Meet the Editor! Derrick O'Keefe on babble every Friday, 12 p.m. EST

I like HuffPo is a good place to look to for what rabble could be like (but we/you can do it better). They have interesting columnists there and there are a lot of good writers on the net that are undersubscribed. For instance, I would love to see Ali Abunimah's writings syndicated from time to time on rabble. There are also some interesting political bloggers like Greg Fingas. You could ask these bloggers to provide content on a timely basis that is convenient to you and ask them to write about the things they should know best, ie. hometown (local) stories.

For next time, what is rabble's rapport with Briarpatch magazine and Our Times? There are a lot of great local leftwing publications across Canada, in English and French, that I think connections with could help enrich the rabble homepage. We could compile a list and you could use it as a way of finding new syndicated material or authors.

You should beg Richard Saunders of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (and occasional babbler) to write for rabble.

Sorry, I misspelled his name - it's Sanders.

 

 

+1

I meant in terms of having lots of insightful LEFT-WING commentators (like HuffPo does for liberals in the USA)

And I was referring to stuff like this.

Last week:

Later, in this Friday talk with Derrick time slot...

So what do you think a week later?

Re: Huffpost, one thing we know for sure is -- all April Fools aside -- that rabble won't be selling out to AOL or Bell. Re: Briarpatch and Our Times, yes rabble has some partnerships there traditionally as well as with Canadian Dimension and other print magazines. We could certainly think more about how to cross-promote and share content on a more regular basis. 

Howard, thanks for the kind words and for remembering Seven Oaks! 

MSpector, yes to getting Richard Sanders to contribute more often and also to have more writers follow-up on the invaluable research he does... 

A little more than five minutes to the next Derrick sighting ... get your questions/barbs ready!

Do you anticipate the Maple Spring, or the Canadian Occupy movement which shows tremors of resuscitation, will be a significant story this spring/summer? The enormity of the Quebec protest is certainly stirring--as is the potential of the planned May Day general "strike"; but do you think there will be larger resonances throughout Canada? And, more to the point, will rabble be continuing to focus on it and prepare for it?

Catchfire, I think the resistance across Canada to Harper's agenda, and to other austerity governments, will take many shapes. I'm hopeful that we'll see a return of some of the Occupy movements, and I'm certain we'll see the themes they raise continue to have a more prominent place in the public discourse. Some of that energy may transfer to other social movements, as the conditions demand. Out here on the west coast, I think the largest mobilizations will be around the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines -- the Harper government has essentially declared war on the environmental movement. 

But yes, we're trying to make both those things editorial priorties, and they're related. Quebec's 'Maple Spring' is much broader than anything we saw with the Occupy; well actually it's much broader than anything we've seen outside of Quebec in a long, long time. This past weekend's Earth Day march in Montreal may have been the largest protest in Canadian history. 

So, we are working to get more coverage of the student strike, including translating statements and timely articles from French to English. And on the Occupy front we are hoping to raise some funding specifically for coverage of Occupy-related activities in Canada over the next six months. 

 

Friday was a busy day for me. I met you back in the Seven Oaks days. You were doing good stuff then and continue to good things now!

I think rabble can really get beyond the corporate media and bring in more independent voices. I just look at some of the rabble blogs, some of those that post on babble, and think of the talented people that post in the US through the Netroots Convention system- some of whom are Canadian.

If I were to suggest anymore branching out to you, I would suggest going to the next Netroots Conference and see if we can steal any good ideas from them. If the World Social Forums start kicking up in a serious way again, there is another place rabble can become networker + syndicator of principled voices. I like when we give voice to the Left but stay out of the celebutancy of Levy-Strauss and others. Independent, left-wing, voices. I hope you keep asking leftists what they want to see on the site. Not just babblers, but the many thousands of lurkers to this and the rabble site and to those we wish were spending time here.

I wonder if you could also get some of the more prolific twitters to work beyond their 140 character limits

Hi Derrick. Good to see you back, I'm enjoying your direction. However, babble is in BIG trouble. The female voice is not even close to reflective of your demographic.(I'm male too) More women are left wing than men. A number of women, perhaps, the only active ones on babble have made their concerns known. I hope you can address this. http://rabble.ca/babble/rabble-reactions/input-thread-title-appropriaten... But it's also bigger than this and needs rabble to be proactive.

Thanks, RP. Derrick had prepared to discuss some of the broader editorial concerns of the site--the M.O. of the editorial staff is usually to leave babble to us, which suits us all very well. But maybe he can speak to the question of female representation and readership on rabble.ca as a whole.

Which reminds me--omg, you guys, Derrick will be here in two minutes!

I believe all the other editors in rabble's 11-year history have been female, and I'm very aware and proud of rabble's origins being closely related to the women's and feminist movement in Canada (as many of you know, Judy Rebick was the founding publisher). 

I'm going to stay out of babble specifics because as Catchfire says that's not my beat... it would be interesting to have a gender breakdown of the readers of rabble, or of online alternative news in general in Canada.