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Wondering what to do on this cold, dreary February evening?
Let the RRJ heat up your night with 70s tunes and great prizes. Come out and support this blog and the publication behind it at the Ryerson Review of Journalism's fundraiser. The theme is Almost Famous, so feel free to bust out your bellbottoms and platform shoes.
The party starts at 8 p.m. at the Rivoli and tickets are $12 at the door. We hope to see you there!
Some blogs, as Hayley described a couple days ago, are just silly and probably not worth spending your time reading. Their authors, anonymous or not, probably won't get "outed" over the things they write about. But some bloggers have to be careful.
For example, on February 12, Chez Pazienza, a TV news producer and manager, was fired from his job at CNN's "American Morning" because of his blog "Deux Ex Malcontent."
For CNN, says Paziena, the issue was not that he was blogging but rather what he was writing. CNN says Pazienza didn't get permission to blog for outside sites; Pazienza says CNN's policy of getting permission for blogging is vague. He has become disillusioned with TV news as a whole. On Feb 25, Ed Litvak, the exec producer who fired Pazienza, announced he was resigning. Watch out for new developments in this blogging saga!
As well, "The Tea Makers" is a blog that I think is a great resource. It's by anonymous blogger "Ouimet," supposedly a CBC manager. He or she started the blog during CBC's 2005 lockout and it's become so popular that new CBC president Hubert Lacroix has even posted. Other posters say that The Tea Makers is the only place that free debate about the CBC can take place. "Ouimet" remains anonymous, and seeing what has happened to Pazienza, it might be a good idea for him or her to stay that way.
My RRJ countdown clock has ticked down to 24 days. In the packed, anxious and overheated mag lab, I've found it pretty easy to forget why I even went into magazine in the first place. And then I read this article in New York Magazine.
"Learning to Lie" by Po Bronson is a 4500-word look at why kids lie and how they start. The article starts out with a study that was conducted on teenagers to find out what they lie about, (um, everything) but then looks at when these teens actually start lying. For bright kids, it can be as early as at the age of two. It's pretty insane and a great example of how a small idea can bloom into a full-length, compelling feature.
Magazine is the forum to explore ideas, not just report on the news of the day. Bronson's article reminded me why it's enjoyable to read something that's more illuminating than timely.
Blogs, to me, are interesting creatures of habit for writers and journalists alike. By this, I mean that people write out of habit; having done so for many years, they feel the need to do so whether in a formal or informal manner, about anything of interest to them.
Blogs (like the RRJ's hopefully) can be informative, thoughtful, and offer new insights into the world around us. Many doctors, such as those working with Doctors Without Borders (or Medicine Without Frontiers), blog about their inspiring experiences and gain help through their writing from around the world.
But some blogs should die. I'm not talking about censoring anyone, nor am I talking about reporting to a higher editorial power before blogging. What I mean to say is that certain blogs are made to look very professional, smart and factually accurate, but are really a waste of time. They lean on the racist, sexist, unintellectual side. They are usually overlooked by Internet-savvy surfers and by those who think before they regurgitate information they've just stumbled across. But I have a feeling that a lot of people read these blogs and think they're real, and just. Blogs are a tricky thing.
And then, there's this. It's silly and a little unnecessary , and I'm not even sure it's worth your time. But I know a friend who swears by it, so it got me thinking about who reads it, and what they think (or don't think). Enjoy.
Before you write this entry off as just the musings of an ingenuous wide-eyed undergraduate who can't remember life before computers, hear this: I didn't start using the Internet until my last year at U of T, which was, I hate to admit, almost 10 years ago. I am well aware of what life was like before Google.
I cannot, however, imagine the amount of time journalists must have spent on research and reporting before Google's advent - the hours on the phone, the shoe leather worn off while pounding the pavement. Sure, we do our share of running around now, but it's usually not without some time spent trolling the search engine first.
Convenient, yes. And in an era of 24-hour news availability, the luxury of time to do Google-free research is in short supply.
But I wonder if journalists have lost so much credibility with the public (check out this 2006 poll of the most trusted professions) partially because we spend too much time on Google, and not enough time talking with real, live people who can tell us the story far better than a computer. We're not wandering the streets in search of breaking news - we're glued to our BlackBerries and laptops, waiting for the next big thing to float across the blogosphere.
