Curated knowlege, trenchant insights & witty bon mots
Once upon a time, I worked in Fort McMurray, Alta., home of the world-famous tar sands. While there, I once flew up to Fort Chipewyan to cover circuit court and got a glimpse of the Syncrude and Suncor sites from the air. In 2008 (almost 20 years after my time there), filmmaker Peter Mettler went [...]
Mon, January 25 2010 » Main Page » Comments Off
If you're a child of the 1970s, you may remember a crusading anti-corruption New York City cop named Frank Serpico, immortalized by Al Pacino in an eponymously titled film. He's still alive and still a cool guy. Make sure to click on the story and watch the video of him discussing the 1973 film with [...]
Mon, January 25 2010 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
The NYT looks at the massive media response to the earthquake in Haiti — and how that response is likely to start scaling back in a time of reduced budgets. From the NYT: The CNN anchor Anderson Cooper knows the 24-hour news cycle as well as anyone, and last week, he lamented that the survivors [...]
Mon, January 25 2010 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
Greg Mitchell had the following observation at his blog: I liked “Crazy Heart” well enough and Jeff Bridges will surely get an Oscar nod for his portrayal of wasted Townes Van Zandt type country songwriter. That's credible enough, but there's also a crazy conceit, and we're not talking about the May-December romance or Colin Farrell, [...]
Sun, January 24 2010 » Film, Main Page, Media » Comments Off
In this Jan. 23 column by Toronto Star public editor Kathy English, you can't see it. Hence the irony of her final paragraph: … Personally, I expect I would have opted to publish Oleniuk's powerful photo prominently on Page A3. But I would not have spiked this disturbing image because I can't imagine shielding readers entirely [...]
Sun, January 24 2010 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
From a late-night tweet by @gmarkham: Some bleak numbers. Newspapers losing their audience online, too. http://bit.ly/5mW23Z From Mark Briggs at Lost Remote: (posted Jan. 22) It is conventional wisdom that newspapers need to grow (and monetize) their online audience to sustain themselves in the digital age. Losing that online audience has to be newspapers’ greatest [...]
Sat, January 23 2010 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
From the Toronto Star’s blurb: “After taking blame for print’s decline, the digital world, including mobile devices and tablet computers, is being hailed as a potential saviour.”
Sat, January 23 2010 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
Globe and Mail columnist Leah McLaren is trying to create some snob appeal around paying for news, which I guess is a continuation, considering she once pooh-poohed those who wrote for free. From The Globe and Mail, under the headline “I'm looking forward to buying my online news“: Call me crazy, but I actually miss [...]
Sat, January 23 2010 » Main Page, Media » 2 Comments
I wrote two stories for CTV.ca: Will the online anti-prorogue movement come to life? That's the main story. It looks at the evolution of the Facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, which is now over 211,000 members. The prorogation backlash – Citizens in conversation This attempted to be a sample of some of the dialogue [...]
Sat, January 23 2010 » * Big Picture Stuff, Main Page, politics » Comments Off
On Friday morning, I boarded a northbound Spadina streetcar at Queen St. W. and Spadina Ave. through the back doors at the behest of a TTC supervisor. I showed my pass as I did so, and was quite sure she saw it. Just as I get up the steps, I hear a sharp, “EXCUSE ME, [...]
Sat, January 23 2010 » Main Page, Minutiae » 4 Comments