J-Topics

Democratic candidate Barack Obama is three times more likely to get front page coverage in the Washington Post than his rival, Republican John McCain. The paper's ombudsman says this is consistent with an analysis of other news outlets by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and is somewhat worrying.

The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) position in the B.C. human rights case against Maclean's and columnist Mark Steyn is, in part, that a journalist's intent should be considered when deeming a published statement hateful or contemptuous. J-Source contributing editor John Miller, who applied to tesify before the tribunal in the first week of June, but was denied, argues that the CAJ's position is "unsatisfactory" and "troublesome."  

A Black columnist for the Detroit Free Press discusses what constitutes fair criticism of Barack Obama, and what crosses the line to become "race-based" fear mongering.

While American anxiety and parochialism is being played out in Iraq, Afghanistan and in the race to the White House, real power in the world has shifted. Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, calls it the end of anti-Americanism and the beginning of post-Americanism. He calls it "the rise of the rest," the greatest power shift in more than 100 years that has seen new consumer and political societies emerge from what we used to call the "Third World." How the major institutions in our society -- including the media -- react to this may determine whether we thrive or miss the boat.