Maybe there's a reason that both police officers - who used to patrol neighbourhoods on foot - and journalists both have "beats." We might regain a little credibility (and maybe the police should listen to this too) if we were a little more visible, a little less isolated and a little less tied to Google's umbilical cord.
"I don't know where I stand," a friend of mine complained last night. It's about Obama vs. Clinton, Darfur and, lately, Kosovo - hot spells that help journalists weave their magic. So much has been written on these subjects. Still, many say they lack information to form educated opinions. Sometimes, I feel that way too.
After all, some 1,000-word story about Kosovo's parliament proclaiming independence can only touch on basic whos and whats. You need some hard-core Google work to dig beneath that surface. But with all the story recycling, you can end up reading the same Associated Press article over and over.
Canadian publications have now had six days to send reporters to Kosovo. Yet, the Star and The Globe both put up AP stories today. A few days ago, the Star's European bureau chief filed a story about the conflict from London. I couldn't find a Kosovo byline from the Canadian Press either. Basically, we all just let AP get the news for us: it's cheaper that way.
How much can we really learn from the same source? Even if I trust AP, it's a third party. Remember the broken-telephone effect? On top of that, journalists tend to oversimplify events. But nothing in this world is black and white. So reading a story about who oppresses whom only confuses me further. When it comes to Kosovo, after thinking of Spain's separatists and even our own Quebec, I don't know where I stand. Is an educated opinion just a myth?
The people at The Walrus want to give you a free, year-long subscription to their magazine. Really! Open up the March 2008 issue and you'll find a full-page ad tucked into the mag's signature field notes. Big, black, bold type screams "FREE!" And there's only one catch: you have to buy a cover print.
Go to The Walrus store and you'll find the same promotion. You'll also find that the price of unframed cover prints starts at $99 and increases from there.
So what are the folks at The Walrus up to? Did they overestimate the demand for these prints? Are they trying to attract diehard Walrus fans? Or do they, like most magazines nowadays, just simply need the money?
As a humble journalism student (translation: not a business or circulation expert by any means), I find it strange that they're giving away their main product to sell something that was a secondary endeavour.
As someone who was born and raised in Nova Scotia, I was shocked to hear that one of Halifax's two daily papers, The Daily News, went under last week. The Transcontinental Media-owned paper, which had reportedly been losing money for some time, shut its doors February 11, leaving 92 former employees jobless. This sudden move leaves only one Halifax daily standing: The Chronicle Herald.
The Daily News will be replaced by Metro, a free daily paper already published here in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal, targeting the young-and-urban demographic. There's just one problem. As Stephen Kimber, interim director of the School of Journalism at King's College (in Halifax), pointed out in The Canadian Press article, Metro papers "...depend on the kind of market you have in Toronto, where you have subways and public transit."
For those of you who have never made the trek out East, Halifax does indeed have public transit (Metro Transit), which includes buses and ferries, but does not have a subway system. The majority of residents who don't live in downtown Halifax drive across the Angus L. Macdonald or the A. Murray MacKay bridge (the two link Dartmouth with Halifax and span the harbour) or take the highway in from surrounding "cities" and towns. As Kimber puts it, "...So who are you going to give this newspaper to? People in cars?"
We in Canada don't fully realize how limited our tiny little world of public radio is until we take the big, scary leap across the border - and discover there's more to life than Vinyl Cafe and The Current.
Turn your antenna south, and a world of choice - commercial-free choice, if you don't count the pledge requests - opens up. Nostalgic boomer? Try WFUV. They've got a folk programme during the day, and you can practically hear the granola crunching. Like bluegrass? WAMU - the radio station, not the bank - has bluegrass all afternoon, broadcasting from DC. Not into music? Listen to The Treatment on KCRW out of Santa Monica, an insider's look at the film and television industry straight from the SoCal horse's mouth.
Don't know what you want? Check out Public Radio Fan and take a look at the offerings from Germany, from the Czech Republic and from China (Wonderful Future Happy Rainbow Studio Classroom looks particularly interesting...) Oh yeah - CBC's there too.
