Canadian government agencies from the military to the Prime Minister’s Office extensively monitor and distribute the work of correspondents covering Afghanistan, reports The Canadian Press. No surprise there, especially with a government notable for its extreme tendencies to control information. But good on CP for obtaining documents proving it and for reminding us — and…
Of the (too many) ways to silence journalists Turkey has added another: censorship by court fine. The New York Times calls a contentious $2.5 billion fine against a media company a “particularly chilling example of another way to shut down independent voices … that appears to be designed to put a major media company out…
When CNN and Fox cable news reporters in the U.S. jumped on what they thought was a hot story, the ensuing panic became global news. When the “story” turned out to be a routine Coast Guard training exercise, the target became not just the trigger-happy cable news reporters, but journalism in general.
Esprit de Corps editor Scott Taylor is taken to task for irresponsible behaviour in a new review by J-Source contributor, Jeffrey Dvorkin. Taylor – a former soldier – writes about carrying weapons when he was embedded as a freelancer with a Canadian unit in the Balkans in 1988. He says he fired a pistol towards…
“Read a good newspaper … it will be your path to the world at large,” advises James MacGregor Burns, an American professor emeritus, in a New York Times back-to-college column. The cynic in me wonders if the good professor would have the same advice were he younger, with a youthful perspective on social online media…
A New York Times editor’s off-the-cuff estimate that a recent NYT magazine cover story cost almost $400,000 to report and edit is sparking wonderment and head-scratching in the journalism community. The story, produced in collaboration with ProPublica, dug into allegations of mass euthenasia at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. A piece published by the Neiman Journalism Lab called it…
“Some good news from Afghanistan is that American commanders have wisely canceled a contract with a public relations firm accused of profiling correspondents with negative-to-positive ratings to help determine whether they may report in the war zone with troops,” said a New York Times editorial. It cites a military newspaper report that profiles “were used…
A Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decided that a section of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which bans Internet hate messages, is unconstitutional because it violates free speech protections.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has pressed his Iranian counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, to release detained journalist Maziar Bahari, said news reports. A CBC story is here; Agence France-Presse reports here; the background on Bahari’s case is on the web site freemaziarbahari.org.
Peerless photographer Annie Leibovitz may be the latest victim of America’s bad debt crisis and nationwide recession — and also, said an Agence France-Presse story, “of her own relentless artistic ambition.” “How Could This Happen to Annie Leibovitz? The $24 million question,” asked New York Magazine. “Her debts now total a staggering $24 million, consolidated…