Curated knowlege, trenchant insights & witty bon mots
Esther Enkin, the CBC's executive editor of news operations, talks about how her organization handled the ethical minefields of being contacted by both hostage-taker and hostages during an incident Wednesday at the WCB offices in Edmonton. From CBC.ca: In tense situations like this, there are always competing values at work. As journalists, it is in [...]
Fri, October 23 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Toronto on Wednesday at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce convention, answering questions on the economy, when the following came up: From CityNews.ca: “I tend to watch (mainly) American news; I don't like to watch Canadian news and hear what Allan [Gregg, the pollster/CBC pundit seated in the audience] and [...]
Fri, October 23 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
This happened to newsreader Peter Hitchener in Melbourne, Australia: From News.com.au: Ever the professional, the news stalwart only mildly flinched on noticing the seagull but later told 3AW radio the studio cameramen hid behind their cameras to hide their laughter. “I was reading away, and it was a serious story, and I suddenly thought, 'Oh my [...]
Fri, October 23 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
Newsworld will morph into the CBC News Network (the CNN of Canada, if you will) and the Corpse’s flagship TV news show, The National, will get a makeover (faster pace, same journalism, says Peter M.).
Thu, October 22 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
I snipped a few thoughts from John Doyle and Lynn Crosbie on the bizarre “balloon boy” saga. First, Doyle: It's a TV thing. It's another thing too. At regular intervals something scuzzy and cringe-inducing emerges from the television-centric popular culture in the United States and screams out for attention. That attention usually involves high-volume tut-tutting. [...]
Thu, October 22 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
The intriguing lede to Mitch Potter's story in the Toronto Star: “You attend a press conference. The newsmaker speaks. You run a DNA test to confirm they are who they claim to be. And then you publish.” From the Star: An absurd notion. But only marginally more absurd than the high comedy that played out [...]
Thu, October 22 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
From the NYT: The New York Times plans to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs — about 8 percent of the total — by year’s end, offering buyouts to union and nonunion employees, and resorting to layoffs if it cannot get enough people to leave voluntarily, the paper announced on Monday. The program mirrors one carried out [...]
Tue, October 20 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
Toronto Star business writer David Olive offers a prescription for what ails newspapers: From his blog at TheStar.com: (posted Oct. 19) I'll just excerpt his third point, which is what he sees as the competitive advantage of newspapers: The CanWest big-city papers have been around, on average, for 122 years. CanWest's Montreal Gazette dates from 1778. [...]
Tue, October 20 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark offered up some thoughts on how to improve journalism. From the Huffington Post (posted Oct. 19): There are a lot of new technologies which already affect news consumption and future business models. As a nerd, I'm excited by the new tech, particularly mobile, including new display systems and pervasive connectivity. However, the [...]
Tue, October 20 2009 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
Respected U.S. academic Michael Schudson and former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie released a major report Monday: The Reconstruction of American Journalism. Here's some of the setup: Newspapers and television news are not going to vanish in the foreseeable future, despite frequent predictions of their imminent extinction. But they will play diminished roles in [...]