I don't want to run down CBC, or any of the other regional public radio stations we have here in the great white north. They're great. Really. But sometimes, a girl's in a mood for a little bluegrass.
An online Canadian magazine Lucidforge has branched out. The arts and entertainment mag started in 2006 and has just recently slimmed its pages, breaking down into several linked websites known as the Lucid Media Network. The network consists of three websites: Artmind is an interview-based site, covering art and art history. Endtype covers literary works, interviews and critiques. Quarterbeat reports and critiques alternative music that may have slipped under the mainstream radar. The main Lucidforge website has event calendars, music and film journalism. It's also got a great interactive blog.
Go check it out.
Yesterday's blog post informed us of a recent decision to cut 100 newsroom jobs at The New York Times. Also recently, CNN launched iReport.com, a news site where the users submit all the stories. They call it "uncensored, user-powered news." A quick peek at the page shows serious pieces about the US presidential candidates and a steam pipe explosion in New York City.
But it also features reports such as "BREAKING NEWS Ketchup" (the headline is followed by: "ZOMG Mustard wanted for questioning"). In the homemade video, a bottle of ketchup is arguing with mustard about what people prefer on their hot dogs. This story is the most viewed video on site. CNN marks viewer-made videos that have been used on their news channel. Thankfully, this one remains unmarked.
Citizen journalism has great potential and all the videos from iReport that have made it on to "real" CNN prove this. But while encouraging the public to provide stories journalists can't get, such sites contribute to the internet competition that costs journalists their jobs. CNN's website reads: "CNN.com is among the world's leaders in online news and information delivery." IReport is only monitored for its objectionable content. I think they may want to rethink their strategy before more people loose their jobs to condiments.
You can read more about iReport.com and its history with CNN here.
Recently, The New York Times announced that, due to internet competition and a less-than-stable economy, 100 newsroom jobs have to go. Although The Times is reportedly seeking alternatives to layoffs, the same can't be said for other recent staff cuts at Tribune-owned papers. According to an Associated Press story, the staff cuts at The Times are the first in a long time to target reporters.
I still can't wrap my tiny brain around the trashing of the tangible newspaper, but with such cuts affecting this respected publication, it doesn't seem like the death of ink-to-page daily news is too far off. It's going to be very interesting to see how the online-only newspaper world would treat its reporters. With the possible overhaul of the entire newspaper industry, the battle to adjust to--and succeed in--a new format may come with more burdens for those responsible for producing content. It may make it harder for new reporters to find a place to build a career. Sure, there are also the concerns about product quality, that always arise whenever cuts are made.
But I think that's enough reasons to worry about the state of the industry for today. It's the weekend: the time to kick back with a paper cup full of pricey coffee and, um, a laptop showing an online copy of The Sunday Times, or something?
Valentine's Day was everywhere yesterday. Every network had little shows about love and flower shops. Magazines had how-to articles to pump people up for the holiday. But Cupid apparently claimed the hearts of Toronto's four daily newspapers too.
Every paper had love features or sections. Roses grew across the cover of the Toronto Star. Columnists' six love stories and a piece on where to get eco-friendly flowers also made the cover. The Toronto Sun had a section for people to write or send messages to their loved ones, while The National Post covered courting in a love and sex section. The Globe and Mail covered eye-gazing parties and spoke to experts about love at first sight.
My first thought: news media shouldn't be giving so much attention to the holiday (I should mention I'm not a big fan of the Hallmark holiday) when important stories are breaking throughout the day. But it felt nice to read something a little more optimistic and light. And it looks like reporters had fun covering something different than everyday news. My favourite story from yesterday was Canned Romance from the Globe.
Imagine my surprise when I checked the Globe and Mail's website yesterday morning and saw, splashed across the top, a story totally unbecoming of Canada's self-professed "National Newspaper." A Vancouver-area man claims he's the son of John F. Kennedy, allegedly conceived in the early months of the U.S. president's term way back in 1960. To top it off, they had the ultimate tabloid fodder: the exclusive photograph, with obnoxious watermarks!
