suspect.

Reporters turn a crisis situation into a battle between good and evil.

Good versus evil is a very powerful dynamic. 

Honest vs. Dishonest

Lies vs. Truth

Competent vs. Incompetent

Black vs. White

No color grey please, only back and white. 

Black and white is easy to see.

Black and white is easy to report. 

He says this, she says that ... Jeff Ansell, CBC News, Ottawa.
 

What is news? News is emotion!

News is outrage!

News is drama and irony!

And above all, news is conflict.

Media love conflict.

Media do NOT like solutions because solutions interfere with conflict.

And conflict pays for the kids braces and for them to go to camp in the summer. 

Conflict is in media's blood. 

Crisis is all about conflict.

Reporters take a conflict, serve it up as a good vs. evil dynamic, add emotion and outrage and what results is a recipe for a very potent cocktail.

Acknowledge the Concerns of the Other Side.

That's powerful.

It's surprising how reluctant companies and organizations can be to simply acknowledge the obvious.
 

Many organizations in crisis batten down the hatches and instinctively become defensive and argumentative.

And what that does, aside from representing poor public policy, it plays into the hands of an already distrustful and skeptical public.

When crisis strikes the level of scrutiny is intense, and the nature of questions is accusatory. 

When CEOs are questioned in this manner they are not used to it.

Nobody talks to the CEO like this.

The CEO is used to everybody genuflecting in front of them.

How dare you speak to me in this manner.

And the result is that CEOs fly off the handle and make fools of themselves.

In news rooms across North America right now, and all across the free world, reporters are casting the stars of tonight's six o'clock news and the stars on the front page of tomorrow's newspapers.

Media casts roles in a crisis, and they are extremely adept at getting the characters involved to effectively play their parts.

In other words, to live up to their stereotypes.