As of Oct. 3, Facebook group Fredericton Newschaser, along with a slew of other regional discussion groups, will be no more.
A newer public forum is ready to take its place as it sets out to distinguish itself from a tarnished Newschaser legacy.
Michael Landry worked with the founders of the Newschaser brand in Moncton to create a network of regional groups around the province, including in Fredericton. He now runs Fredericton BBS, short for Fredericton Bulletin Board System, along with seven other regional online forums.
The 28-year-old store clerk from Campbellton watched as the original Moncton-based group saw arguments and outcry over insensitive posts, and founder Ray Richard and administrator Trish Young left the group July 23.
“[Young] went on, and she posted about a heart attack victim,” Landry recounted as an example. “He was on his way to Miramichi. A few members said ‘what is this? This is sick. This isn’t news.’ She went right off the handle, like, ‘if you don’t like this, you can leave.’”
In December 2012, about six months before Landry got involved with Newschaser, his mother died. In his time with Newschaser, he often wondered how hard it would have been to see her death discussed as deaths often were discussed on the forum. He was ashamed to leave those posts online, but he said he often had to.
“It didnt feel good to say ‘listen, this is a news group, this is what we do,’ but I did…” he said.
Landry said his new project, which features an anonymous chat room and an online bulletin-board forum in addition to the Facebook groups, will have more oversight and will delete posts about emergency response scanner activity unless the administration thinks specific calls are necessary.
“There was always drama around using (police scanners),” Landry said. “I realized it was going to be tricky to get them in. I didn’t want it to come down to having to ban 100 people because they’re upset about a post.”
He said the former Newschaser administrators would often delete any members from the group who complained about their practices. He said what many in the group called “citizen journalism,” would become more like community journalism once the content is checked for relevance by administrators.
Pascal Raiche-Nogue, president of the Acadian Association of Journalists, spoke with the Acadie Nouvelle Ltd. newspaper, after leaders of Newschaser left the group in July.
“Citizen journalism is probably here to stay, despite the end of Newschaser,” he said in French. “You have to live with that, but it will never replace the work of professional journalists. It is important that people who inform themselves using such sites consult more than one source of information and use critical thinking skills.”
By Landry’s count, his Facebook pages had accumulated about three per cent of Newschasers’s following as of last Thursday.
“It gives us a seed to work with. Eventually we’ll root ourselves in the communities,” he said.
The original Moncton-area Neswchaser drew the ire of the public for its role in the June 4 shootings in Moncton, which resulted in three RCMP officers killed. The group largely ignored a call blanketed across local, national, and social media from RCMP to not share the whereabouts of officers.
“The system we created was used against itself,” Landry said. “He’s not going to be listening to the scanner feed itself. He’s going to be watching on social media.”
While those disgusted over actions carried out under the Newschaser banner have quieted, Landry and his crew of administrators are looking to re-brand.
“We’re going to focus on events and issues. We’re going to focus on what matters. We don’t want a page full of car accidents…News is much more than that.”
