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As It Happens

CBC hires Twitter Canada's Steve Ladurantaye to help lead digital strategy

For the past five years, Steve Ladurantaye has worked at Twitter, helping newsrooms on how best to use social media. Now, he'll give that advice exclusively to CBC: he's the broadcaster's new Managing Editor of Digital News.
CBC Radio ·
Steve Ladurantaye has joined CBC as Managing Editor of Digital News. For the past five years, he's been working at Twitter as head of Canadian news and government partnerships.
As It Happens7:52CBC hires Steve Ladurantaye from Twitter Canada to help lead digital strategy

Fittingly, the announcement came over Twitter. The social media company's head of Canadian news and government partnerships, Steve Ladurantaye, tweeted the following news this morning:

For the past five years, Ladurantaye has been working with newsrooms across Canada and the U.S., on how best to use Twitter. Starting May 9, he'll move into CBC's offices as Managing Editor of Digital News.

Ladurantaye spoke to As It Happens guest host Laura Lynch about why he flew the Twitter coop for CBC.

"There weren't too many jobs I would have left for. But the scope and the scale of CBC was too much to pass up," he says.

Before working at Twitter, Ladurantaye had spent most of his career in newspapers, reporting and editing at papers like the Kingston Whig-Standard, the Peterborough Examiner and the Globe and Mail. Part of his move back to the CBC was the simple fact that he missed working in journalism.

"I just missed being able to really dig in with the deeper questions, to probe things. Over time that grows a little more every day, and then you get to the point where you're just looking for an opportunity to get back in."

For the past few years, Ladurantaye has been observing the way traditional media outlets use Twitter. The big thing he sees is news organizations using the platform without understanding why it's useful.

"There's this idea that they're just platforms that you put things on and expect people to come to, and really the true power of social media is that you have an opportunity to have a two-way conversation, as cliche as that sounds."

Twitter's Steve Ladurantaye records Green Party leader Elizabeth May, to be uploaded to Twitter as she live-tweets to leaders during the Globe and Mail leaders' debate, which May was not invited to. (CHAD HIPOLITO/CP)

He says that conversation can apply to any story — whether it's clickbait or an investigative feature.

"I think there's just as much a place at the CBC for a really great cat video as there is for really serious journalism. Nothing has to be either-or," he says.

The Twitter logo as seen from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Steve Ladurantaye has announced he's leaving Twitter to work at CBC, as Managing Editor of Digital News. (Richard Drew/AP )

Ladurantaye says with a digital strategy comes the expectation that journalists use Twitter and Facebook all the time. But there are challenges when you mix the professional with the personal.

"Everything you say is filtered through the 'sniff test.' If this is on the front page of the newspaper, or on the six o'clock news, is your mother going to be ashamed that she gave birth to you? I've always believed you're one tweet away from being fired. Keep it classy, and everything should be OK," he says.

On Friday, Ladurantaye sent out a brief introduction. In it, he mentions something about an indie record deal from back in the day. Of course, As It Happens had to find out more. It turns out his band was called Chickpea. 

"We decided to go on tour because we thought we were going to be the biggest band that ever was. Then I gave that up for journalism."

To hear more, take a listen to the full interview.
 

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