News Barons VS Internet Geeks

Award-winning journalist Charles J. Campbell— the University of Victoria’s first Harvey Stevenson Southam Lecturer in Journalism and Non-Fiction—will share his insights about the state of today’s journalism in a free public lecture entitled “News Barons vs. Internet Geeks: A Media Apocalypse?” on Thursday, January 24, 2008, at 7 p.m. in the David Lam Auditorium. Campbell’s lecture will reflect on the corporate concentration of media ownership and audience fragmentation which he says undermine Canada’s civic commons, the place where communities can come together to share disparate views about social values.
       A contributing editor to The Tyee, Campbell is a free-lance writer and editor. He has helped rebuild the pioneering weekly alternative paper, The Georgia Straight, and has worked as an editorial writer and entertainment editor at the Vancouver Sun. In his last few years editing The Georgia Straight, the paper won a dozen National Magazine Awards. Honours for his writing include a Webster nomination for best commentary in B.C., a shared Webster award for best print reporting, and a Western Magazine Award for best public issues feature.
       While at UVic this semester, he will teach a course in media and culture and provide valuable mentorship to young writers and aspiring journalists at UVic. The annual Harvey Stevenson Southam lectureship is made possible by a $250,000 gift from one of the country’s leading publishing families. Harvey Southam, a UVic alumnus and journalist, was an heir to his family’s publishing empire when he died suddenly in 1991. The gift was made by his mother, Mrs. Jean Southam.

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