This guy should get in line. A read of Perez Hilton's Page 1 will reveal a litany of heir-seeking, celebrity-bred illegitimate children, and that's where this kind of story belongs (no surprise, they snaked the Globe's image for their own blog post). The Globe should stick to what it knows best--the news.
You may have never noticed it at grocery stores among the other free papers, but Divorce Magazine (DM) has been printed since 1996, the year its publisher, Dan Couvrette, filed for divorce.
DM is filled with advertorials and service pieces ranging from "Downsizing With Style" (a guide to making the most of your share of belongings in a smaller home) to "Full Esteem Ahead" (10 tips on how to raise your self esteem after a divorce). It offers legal, emotional, and relationship advice to readers that need their questions answered by the pros.
I especially enjoyed the ads. One storage company advertisement had the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind," in large text and a framed wedding photo in a cardboard box with packing foam. Another featured a picture of a family lawyer with the text: "Taking a holistic approach to your divorce."
At first, I scoffed at the idea of DM. But after reading through it, I realized that there's a reason it has been around for nearly 12 years: it reaches a confused audience that wants such advice. While some may find this magazine odd, with divorce becoming more popular its market can only grow.
Recently, a friend who has worked for Citytv and the Toronto Star told me that she hates having her work edited. I've heard many ranting about editors changing their voice and style to the extent that the work doesn't look like theirs anymore. Sometimes, the meaning of their words is also changed, which reflects badly upon them.
At one newspaper where I interned, spelling and punctuation errors sometimes crept in after edits, or words were changed to make me sound like a middle-aged British woman (coincidentally, my editor was just that).
The editing process is painful, but I have to admit that most real-world editors have more experience and knowledge than me and know what they're doing. But where should the editors draw the line when it comes to how much is changed?
It's interesting that under Ryerson's Academic Code of Conduct, it is unacceptable for someone to edit a student's work for grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, style or voice. Tutors at the Writing Centre are told they can explain principles and make suggestions, but they can't change or add words since it would no longer be the student's work - it would be plagiarism. It's funny how something so common in our profession becomes plagiarism in academia.
In the next few weeks, we'll be editing other people's work and I wonder if I will be any better at resisting the urge to completely change a piece. I apologize to any writers I may annoy in advance.
There's this character on the L Word: Alice Pieszeki. Back in season one she wrote a lot of "best of" service pieces. But we're in season five and in a recent episode she took footage of a fictional basketball star making out with some other guy and outed him in her podcast. That basketball-playing character had voiced his feelings against homosexuality, so Alice took it upon herself to show he's a hypocrite. She's like a libel suit waiting to happen, but it's only a show anyway.
But then I started to wonder how many people actually do the podcast thing. Podcasts, meant for Apple's ipods (podcast=ipod+broadcast), with radio-like, media-streaming features, now become a source of news. But anyone with a server can create these. It reminded me of the controversy that came with blogs. The podcast seems to be the broadcast version of the blog, except it's more commercial and branded by Apple.
So, I found some F.A.Q.s on podcasts here. The little ads that say: "Launch your own podcast!" make me nervous. Everyone can play a role in media today. But I guess that's why journalism's a trade and not a profession. I just hope to work as a real journalist one day and not just sit in my basement hoping someone tunes into my podcast.
Generalizations are so easy to make. And sometimes people who make them have a point, sort of. Take this example: last Wednesday, Q host Jian Ghomeshi asked three guest panelists, who included film director Robert Greenwald and journalist Tom Rosenstiel, whether or not the excitement the media created over Super Tuesday was overblown.
Greenwald replied, "I don't think of the media as having one voice. Certainly tension and uncertainty works better for any kind of drama. That keeps us hooked....That kind of storyline in traditional for-profit media is a positive one."
I don't see the media as having one voice either, but the more I study journalism, the more I find that the for-profit and/or mainstream media are the shrillest voices of all. They chase conflict and disaster, giving us almost no understanding of anything. What do I know about Obama, Clinton and McCain that's worth knowing? Nothing. It's the same story, told with a different accent.
They all don't have the same voice. They all don't have the same voice. I keep telling myself this. Hacks is all, hacks.
