“Every once in a while I feel that it might be helpful to readers if I explained what it is I am trying to do in these columns,” wrote Stanley Fish in the New York Times. Kudos to Fish. As both a reader and a some-time column writer, I have often thought both readers and…
In a March 4 opinion piece featured on the Globe and Mail website, Ryerson journalism professor John Miller argues the Ontario Court of Appeal made the right decision last week in ordering the National Post to surrender a leaked and allegedly fraudulent document relating to “Shawinigate.” The court ruled that the public interest in determining…
Vanity Fair’s website has a story about the story — of the celebrity magazine’s quest to find out if a Victoria, B.C. resident was the son of J.F. Kennedy.It’s a fishy tale to be sure (one that I was surprised to see pop up repeatedly in the Globe and Mail), but nowhere does Vanity Fair…
Ontario’s highest court has set the interest of police criminal investigations above the need of journalists to protect confidential sources, in a ruling against the National Post (and the Globe and Mail and CBC as intervenors). In a case involving former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and Andrew McIntosh’s reports of business dealings connected to…
The House of Commons heritage committee recommended that the federal government commit “stable, multi-year funding” to the CBC, though the committee split along party lines over the future of the public broadcaster, said a Canadian Press report. Members of the minority Conservative government wrote their own, dissenting report, but all all agreed that the CBC…
Adbusters, a guerilla-media, anti-consumerist, magazine-publishing alternate media entity, lost its bid to force Global and CBC television to air Adbuster commercials spoofing multinational corporations and the media, reported the Canadian Press. Adbusters tried to buy air time in 2003 for 10 ads critical of media, and when the ads were turned down it filed suit,…
It’s American, but Canadians might be interested in the new guide for bloggers and others, developed by the Citizen Media Law Project. It bills itself as “intended for use by citizen media creators with or without formal legal training, as well as others with an interest in these issues, and focuses on the wide range…
The prosecution/persecution of American journalist Toni Locy, reported in the New York Times in a story excerpted below, highlights the need for shield laws for journalists and how authorities are figuratively shooting the messengers. WASHINGTON — A federal judge found a former reporter for USA Today in contempt of court on Tuesday for refusing to…
Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, has issued an odious news release regarding Maclean’s that, in my opinion, reeks of ignorance, clobbers different points of view, and is offensive in the extreme. In expressing dismay at what he sees as slurs against a religion that he says is “demonized in the public…
Val Ross was the sort of editor, and reporter, who embodied a rare mix of kindness, integrity and no-nonsense professionalism that was impressive and inspiring. The journalist and acclaimed author died Sunday four months after being diagnosed with brain cancer, age 57, far too early. She will be missed. Sandra Martin’s obituary in the Globe…