Category / Read / Commentary

Columbia Journalism Review has posted its top errors and corrections for the year. And the winner is . . . 

An article on the class website of the Journalism Program at the University of Miami makes what, at first blush, seems like an obvious point: Journalists who cover traumatic events–fires, accidents, plane crashes, etc.–must always exhibit compassion and sympathy in the course of doing their work. Rather than trying to “stay impartial,” the writer says,…

Apparently this posting on the Canadian Association of Journalists list-serv has prompted more attention than it likely deserves. I’ve been ignoring it, chalking it up to too many people with too much time on their hands over-analyzing and over-parsing the last paragraph in particular, but it was suggested we throw it out for you all…

The New York Times has posted on its site today photographs taken in Afghanistan by Joao Silva right up to when he stepped on a landmine and lost both his legs in the subsequent explosion. There’s a gap when the mine explodes and then, true to his craft, there are the photos he took after…

Armed with a cellphone and enormous courage, “citizen journalists” are reporting on life in North Korea. There are some clips at that site with subtitles and a story on why some of these people are risking their lives to report stories from the country. 

So, the consensus about the latest Wikileaks posting is that we Canadians won’t get mad at Obama, even if he said nasty things about us. But some pundits are wondering if it’s journalism, including U.S. columnist Susan Milligan and the National Post’s Lorne Gunter. Without context, it seems to me to be nothing more than…

Stephanie Nolen, the Globe and Mail‘s award-winning correspondent in New Delhi, talks about the occupational hazards (and rewards) of being a woman foreign correspondent in Africa and India. She also offers five rules to live by. The occasion is the annual Dalton Camp Lecture in Journalism at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.

I know I should have posted something before now but, to be honest, what is there to say about the CBC web redesign that hasn’t already been said about the Globe? Like, why? Or, as a colleague said, “where’s the news? I don’t like having to look for it.” When will news-website designers learn that…

The co-founder of Twitter has told Reuters he wants to work with other news organizations to create a Twitter News Service. To read more about what Biz Stone envisions, click through. 

Ann Louise Bardach and the New York Times have been fighting for five years to stop the reporter from being ordered to testify in the pre-trial of a Cuban anti-Castro militant indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction, naturalization fraud and providing false statements to immigration authorities. Bardach has now been ordered to testify. The Reporters…