• J-Source

    Pullman’s defence of free speech

    Gotta love Philip Pullman: “It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended.”

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    Sniffy content?

    You’d be an April fool to turn up your nose at the Vancouver Sun‘s “innovative “four-dimensional” newspaper technology project, the first of its kind in the world.” The paper announced that the project would start July 1, with “a daily list of scratch-and-sniff content in each section of the paper” to rival 3-D movies like…

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    Is the National Post misogynist?

    The National Post has drawn criticism for its portrayal of women, and so-called women’s issues. J-Source isn’t the place to discuss those issues, but journalists might ask why the mainstream newspaper’s owner, now in bankruptcy protection, tolerates an editorial position that alienates 51 per cent of its potential subscribers or advertisers.

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    Long news

    Kirk Citron: “In the long run, some stories are going to matter more than others.”

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    Hot spotlight on weathermen and women

    Meteorologists — whose faces are on television as weather forecasters — have become the target of climate change activists because so many in the U.S.  are climate-chance skeptics, reported the New York Times. More than a quarter of American weathercasters surveyed by researchers agreed with the statement “Global warming is a scam.” “What we’ve recognized…

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    A capital where freedom’s in short supply

    by Lawrence Martin (This column originally appeared in The Globe and Mail and is reproduced by permission of the author.) It’s always great fun to see conservatives getting all worked up about freedom of speech, as they did over the dust-up between Ann Coulter and the University of Ottawa. The dragon lady, of course, was…

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    Hope for the international beat?

    In recent years J-Source has covered the retreat of foreign reporting, including the closure of the Globe and Mail’s Moscow bureau, the loss of some leading CBC foreign correspondents.  Internationally, we lost the Far Eastern Economic Review and there was a sharp downturn in U.S. international reporting. But is there new hope for the international…

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    Al Jazeera in Canada – “Turning the World Back On”

    Al Jazeera English will be on the air in Canada within six weeks, and not a moment too soon to spur a Canadian revival in international reporting, according to AJE managing director Tony Burman, who said North America’s foreign news corps fell victim to budget cuts during a crucial period of world history, leaving citizens…

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    British government funds hyperlocal news consortium

    The Independently Funded News Consortiais receiving public funds to assist in providing local communities with new sources of online news. “They will be able to deliver a broader local and regional news offering through multi-platform delivery. A contestable selection process will extend the base of content providers and increase the scope of innovation, quality and…

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    Rethinking magazines: 15 examples re-evaluate publishing

    With the launch of the iPad next month, this article explores 15 magazines and their respective approaches to using the new platform for publishing. “Such gadgets promise a new wave of tablet magazines. But it’s early days – our trawl of 15 examples includes many that are merely concepts – so consider them preferred bets,…