The freelance writer and videographer Kai Nagata discusses rescuing a stray coyote, last night’s provincial election, the state of journalism, and the end of his career in daily journalism and the evolution to what it is today in an in-depth interview with Joseph Planta.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at TheCommentary.ca.

Kai Nagata joins me now. We’re going to talk about politics and the press. The provincial election results of the last day or so seem like a good place to start, and then we’ll likely discuss what the polls were reporting, and then the reporting done by the media, both in the traditional forms and the social media that’s ubiquitous nowadays. Kai Nagata is a freelance writer and videographer. He also commits satire at Deep Rogue Ram. They’ve made some hilarious videos there. In July 2011, rather than report the news, he made it, with his very public resignation as the Quebec City Bureau Chief for CTV News. He had worked at the CBC prior to that, and was leaving daily journalism with a much-read 3,000 word essay on his blog at www.kainagata.com explaining his reasons. He proclaimed his faith in journalism to do good, but lamented that it wasn’t being practiced in the newsrooms across this country. Tomorrow, Thursday, 16 May 2013 he’ll be hosting Remix This: A Copyright Cabaret organised by FreshMedia. That’s at the Wise Hall on Adanac. And 01 & 02 June 2013, he and Dan Murphy will be hosting a video production master class at The Tyee. Visit The Tyee’s website for information on how to register. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Kai Nagata; Mr. Nagata, good morning.

***ERRATA: In this interview, I tell Kai Nagata that at the time of his blog post, I had made a joke worrying as to the length of a suicide note. Unfortunately, I did not come up with that line, and in fact at the time had read a similar Tweet from the writer Graeme McRanor. I apologise to Mr. McRanor. –JOSEPH PLANTA.

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