Wednesday, April 04, 2007
New Team Bloggers Coming Soon
Look for some fresh faces, or rather bloggers, to be joining the Stroumboulopouli in the coming days and weeks. I look forward to hearing what their contributions and hope you do too.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
New Team Blog Member - Brooksie
Hello everyone. I go by the name Brooksie and I have been a regular reader of this blog since its inception. I am also a regular participant at the Strombo Forum. I have now joined this team blog and look forward to sharing with you some of my thoughts regarding The Hour and the topics and people it features.
I began watching the show right when it first launched. It has been interesting to see how the show has changed and not changed over the course of 3 years. This has been a popular topic (and contentious one) with the new season. I doubt I will focus on that, but I am sure it will continue to come up.
A little bit about where I get my news and information and how I watch The Hour...
I get some of my news from Newsworld and watch a few of their programs on semi-regular basis (CBC News: Sunday, the Passionate Eye). I enjoy my local TV news and I also get a fair amount of news and information from various websites.
I watch the show with my husband. We typically catch the 8PM Newsworld version though sometimes we tape it and then watch it at 9. It also feels good to have the 11PM version there just in case we miss a part of it (typically the opener - when we are late coming home from an errand or activity).
While my husband enjoys the show as one of his own news and information sources he spends his online reading & commenting energies at different sites than me. Still, we do enjoy the discussion the show can incite for us.
I began watching the show right when it first launched. It has been interesting to see how the show has changed and not changed over the course of 3 years. This has been a popular topic (and contentious one) with the new season. I doubt I will focus on that, but I am sure it will continue to come up.
A little bit about where I get my news and information and how I watch The Hour...
I get some of my news from Newsworld and watch a few of their programs on semi-regular basis (CBC News: Sunday, the Passionate Eye). I enjoy my local TV news and I also get a fair amount of news and information from various websites.
I watch the show with my husband. We typically catch the 8PM Newsworld version though sometimes we tape it and then watch it at 9. It also feels good to have the 11PM version there just in case we miss a part of it (typically the opener - when we are late coming home from an errand or activity).
While my husband enjoys the show as one of his own news and information sources he spends his online reading & commenting energies at different sites than me. Still, we do enjoy the discussion the show can incite for us.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
A New Change
As you may have noticed, the sidebar changed today, as Alana, Becky and I aren't part of this blog anymore. We expressed our opinion about this show in previous posts and comment sections and we said it, we don’t watch it a lot this season and we also don’t love it as much as we loved the first two seasons. When Barbara B and Allison decided to leave the group, the three of us started to think about it, what is our role here? Should we stay, or should we leave? Do we really want to be part of this group? We were thinking about it even before they decided to leave, but when they e-mailed us to tell us about it, well, it was a turning point, and we thought about it even more. But today, we decided that it was in our best interest to leave, but we will still be on our personal blogs. Barbara W will stay here, she will still be blogging and other bloggers should join the team, so this isn’t over just because we are leaving.
---
I personally decided to quit because I haven’t really watched a lot of episodes this season, I’ve been really busy with school and other things and it gave me less time to watch The Hour and even more to blog about it. And there’s also the new format of the show, I don’t love it. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about it and when Becky e-mailed us today to tell us that she wanted to leave the blog, I thought that it would be a good opportunity, I’m not leaving this blog because other people are, I’m leaving because I don’t think that I can contribute to this blog. I enjoyed our discussions here, but it is time for me to move on and to let other people write about the show that they like. If I have time, I'll still try to catch the show to see if it changed and I'll still come here once in a while to read what you have to say, but I can't be a contributor anymore.
But I'm happy that The Hour gave me the opportunity to meet so many amazing people, thanks for reading and good luck to the next contributors.
Evelyne
---
I think this is something that has been coming for awhile now, something that most of us have been thinking about individually and each debating whether or not we were being beneficial to the blog itself. Personally I have lost a lot of faith in the show this season, and given the lengthy posts we made about it before Season 3 started, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that some of us a disheartened about the turn out of The Hour's new season. I still watch it once or twice a week, but it lacks so much of the passion, the urgency that it had before, I don't find myself compelled by the content or even really paying that much attention to it when it's on. Of course, everyone grows out of one thing and evolves into something else, and I think the changes made to The Hour's content made a lot of us re-evaluate what we're looking for in an informative piece, and unfortunately we didn't find a lot of those things in Season 3. I can't speak for the other contributors, but I will still watch the show from time to time and I will still appreciate George's take on journalism for what it's worth. He is still a thought-provoking host and I hope the show's new spin has captured the attention of a lot more people, but honestly it's just not for me anymore, not on the same scale as it used to be.
