A senior CanWest executive is retiring. The Asper family will consolidate more of its control over the media monolith as Leonard Asper takes over the responsibilities of outgoing Peter Viner. Here is today’s press release: WINNIPEG, July 18 /CNW/ – CanWest Global Communications Corp. President and CEO, Leonard Asper, today announced the retirement…
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has reached a tentative agreement to purchase of Dow Jones & Co. The story on the web site was free to non-subscribers as of late Monday. A New York Times report is here. It’s apparently true: everything really is for sale.
A Canadian Press story by Merito Ilo takes a look at the international media coverage of Conrad Black’s conviction, noting that “stories published Saturday in the U.S., British and Canadian media, including some newspapers that belonged to Black’s former media empire, Hollinger International, differed only in their choice of words, but not in their “he…
Conrad Black has been convicted on four criminal charges, including obstruction and three counts of mail fraud. He was found not guilty on nine other charges. He now faces the prospect of as much as 35 years in jail. A Globe and Mail story is here. A CP story is here. Black’s tale strikes me…
Ken Auletta takes an in-depth look at the takeover attempt of the WSJ by Rupert Murdoch — which seems to be proceeding like a juggernaut — and how Murdoch keeps his promises. Or not. An excerpt: Those who are suspicious of Murdoch’s pledges of noninterference recall what happened when he first extended his press holdings…
“Suck it up,” an editorial in the Wall Street Journal seems to tell WSJ staffers: “Those of us who extol the virtues of Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” for others can’t complain when it sweeps through our own industry.” The piece — in the context, of course, of the journal’s mooted sale to Rupert Murdoch or…
The CRTC has become the target of a new media democracy movement, and TorStar media columnist Antonia Zerbisias has a column about it — and the grassroots media activists, lawyers, academics, labour groups and cultural nationalists involved. They want Canadians to write to the CRTC by July 18, the deadline for its September hearings on…
The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten outsources himself. Using web resources only, he reports on some sort of Indian political meeting with some sort of people in some sort of strange clothes, who made lots of some sort of strange noise. If you’re a newspaper publisher in India he’ll sell you the rights to his story…
Typophile.com has a lively discussion going on about the new Globe and Mail. Join the discussion here.
A five-year research study at Simon Fraser University, published this spring in an academic journal, concludes that Canadian newspapers miss the “real stories” about health issues and “dwell on covering the more simplistic and sensational stories.” Simplistic and sensational, eh. Never heard that before. The SFU press release is here. It’s from last month but…