Let's not point fingers (it's no secret anyway), but some publications' websites need lots of shazam to catch up. Sure, you can post blogs and polls and other crafty perks. But doubtfully you make full use of it all while treating the web as a threat.
Among reporters who once conjured lines of text through typewriters, some still fear that blogs, podcasts or other such user-becoming-reporter phenomena would devour their buttered bread one day. So they rush off to blog: anything to survive. But blogging, personal as it is, only works when you mean it.
It's not a brand extension, but rather a community of its own: they eat their own bagels, not our bread. Bloggers even got to be a "team" against chefs, cab drivers and backpackers on CBC's Test The Nation a few weeks ago (naturally, they won).
So, why do we try so hard to beat them? Must we always prophesize doomsday, even when it concerns our own fate?
Journalists have a duty to report the facts as accurately and objectively as they possibly can, without the pressure of thinking who's going to be happy and who isn't. But on the business side of the journalism industry, editors, production editors, visual editors etc. are forced to think about their readers and what people want to see in a publication.
This is when the need to please becomes a never-ending task that cannot be satisfied 100 per cent. Doug Kelly, editor-in-chief of the National Post, explained to me during an interview that the Post treats each section of the paper as a separate entity with a separate readership.
I thought this was an interesting concept and wondered how well it works. While focusing each section towards a unique readership may allow a paper to draw in a variety of different readers, the catch is trying not to exclude the interests of some while trying to please the interests of others. It becomes a vicious cycle. You win some, you lose some. Perhaps the Post is on the right track in thinking that a younger readership reading the entertainment section may graduate one day to reading the business section, making a long-term commitment to their paper.
In the end, though, it always comes down to the fact that you'll never please everyone.
On January 30th, two baby sisters froze to death in Saskatchewan, after being left outside in the snow.
While paying attention to the coverage I noticed facts were not consistent throughout the three newspaper websites I checked. The National Post, The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail all had the story up by Jan 31st, but the Post was the first to put it online the day before.
Being first does not always mean being the best.
The Post's online story spelled the three-year-old daughters name "Cadence," while The Globe and The Star went with "Kaydence."
After spending 15 minutes Googling different papers, I found the Post was the only one with this spelling.
The Post also had the temperature of the area as -35, but the other sites have it as -50.
It reminds me of my first day in reporting class. My instructor said: "You can't spell things wrong because people start to believe everything is wrong."
Online is a great medium to get breaking news out in the open. But is it worth having when facts are wrong? Maybe being put up later with everything correct is a better bet -- then readers know they can come to you for the facts.
Or maybe the Post was the only paper with the correct spelling?
For those who camped out in front of their televisions last night with their computers within arms reach, glued to the screen with the refresh button (for several different sites) close at hand, late night primary coverage was as exciting as watching the lovefest Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had on the stage at the Kodak Theatre.
In other words, boring as heck.
The CBC's mini docs on the American immigration and health care issues and the housing crisis were informative, rich with sources and visually pleasing. Not so much after airing for the fourth time around 2 a.m.
I don't recall seeing Wolf, Larry or Campbell during the tormenting analysis period with Carl Bernstein, Ari Fleischer, David Gergin and friends. After getting it so wrong in the beginning, no one is taking these strategists and pundits seriously. I lost count on how many times I heard "CNN, The Best Political Team in News."
However, I can appreciate John King's (CNN's chief Washington correspondent) interactive ditty with the touch screen, since he did it himself. At times it seemed like the networks and especially the websites dedicated to providing up-to-the-minute results conveniently tucked away or shrank the most important factor: the delegate count.
The highlight of the night? This Huckabee endorsement (available only in the U.S.):
I have to wonder - should journalists have to declare their party allegiance?
I'm not sure if it's necessary. After all, Bill O'Reilly doesn't need to declare himself a Republican to know which side he's on.
And if, hypothetically, 51 per cent of reporters declare themselves to be right wing at a certain media outlet, doesn't that mean that everyone will just assume that the entire media outlet is all right wing? And the readers will go to a liberal media outlet if they're liberal and then it'll just be fighting between the right wing and the left wing readers. It might lead news readers to force to declare themselves - "I listen to Radio Right Wing." Or, "I read Newspaper Left."
