Toronto Star public editor Kathy English has a column this weekend in which she reacts to a Star manager’s workshop with Newspapers Next. In part, the workshop discussed how newspapers can survive, and the “jobs” that need to be done. An excerpt:“… newspaper companies that aim to grow and prosper must resist the “sucking sound…
“Al Gore couldn’t believe his eyes: as the 2000 election heated up, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other top news outlets kept going after him, with misquotes ….while pundits such as Maureen Dowd appeared to be charmed by his rival, George W. Bush,” writes Evgenia Peretz in a Vanity Fair piece that…
“On many days the newsprint front page tastes of already chewed gum,” says Jack Shafer, in a Slate column reflecting on how his news consumption has shifted to the Internet. It’s an icky comparison but many of us will recognize the reality that print is already old when it rolls off the press. It’s also…
Canadian media have consistently given priority to covering the deaths of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan; today’s Globe and Mail top-front page piece about the death of Simon Longtin of the Vandoos is an example. In the U.S., however, a weariness with carnage seems to have set in, and there’s apparently lessening appetite in the media…
Is Russia cracking down on foreign media? The BBC was effectively kicked out of the country today. From a story in the Guardian:The BBC World Service has lost its last FM radio outlet in Russia today, adding further substance to claims of a clampdown on foreign media by the country’s authorities.Russian station Bolshoye Radio today…
Dean Starkman offers some strong opinions on the sell-out of the WSJ in the Columbia Journalism Review, and a warning for the NY Times. An excerpt:And so Dow Jones & Co., once the proud lion of financial news, goes down instead like a jackrabbit shot while sprinting across a field, tumbling just long enough to…
Author Taslima Nasreen, whose writing about women’s lives so offends conservative Muslims there’s a bounty (fatwa) on her head and she’s banished in her native Bangladesh, is reportedly charged in India with the crime of “hurting Muslim feelings.” Reported CBC: The charges come after Nasreen was attacked at a publication party because of opposition to…
“The real—and undeclared—ideology of American journalism is savviness, and this is what made the press so vulnerable to the likes of Karl Rove,” argues Jay Rosen in Press Think. My question: Is savviness related to sophistry, and our culture’s truly odd dedication to “sophistication?” Hat tip to Janet Tate’s press notes at the SPJ
Will the Toronto Star, Canada’s biggest newspaper, be in play on the stock market? The Globe and Mail’s Grant Robertson and Gordon Pitts examine that question in a piece about how some of the heirs of the family trust — the Thalls — plan to sell. Earlier, the TorStar had a (remarkably) small story about…
The latest Pew Research Center study on how Americans regard their news media will be a downer for many professional journalism: distrust, division and the emergence of media tribes. I suspect a similar Canadian study would have similar results. An excerpt from the study: The American public continues to fault news organizations for a number…