I want to wish the best of luck to Barbara W. and the future contributors of this blog, may it encourage more discussion and interest than ever before. :)
Thank you to all the readers for all your support, it's done phenomenal things for this blog.
Alana
---
I'd been thinking of leaving the blog, but I almost thought of the original contributors as permanent. Almost that no matter how strange a fit it seemed, the original 7 would stay. When Barb B and Allison left I realized they made a good decision, and I should think about the part I play in this blog.
As many of you know, I haven't had very positive things to say about the show this season. In conversations about The Hour with friends and family, I started defending it less and attacking it more. I wanted enjoy it, like I did during season two, but the new show just wasn't the same to me.
Last year it was a huge influence on me, it even made me re-evaluate my feelings towards politics, and my future career path. It's casual interviews with people like Justin Trudeau inspired me, and it's format made it feel like an indie news show. This year, to me at least, all that's gone. It feels like George doesn't care, and is trying to make bad jokes just to impress the audience. They feels like two completely different programs.
But I still have to thank The Hour for all it gave me. Mostly, it let me meet so many awesome bloggers. I remember first reading Hilary M's blog about The Hour, with comments from so many people I know better now, and thinking that a show that can create a community like that has to have something going for it. I personally hope that old something will come back.
I know the blog is in good hands with Barb W and her new recruits, I wish them well!
Becky
---
I personally decided to quit because I haven’t really watched a lot of episodes this season, I’ve been really busy with school and other things and it gave me less time to watch The Hour and even more to blog about it. And there’s also the new format of the show, I don’t love it. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about it and when Becky e-mailed us today to tell us that she wanted to leave the blog, I thought that it would be a good opportunity, I’m not leaving this blog because other people are, I’m leaving because I don’t think that I can contribute to this blog. I enjoyed our discussions here, but it is time for me to move on and to let other people write about the show that they like. If I have time, I'll still try to catch the show to see if it changed and I'll still come here once in a while to read what you have to say, but I can't be a contributor anymore.
But I'm happy that The Hour gave me the opportunity to meet so many amazing people, thanks for reading and good luck to the next contributors.
Evelyne
---
I think this is something that has been coming for awhile now, something that most of us have been thinking about individually and each debating whether or not we were being beneficial to the blog itself. Personally I have lost a lot of faith in the show this season, and given the lengthy posts we made about it before Season 3 started, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that some of us a disheartened about the turn out of The Hour's new season. I still watch it once or twice a week, but it lacks so much of the passion, the urgency that it had before, I don't find myself compelled by the content or even really paying that much attention to it when it's on. Of course, everyone grows out of one thing and evolves into something else, and I think the changes made to The Hour's content made a lot of us re-evaluate what we're looking for in an informative piece, and unfortunately we didn't find a lot of those things in Season 3. I can't speak for the other contributors, but I will still watch the show from time to time and I will still appreciate George's take on journalism for what it's worth. He is still a thought-provoking host and I hope the show's new spin has captured the attention of a lot more people, but honestly it's just not for me anymore, not on the same scale as it used to be.
I want to wish the best of luck to Barbara W. and the future contributors of this blog, may it encourage more discussion and interest than ever before. :)
Thank you to all the readers for all your support, it's done phenomenal things for this blog.
Alana
---
I'd been thinking of leaving the blog, but I almost thought of the original contributors as permanent. Almost that no matter how strange a fit it seemed, the original 7 would stay. When Barb B and Allison left I realized they made a good decision, and I should think about the part I play in this blog.
As many of you know, I haven't had very positive things to say about the show this season. In conversations about The Hour with friends and family, I started defending it less and attacking it more. I wanted enjoy it, like I did during season two, but the new show just wasn't the same to me.
Last year it was a huge influence on me, it even made me re-evaluate my feelings towards politics, and my future career path. It's casual interviews with people like Justin Trudeau inspired me, and it's format made it feel like an indie news show. This year, to me at least, all that's gone. It feels like George doesn't care, and is trying to make bad jokes just to impress the audience. They feels like two completely different programs.
But I still have to thank The Hour for all it gave me. Mostly, it let me meet so many awesome bloggers. I remember first reading Hilary M's blog about The Hour, with comments from so many people I know better now, and thinking that a show that can create a community like that has to have something going for it. I personally hope that old something will come back.
I know the blog is in good hands with Barb W and her new recruits, I wish them well!
Becky
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