• J-Source

    Columbia j-school’s existential crisis

    Columbia University’s School of Journalism appears to be facing the same internal conflict about how, or even whether, to change its curricula to teach new media skills as so many other j-schools, including those in Canada. Some argue we can’t trade teaching core journalistic values and principles in favour of “playing with toys.” Others say…

  • J-Source

    Le journalisme citoyen : quand la démocratie réagit

    Vincent Destouches, étudiant en journalisme, Université Concordia | Le journaliste est un « agent » du public, du moins originellement. Il est censé représenter le peuple, aller chercher et découvrir la vérité des faits en son nom, et faire vivre ainsi la démocratie.  Mais l’évolution de la société n’a pas joué en faveur de son…

  • J-Source

    Aspers and CanWest get reprieve

    Canwest Global Communications Corp. won a reprieve on some of its debt problems until April 7. The company will use the time “to negotiate borrowing terms on its debt with senior lenders and said it was working with noteholders and other stakeholders to recapitalize the company,” reported the CanWest-owned National Post. The company had a…

  • J-Source

    Re-imagining journalism

    The online magazine The Tyee is running a series on journalism by Steve Anderson, co-ordinator of Canadians for Democratic Media and the Stop the Big Media Takeover campaign. Anderson’s first piece, “Why Big Media Is Failing,” blames Canada’s media crisis on “the highly concentrated media ownership in Canada combined with the deepening bottom-line mentality of…

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    Quebecor leaves CP

    The Canadian Press, already embroiled in restructuring, took a major blow from Quebecor Inc., which announced it will pull out of the news co-operative in mid 2010 to cut costs, and grow its own in-house news agency, said reports. Quebecor — owner of the Sun Media and Osprey chains — is CP’s biggest media member…

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    Photojournalist Tom Hanson dead at 41

    Canadian Press reported that award-winning CP photojournalist Tom Hanson, “a fierce champion of journalistic rights whose sometimes brusque manner belied a devoted husband with a gentle soul,” has died suddenly after collapsing while playing hockey. The Canadian Press story — an elegant and sad elegy by James Mccarten — is here.

  • J-Source

    Media Cloud: Automated media research tool open for testing

    Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society is beta testing an open-source, automated online media research tool called Media Cloud. According to the Center, Media Cloud software can already code full-text content from an extensive range of traditional and new media outlets, including blogs, and issue comparative reports about news subjects, terminology correlations and geographic…