• It’s a fact

    Angie Holan is sitting at her desk, lost in the chatter of the newsroom around her. Phones ringing, keyboards clicking, pens stroking across pieces of paper. It is March 25, 2008, and her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of her telephone ringing, the light on the base glowing with every pulsating sound. A source…

  • Derek Burney appears on BNN Bloomberg

    A case study in nondisclosures

    (Disclosure: I’m the full-time paid publisher of Briarpatch Magazine, a volunteer board member of the Media Co-op, CEO of the currently inactive environmental consulting company Porpoise B Consulting, and freelance journalist. My partner is a designer for the CBC, not involved in content.) Derek Burney has been writing op-eds for the Globe and Mail since…

  • Survey: Are j-school grads ready to tackle social media journalism?

    Social media sites have surpassed print newspapers as a news source. That’s according to the Pew Research Centre, which found that one-in-five U.S. adults say they often get news via social media, slightly higher than the share who say they often do so from print newspapers. Social media has evolved to become an important part…

  • Media on the move: Jan. 16

    In the early days of 2019, the Canadian Press announced upcoming cuts to its newsroom, eliminating the video desk and French-language radio broadcasts. Eight full-time and several part-time staffers were laid off due to the changes. Today, @CdnPress announced it will shut down its video desk next month. The department is made up of extremely…

  • Top takeaways from NASH 2019

    From Jan. 3 to 6, emerging journalists from across the country came together in Calgary, Alta. for NASH, an annual journalism conference hosted this year by the University of Calgary’s student publication the Gauntlet and supported by the Canadian University Press (CUP). Reporters and editors from about 37 publications attended sessions and workshops hosted by…

  • CBC/Radio-Canada building

    Hello from CBC’s new Ombudsperson

    This post was originally published on the CBC’s website on Jan. 7, 2019. This is my first day as CBC’s new Ombudsperson. I’d like to tell you a bit about how I plan to do the job. It starts with a pretty fundamental question: why have an Ombudsperson at all? I could go on about…

  • In praise of academic media sluts – a new year’s resolution

    Are you a media whore? Or do you worry you might be labeled one by your colleagues – if not to your face, then behind your back? In the process of delivering hundreds of media engagement workshops, I’ve heard dozens and dozens of you express this fear, using precisely this language. You’ve made it clear…

  • Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

    Media Localism: The Policies of Place. By Christopher Ali. University of Illinois Press – 2017. 272 pages. $25.00. The challenge of enhancing local media regulation beyond geographic and spatial considerations is at the heart of Christopher Ali’s recent book Media Localism: The Policies of Place. Ali, a Winnipeg-raised University of Virginia media studies professor, sets…