As it continues to lose operations money and to cut journalism jobs, media conglomerate CanWest Global reported a Q4 rise in its net profits, to $197 million from $155 million, said a Canadian Press report. The company — which in some Canadian markets such as on British Columbia’s south coast enjoys a near-monopoly on print…
There are reports that Iran’s supreme court will soon rule in the case of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photographer , who died in a Tehran prison in June 2003. An Agence France-Presse report from Tehran cites the Kazemi family lawyer as a source, quoting from a news agency in Iran. The lawyer, Mohammad Seifzadeh,, is…
A coalition of 18 artist and business groups from across Canada has asked Canadian Heritage Minister Josée Verner to rein in the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. The CRTC, under chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, has made a series of market-oriented decisions that marks a drift toward deregulation, the groups said. — From a story on…
“What do you think when you hear someone like Naomi Wolf comparing America to a fascist state? If you were reporting about her arguments and claims, how would you proceed?” Those questions are from a must-read column by Poynter’s Roy Peter Clark. Good questions. Better yet is the sage advice he offers in response to…
Andrew Coyne will become the national editor of Maclean’s newsmagazine, announced publisher and editor-in-chief Ken Whyte. Coyne will join Maclean’s in early November, said a press release, noting that Coyne will ll write a column as well as longer pieces. At the National Post Coyne was national affairs columnist; he has also been an editorial…
Globe and Mail Africa correspondent Stephanie Nolen won the 2007 PEN Canada Paul Kidd Courage Prize, for her coverage of the AIDS crisis in Africa. (Nolen’s 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa is also on the short list for the 2007 Governor General’s literary award.) “By staking out the HIV/AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa as…
“It was enough to melt the heart of a cynical scribe: a standing ovation for two Conservative cabinet ministers – from the parliamentary press gallery,” leads John Ward of the Canadian Press, in a report about the parliamentary press gallery dinner in Ottawa. The journalists saluted Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon and Jean-Pierre Blackburn just for…
Unionized Quebec journalists will host a conference next February, headed by Joan Fraser, on whether media is still serving the public interest. Fraser knows about this issue first hand. She was a long time journalist, including as as editor-in-chief of the Montreal Gazette. More recently as a senator, she was a major force behind the…
In 1990, four years before the first web browser was released, the executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News wrote a remarkably prescient memo to his bosses at the newspaper chain Knight Ridder, reports a Nov. 5 Business Week story about the state of newspapers, A Cautionary Tale for Old Media. “Typing at night…
Alternet has an interview with Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. The leader says it’s about how Krugman thinks “the right-wing media machine is destroying social progress.” Here’s Alternet interviewer Rory O’Connor’s introduction to his piece: “It’s more than a bit surprising when the guy from the New York Times sounds more…