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    Media Matters

    With an annual budget of $10 million, all donated, Media Matters aims to monitor accuracy and bias in American media — and has a reputation for holding especially partisan right outlets to account. The New York Times looks at the organization…

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    Covering aboriginal peoples

        Aboriginal People’s Television Network asked in an episode of its program Contact, “Is the mainstream media part of the problem?” ….

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    Local news boost

    A ruling by the  the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission includes provision for a new fund to support local news programming in markets under one million people, with cable and satellite distributors contributing about $60-million a year, reported the Globe and Mail. The CRTC release is here.A Globe and Mail story is here.

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    Circulation grows! (or, “Man bites dog!”)

        “CIRCULATION GROWS” could be a screaming headline in 72-point with multiple exclamation marks. But, oddly, it arrived in my inbox today as a mere item in the latest e-bulletin of the Canadian Newspaper Association…

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    Another Wente controversy

        A discussion is raging on Facebook about Margaret Wente’s latest Globe and Mail column, “What Dick Pound said was really dumb – and also true.” …

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    Media wins access to recount

    The British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that a Victoria newspaper can attend and report on a judicial recount of federal election results in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. Sadly, that’s news.

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    Silver lining amid subscription cuts?

    A study of the monthly expenses that families are willing to cut from their budgets during an economic slowdown suggests subscriptions to magazines and newspapers will be cut fourth in order. That’s after tickets for concerts and sports events (1), movies (2) and DVD purchases (3), but before premium cable packages (5). A story in…

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    Poll of news organizations

    OK, this seems ridiculous: either nobody who works for CanWest reads J-Source, or if CanWest journalists do read J-Source not one of them considers their own news service tops. That doesn’t seem believable, but see for yourself: The J-Source election poll asked, “Which major national news organization provided the best election coverage this year?” The…

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    Afghanistan and freedom of expression

    “On the morning of Oct. 27, 2007, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh got the call that changed his life,” starts a Globe and Mail interview with the journalism student in Afghanistan whose death sentence was commuted for a 20-year sentence instead. His “crime,” the Globe notes, “would be nothing more than a typical classroom debate for a…

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    Bloggers don’t have Baghdad bureaus

    “News and opinion mingle with alarming alacrity [online],” Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor at The New York Times, told the (U.S.) Association of National Advertisers’ annual conference, in a speech on standards and change reported by Advertising Age. “Bloggers cannot replace what we do. They are not going to open a bureau in Baghdad.” Can’t…