So what do you people think?
Hat tip - www.poynter.org
This past week, I was working on a story about conspiracy theory culture. But aliens and sasquatches weren't the most unusual trend I noticed: it seemed like nearly all the interviewees on my hit list were former journalists.
There's the long list of the usual suspects--journalists turned theorists--like Alex Jones. But I came across some interesting characters in my research. Case in point: Barrie Zwicker, a leading Canadian 9/11 theorist, also happens to be a former Ryerson journalism prof. Or Richard Syrett, who hosted a completely "normal" show on Newstalk 1010, until his ratings dived and he found a niche market in vampire slayers and pharmaceutical conspiracies.
So why do so many journalists sidestep relatively successful careers to pursue the parapolitical?
Syrett told me he thinks that in order to write successful conspiracy theory literature, you have to be equipped with all the tools a good journalist should have: most notably, the capacity to research thoroughly.
Partick Whyte, owner of the store Conspiracy Culture, had another idea, though. "Humans have a natural curiosity about them," he told me. To be interested in conspiracy theories, you have to be innately curious, a common trait in journalists. Many journalists also go into the business with dreams of investigative reporting. But with the grip media conglomerates have on what appears in publications, it leaves reporters with two choices: keep re-writing news wire stories, or find the truth. Apparently, it's out there.
Last weekend I attended a conference organized by the Canadian Association of Black Journalists called "Breakin' into the Biz." At the end of the day I had the privilege to speak to Jon Sarpong, editor of Sway Magazine or as the ladies dubbed him, "the tall, handsome guy in the long jacket." Besides explaining to me that the life of an editor is 95 per cent hard work and five per cent fun ("But that five per cent is really, really fun"), his advice to a budding journalist was to find a way to brand yourself.
Huh, brand yourself? How do I do that?
I had to look into this some more. In an article on PressThink by guest writer Chris Nolan, Nolan coins the term "stand-alone journalist" as a someone who provides the public with information that is just as accurate and honest as conventional journalists, but do not work for a news outlet. They aren't bloggers, she writes, but they use blogging technology to establish an audience. They may syndicate their work, publish it on their website, express their opinions: "It's going to be writing -- and writing well, not news gathering -- that sets them apart." How Nolan sees the stand-alone journalism model working is that editors at larger new outlets could scoop up some of the post, say, to cut costs, and include them in the news package. It's like freelance journalism set on reverse.
Preoccupied with the Clinton-Obama horserace, media outlets everywhere ignored the popular platform and proposed policies of former Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards.
Amidst Bill Clinton's controversial campaigning tactics, Obama's stint with pot as a teen and the division between the Kennedy endorsements, we know only about the massive criticism Edwards received for his haircut.
The Edwards camp released this video poking fun at the media's treatment of his candidacy:
But was his under-exposure really the media's fault? When he was a Democratic nominee a few days ago, his political agenda was identical to Obama's and Clinton's (by the time they got past the whole "first woman" and "first African-American candidate" hoopla). A pretty Southern white-boy with no real difference in policies may have just been his tragic flaw.
I like bad movies. You know the ones: girly and sappy, where the two really good-looking leads end up together after a series of hilarious mishaps and sexual bump-ins.
But, I LOVE dance movies. Mostly, because I still haven't let go of the fact that I was meant to be a back-up dancer for Missy Elliott.
Moving on, it might interest you to know that the newest dance movie, How She Move, has gotten some good reviews. The only review it seems to never get, overlooked by all media and journalists across Canada that I've checked in on (entertainment sections, movie reviews, blogs, etcetera), is the fact that the screenplay was written by a Canadian girl.
Hey Hollywood North, here's your chance to broadcast some Canadian talent admist a slew of American films. Sure, it may not win an Oscar, but shouldn't we be giving it some more nationalistic coverage? I'm not impressed that there isn't more about the writer, or anyone else involved, on the Canadian homefront. If we're trying to get on the entertainment map in a bigger way, where's the media attention?
"I will be glad when your rag goes out of business. Real men marry women."
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