The credibility of what is called “citizen journalism” took a big hit this week, according to Eric Morse, a former Canadian diplomat who is now vice-chair of the Security Studies Committee at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto. In a column in the Ottawa Citizen Morse criticized those who reported as fact information contained in…
On Sunday three prominent publications published stories based on thousands of pages of classified U.S. military documents on the war in Afghanistan. The material came from WikiLeaks, a three-year-old, volunteer-run website whose mission is to provide a safe way for whistleblowers to make information public that someone in power didn’t want us to see. This…
The release of classified information about the Afghan War by WikiLeaks and three news organizations is being described by some as a new form of “assymetrical” journalism. In a column in The New York Times, David Carr says the collaboration between WikiLeaks, a whistle-blower Web site that specializes in publishing classified or secret documents, and three traditional…
As military officials, world leaders and politicians debate the impact of the release of tens of thousands of raw classified field reports on the Afghan war, journalists and those who study the media are debating the impact of the release on the news business. The records released were included in a classified archive obtained by…
An excellent analysis of the role of social media in news coverage is presented by Antonia Zerbisias in the Toronto Star on July 11. She aptly describes how Twitter became a news sources for untold numbers of people as journalists on the front lines used social media as an instant news wire, sending valuable, pertinent…
BBC radio Scotland airs an interesting program pitting an old hack journalist using traditional tools against a younger new media journalist loaded with technology. The idea is to see which one gets the better, more credible story. The results are aired on the radio. The programme ‘Old Hack, New Tricks’ will air today at 11:30am…
“Put in simplest terms, the troubles in Thailand are a classic clash between the rural poor – who live in places like Chiang Mai – and rich urbanites in Bangkok.” So concluded a report carried across Canadian newspapers this Saturday.It’s not that simple, of course. But neither is the Thai landscape so complicated that western…
In light of abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, how well is the media covering this issue? This was one of the questions behind a Sunday Edition panel discussion, MediaPhiles: God and the Media. In J-Source’s Ideas Section we learn there’s more to the story than clerics and victims. Over in the Town Hall,…
A quickening is apparent within Canada’s biggest newspaper conglomerate, long mired in the slough of despond. Beleagued Canwest LP is comprised of the remnants of some once-venerable FP publications, some once-venerable Southam publications and a whole bunch of small newspapers that once served their communities. Other than the relatively new National Post company flagship, mostly…
The imminent auction of the CanWest chain of newspapers has drawn the attention of Canada’s largest media union, which urged consideration of the “public trust” in the choice of a new owner. Meanwhile, CanWest appointed an interim president to steer its newspaper division through the final throes of its bankruptcy protection and sale …