William Dutton, an academic and British Internet expert, has some interesting ideas about how a ‘fifth estate’ could support greater accountability in politics and the media. He gave a lecture to the Reuters Institute; the summary is on the Reuters site: The media are often seen as central to democratic processes: a ‘fourth estate’ independent…
A U.S. think piece asks of the phenomenon of a publication full of fake news that rivals America’s ninth-largest newspaper in circulation, “Is The Onion our most intelligent newspaper?” An excerpt: While other newspapers desperately add gardening sections, ask readers to share their favorite bratwurst recipes, or throw their staffers to ravenous packs of bloggers…
Transport Canada has quietly posted a searchable version of its CADORS aviation database to its website. This is a huge change of course for the department after it spent four years keeping the same data out of public hands. Click for more.
CBC’s investigative unit is at it again with a series of stories on violence in Canada’s nursing homes. The stories started airing on Marketplace October 17, and continued on CBC Radio the following week. This is a murky subject that doesn’t usually get much press, but a critical concern for families of patients who have…
A public affairs spokesperson says Saskatchewan’s health department has imposed a total ban on anyone giving media interviews, on any topic, to any journalist anywhere, for the duration of the provincial election. When I called about a story, I was told that to have a routine bureaucratic question answered, I would have to call the minister…
“A lot of journalists and former journalists and bloggers seem to hate their newspapers because of some vague psychic or moral sensibility, as if some great social contract has been breached. The newspaper was supposed to represent some Rockwellian expression of American idealism and democratic life along with a devotion to craft. Instead, it became…
American media conglomerates would be the big winners under a plan circulated this week by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The plan would, reported the New York Times, relax media ownership rules that have been in place since 1974, and would repeal a rule forbidding a company to own both a newspaper and a television…
From a Bloomberg story today: Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire 7.3 percent stake today, according to a person briefed on the transaction, sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years….Hassan Elmasry, managing director of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, unsuccessfully challenged the Sulzberger family’s control…
Anyone wondering why Time magazine is so skinny these days? Marvelling at the fat People on the newstands? Take a look at this graph compiled by the U.S. Project for Excellence in Journalism, showing changes in advertising. Says the blurb above the feature at journalism. org, “It’s been a rough year for the three major…
Later this year Rupert Murdoch will actually get his hands on his new prize, the Wall Street Journal. Jonathan Richards has stories in today’s Times and Guardian based on a speech and an interview with Murdoch following a San Francisco Internet conference, about his plans for the U.S. newspaper icon. In the stories, the planned…