RRJ Editorial Blog
"I will be glad when your rag goes out of business. Real men marry women."
March 11, 2010
More than two dozen readers cancelled their subscriptions when The Washington Post published a photo of two men kissing on its front page last week alongside a story of the D.C. Superior Court beginning to accept license applications for same-sex marriages. Andrew Alexander, the Post's ombudsman, received a slew of complaints from readers. One ranted about the Post "promoting a faggot lifestyle." A 65-year-old reader, who cancelled a subscription she had held since the 1960s, had the more reasonable suggestion of running the photo inside the paper.
"I realize that the world is changing rapidly—much more rapidly than I would like it to," she wrote. "While I realize that the Post must report on these changes—even the ones with which I do not agree—I feel that the picture on Thursday morning was an affront to the majority of your readership. It is not something that I want coming into my home. I believe that even your editors know that it would have been better placed in the Metro section and that it would have mitigated its impact to do so."
Alexander's reply was admirable. "There was a time, after court-ordered integration, when readers complained about front-page photos of blacks mixing with whites," he wrote. "Today, photo images of same-sex couples capture the same reality of societal change."
Though readers enjoy an increasing amount of editorial influence through crowd-sourced and participatory journalism, I appreciate the Post's backbone. But would an online news community have reacted differently? Probably not.
Posted by RRJ at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)
Queer? Not welcome
March 10, 2010
The Harper government dealt a low blow to Canada's queer publications when it announced revisions to the aid-to-publishers budgets, part of the Canadian Periodical Fund, on Jan. 19th.
Small publications must have a total 5,000-copy annual paid circulation to be eligible for financial assistance, and publications like Fab Magazine don't make the cut.
Queer mags were formerly exempt from minimum subscription requirements, but now only aboriginal, ethno-cultural and official language minority publications have a requirement of 2,500 paid copies.
Xtra reported on Jan. 26th that according to a Canadian Heritage spokesperson these titles are exempt because of their small size and business model obstacles: "On the other hand, GLBT titles serve a large group across Canada, and have demonstrated that they can reach large groups of readers."
Broad readership or not, magazines like Fab are largely distribute for free (they sell less than five percent of their copies), and cuts to funding will make it difficult to stay that way.
Brett Taylor, publishing editor of Canadian queer mag, Outlooks, which barely makes the 5,000-copy limit, finds it ironic that magazines that need the support don't have the revenue. And without that support, many queer magazines may not survive the purge.
Posted by RRJ at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
We're not done yet
March 08, 2010
By Mateos Stein
It's been just over a week since Team Canada's heroic gold-medal victory against their U.S. counterparts in the men's hockey finals of the Olympics. That night all of Canada seemed to rejoice: horns honked until the wee hours of the morning and Canadian columnists draped their newspapers' front pages with emotional, patriotic outbursts of pride.
But it didn't take long for the internal squabbling to recommence. First it was the vacuous debate to amend a gender-biased line in our national anthem, and now we're back to dissecting Canada's role in the abuse of Afghan detainees. Within a week, the unity that was felt during the Olympics has already started to dissipate.
But wait. This Friday the Paralympics will begin and the parade of honks and cheers emanating from bars and households across the country will resume. Or will it? After 17 days of relentless Olympic media coverage does the country have the appetite for 10 more? According to Caley Denton, VANOC's vice-president of ticketing and consumer marketing, the success of the Olympics has helped generate real interest in this year's Paralympics games. All it will take now is another prorogue of parliament and a relentless Paralympics media blitz at the expense of all other news going on in the world.
Posted by RRJ at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)
Chatelaine fires six
March 05, 2010
A blog post on this site yesterday evening erroneously reported that Ken Whyte laid off five staff at Chatelaine magazine. Though six staff members have been laid off, there is no evidence explicitly pointing to Whyte's role in the situation. The blog post has been removed, and the Ryerson Review of Journalism regrets the error.
According to the Financial Post, those laid off include: Handling editor Rachel Giese, deputy editor Melanie Morassutti, assistant editor Danielle Groen, assistant editor Jacqueline Nunes, photo editor Myles McCutcheon and senior designer Sofia Barros.
Posted by RRJ at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
Cutting down, beefing up
March 03, 2010
Yesterday, BBC director general Mark Thompson declared to the globe the station's pursuit to produce "the best journalism in the world." This is in response to an uproar from critics after BBC announced the 600 million-pound ($932.8 million) restructure that would see the elimination of the network's sports programming and popular TV shows like Mad Men, The Office and The Wire.
Thompson went on to outline how BBC plans to heighten the quality of their journalistic coverage to replace the much-adored content: better special analysis, more in-depth examination of parliament, enhanced increased business, arts and culture and world coverage. It's a tricky bait-and-switch; as the network shifts away from their online model, sports and television entertainment, it boosts its journalistic integrity, which is admirable.
But, at a time when the rest of the world's newsrooms are decimated by layoffs from the outgoing recession, it feels like one of the wealthiest international news stations is rubbing salt in our wounds. In response to these sandbox antics, we at the Ryerson Review of Journalism accept Mr. Thompson's challenge, and pledge to be the bestest journalists in the whole wide world.
Posted by RRJ at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)
NYT's Olympic musical is a symphony of one note, repeated often
March 02, 2010
The New York Times doesn't want us to read anymore. With the 2010 Winter Olympics at a close, the highly regarded paper decided to lose the usual results bar graph and make an audio presentation for its website instead. You can hear how close the silver medalist came to taking home the gold, with each piano key-like sound representing the time the athletes crossed the finish line. It's an interesting approach to delivering the news, but does the Times really want to give people more reason not to pick up newsprint?
Posted by RRJ at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)
Andy Barrie has left the building
March 01, 2010
CBC Toronto's Metro Morning host Andy Barrie is officially off the airwaves. The revered radio man hosted his last show Thursday but came back this morning to be interviewed by Matt Galloway and serenaded by Moxy Fruvous.
Dedicated Toronto listeners are mourning his departure after a 45-year career, first in private radio, then at CBC. "Andy is like the Platonic model of what Canadian public broadcasting should be," wrote Rick Salutin in his Globe and Mail column. "This is despite the fact that he grew up in the United States, came here as a deserter in the Vietnam years and spent most of his career in private radio. Or maybe it's because of those things."
Salutin believes Andy was so loved because he showed listeners a respect forgotten by other broadcasters and reporters. Now that he's gone, Salutin wonders whether his show will retain that same quality. "I presume the Einsteins who dumbed down the rest of CBC plan to move in and relevant it to death."
Posted by RRJ at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
Partay!!
February 25, 2010
Posted by RRJ at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)
Spot.us changes—for the better?
February 25, 2010
By Katie Hewitt
Spot.us has taken up the cause of the underprivileged journalist. The "community powered reporting" website that provides journalists with funding to pursue stories has announced that contributors will soon be able to donate their time and knowledge to an article, instead of just their money. Is it an innovative way to promote journalism (granted, an industry in need of philanthropy), or is it a low-budget version of a corporate investor with editorial influence?
Maybe it's naive to be resistant to these kinds of partnerships. After all, if the National Post and CBC can share content, anything is possible.
Posted by RRJ at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)
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