It’s been a tumultuous year for many industries and sectors across Canada, including in the media, and as Global National anchor Dawna Friesen tells us, sifting through the stories that need to be covered can feel stressful.
Friesen sat down with Daily Hive to discuss the challenges of the past year and her day-to-day as executive editor of Global National — something she refers to as “a game of Jenga.”
“The pace of news feels to me like it’s accelerated and the pace of very serious news stories.”
We spoke to Friesen about her top stories of the year and the headlines that dominated the discourse across Canada. We also spoke about the challenges in journalism this year, not only for journalists but also for viewers and consumers of news.
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Taylor Swift mania
Many topics dominated headlines in 2023, including the seeming rise of AI, Elon Musk, wildfires, geopolitical tensions, and Taylor Swift.
“It’s been a big year,” Friesen recounted, acknowledging so much that has been the topic of conversation, and all of it after we’ve just come through COVID-19.
“The pandemic changed all of us and was a huge disrupter of everything across the world.”
Friesen spoke about another disruptor, one in the music industry, as one of the year’s biggest stories. Taylor Swift was recently named Time‘s Person of the Year.
“She is a phenomenon, and not just for her music, which appeals to people across the board,” Friesen said.
“She’s also an amazing businessperson and is a disruptor of the music industry. So, for those reasons, I would say she’s pretty phenomenal.”
“Whatever happened to the cage fight?”
We’ve heard a lot about artificial intelligence in 2023, which Friesen suggests is an issue we should not take lightly.
“I think the scariest thing about AI [is] even the people who have developed it say they don’t know what it’s capable of.”
Friesen said she doesn’t want to ring the doomsday alarm but thinks a lot will unfold that we “better brace ourselves for.”
She also wondered about that dream match between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
“Whatever happened to the cage fight?”
Climate change
Stories about climate change dominated headlines for the past decade, and the last year was no exception.
We asked Friesen why climate change-related stories don’t take up more public discourse. It’s a challenge to prioritize stories around climate change when so much of what news publications choose to cover is driven by pageviews and clicks.
“If I had my way, and I don’t, I think I would try to lead with climate issues every day, or at least have them in the newscast every day.”
She added that she believes “it is the challenge for our times” along with the rise of AI.
“I get why people feel overwhelmed”
“It feels like we’re at a moment where so many things are intersecting that are so big,” the Global National anchor said.
We spoke to Friesen about journalism this year, including the challenges for news organizations like Global National and the public when there are so many stories to sift through, even the inconsequential ones.
“People sometimes say, ‘I can’t watch the news because it’s too much,'” Friesen said.
She added that she feels that way looking at her lineup every day.
“It used to be there were some days when we had a little extra time in the news today. That is never the case anymore. Now it is a constant game of Jenga, like, what can we take out?”
“So I get why people feel overwhelmed. And we feel that too. We are news consumers, too, and we’re people with families and kids. But our job, my job in particular, is to distill all that stuff and hopefully make complicated stories and stories that are important and accessible. And we try to explain why they’re important and what difference they might make in people’s lives.”
Watch our full interview here:
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