“How do (China’s) communist sentinels of cyberspace manage to control the information flow so precisely?” asks der Spiegel — and answers its own question, in depth. An excerpt from How China Leads the World in Web Censorship: “Surveillance computers form the backbone of the Chinese security system, monitoring the bulk of online communication round the…
Anne Kothawala, President and CEO of the Canadian Newspaper Association, has some thoughts about freedom of expression in Canada and the world, published in the Globe and Mail to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3. Canada’s “democracy is an anomaly in a planet hostile to basic freedoms. If we don’t…
For World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Reporters Without Borders has issued its new list of the “predators of press freedom.” They are, says RSF, “men and women who directly attack journalists or order others to. Most are top-level politicians (including presidents, prime ministers and kings) but they also include militia chiefs, leaders of…
Dean Starkman writes of the mayhem at the once-respected Wall Street Journal caused by the resignation of its editor and the ineffectiveness of a committee set up to protect the institution: “At a certain point, tragedy turns into farce, and we are getting awfully close to clown-car territory at The Wall Street Journal.” Starkman, who…
The world is an increasingly hostile place for journalists. Freedom House released Freedom of the Press 2008: A Global Survey of Media Independence in advance of World Press Freedom Day on May 3. Release materials– including country scores, draft reports, the overview essay, and the methodology– are now available. The survey, released annually since 1980,…
Nominations this year from the National Magazine Awards Foundation are led by the Walrus followed by Toronto Life, Maclean’s, Report on Business, L’actualité, and explore. Finalists for Magazine of the Year are L’actualité, Maisonneuve and Toronto Life. Charles Oberdorf received what the foundation calls its “most prestigious individual prize since its inception in 1990, The…
Reports the New York Times: With print revenue down and online revenue growing, newspaper executives are anticipating the day when big city dailies and national papers will abandon their print versions. That day has arrived in Madison, Wis. On Saturday, The Capital Times, the city’s fabled 90-year-old daily newspaper founded in response to the jingoist…
The April edition of Policy Options has an interesting piece by SFU communications researcher Catherine Murray, about Canada’s ethnic media. Murray discusses in part, the emergence of “multiple solitudes.” From the introduction: Do Canada’s ethnic media serve an integrative role? How can communication policy improve the integration process? Catherine Murray reports on a study of…
Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband John Edwards was a contender in the U.S. Democratic primaries for the presidential election, assesses the state of American journalism and finds it wanting. But much more interesting than Edwards’s critical conclusions — which have been reached by many others, and almost universally ignored by the public — is that on…
Globe and Mail reporter Jane Armstrong was arrested, fined and then expelled from Chechnya “on the grounds that she did not have proper accreditation,” said Reporters Without Borders. Noted a release from the press-rights organization, “Armstrong had accreditation to work in Chechnya, including in areas where counter-terrorist operations are carried out, but the police demanded…