Torstar Corp., owner of the Toronto Star, Canada’s biggest-circulation daily, said in a press release that it will cut 160 jobs in its newspaper division. A report by Reuters said the job cuts come as “the book and newspaper publisher copes with a declining newspaper market.” The news starkly contrasts with a release the previous week…
The New York Times’ public editor Clark Hoyt takes aim at the blurring of lines between opinion, analysis and reporting — an issue that I think is critical for the credibility of professional journalism. Excerpts: “The Times, like most newspapers, long ago ventured far from the safe shores of keeping opinions only on the opinion…
A Canadian columnist and former political worker, Bill Tieleman, received a death threat from a kook in Mainland China after a column in a free Vancouver commuter paper, in which he advocated boycotting China — and not just the summer Olympics. An excerpt of a story on Vancouver radio station CKNW: “Tieleman received a flurry…
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has formally complained to China’s ambassador to Canada about the blocking of the public broadcaster’s websites in China. In a letter sent April 4 to Chinese Ambassador Lu Shumin, CBC president Hubert T. Lacroix wrote, “I am writing to request that you make formal and immediate enquiries as to why the…
“You need money to recruit writers but you need writers to make money.” — Co-founder John Ndege of the UK citizen journalism start-up Scribblesheet , which shut down after just six months. Ndege told a blogger/columnist at the Guardian newspaper that he does think there’s a need for citizen journalism — but can’t reconcile the…
On March 26 China said it would allow the first group of foreign journalists to visit Tibet — under escort — since violent protests began earlier this month. Reported Associated Press, “It was unclear how much freedom to report the small group of foreign journalists, among them an Associated Press reporter, would have during the…
Reading a Globe and Mail business story about how the U.S. Patriot Act “haunts” Google’s business services outside the U.S., I wondered how many journalists use gmail (or any other U.S. Internet service including domain hosting companies, or email services like hotmail or yahoo), as a backup email service. I suspect that using any American…
Let’s see: China is lambasting foreign reporters for “biased” coverage of the riots in Tibet — while preventing them from traveling to Tibet or neighboring provinces to report on the unrest. Hmmm. The only possible translation is that China wants journalists and the rest of the world to simply accept China’s version of what’s happening,…
Iraq coverage by major American news sources has dropped to about one-fifth of what it was last summer, says a New York Times story, which also notes, “the drop in coverage parallels — and may be explained by — a decline in public interest.” Shame! The New York Times story is here.
Just why has CanWest Global — the giant media company in an industry that is rightfully leery of libel chill and which relies on the right to freedom of expression for its existence — begun using law suits to squelch criticism of itself? CanWest is suing The Tyee, an independent online magazine founded by David…