By John McGrath

Yesterday The Economist endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States. Given that this was a tiny bit of a controversy in our own election, it's worth asking why newspapers and magazines bother endorsing candidates at all. Doesn't this compromise any sense of neutrality? Kathy English of the Toronto Star (which endorsed Dion's Liberals) responded to these accusations by citing a Star editorial from a quarter-century ago:

"The easy way for a newspaper, as for a citizen, would be not to support any party in this election. But this is not a responsible course for a citizen in a democratic society - or for a newspaper that believes it has a responsibility to provide comment and opinion on the issues of the day."

John Geiger of the Globe and Mail, which endorsed Harper's Conservative party, had a slightly different take in an online discussion with the Globe's readers:

I have to admit to being a little taken aback by those readers who are asking "where does The Globe and Mail get off taking sides in an editorial?" That's what editorials in The Globe do every day. We have taken sides again the repeat tasering of people by police, for example, we take sides again letting serial sex offenders out early for "good behaviour" and without proper assurances that they won't go and reoffend and destroy some other young life. We have taken sides against Stephen Harper and the Conservatives on certain issues, and we have taken sides against Stéphane Dion and the Liberals on other issues. There is a long tradition of political endorsements from The Globe, going back in history. In recent elections, we have endorsed both Liberals and Conservatives. So why all the surprise?

I'd like to make another point. The position of the editorial board on an issue, including this one -- namely the election -- in no way alters the fact that news reporting in the paper is balanced and without bias. The editorial board and the news operation are separate animals.

I'm sympathetic to Geiger's appeal to history, but it's worth pointing out that the Globe, like most older papers, started as an explicitly partisan paper -- the idea of neutral, unbalanced news is actually younger than the history of endorsements. The Globe's critics could rightly ask why the paper's practices haven't changed since the days when George Brown railed against John A. MacDonald...

Posted by RRJ at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Ezra Klein has a good point about how the Internet has changed things for journalists:

If I was hearing something, I'd tell you abut it, because I would like people to read my blog and link to my stuff and generally make me a powerful and influential and well-liked and economically affluent individual. But paging through the reams of polls on Pollster.com clarifies the question a bit: 10 years ago, most folks didn't have access to reams of polls on Pollster.com. But if you lived in Washington, you really did hear about them. Your office had a subscription to The National Journal or you knew someone on a campaign. This was why it was useful to have TV shows where pundits and reporters distilled DC wisdom: They were hearing stuff, and accessing data sources, that the broader public didn't have....

And yes, this would suggest that a large part of my job is obsolete.

And yet cable news still has 24 hours to fill.

Posted by RRJ at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

The Christian Science Monitor has announced that it's ending daily publication in the coming spring, going to a single weekly print edition. This ends over 100 years of print publication by the newspaper. Instead, the CSM is going to concentrate on online journalism, saying that if it can grow its online readership it should be possible to bring the paper back in to the black.

This seems like the worst of all possible worlds to me -- retaining some of the costs and inflexibility of dead-tree editions, while trying to rely on the web for revenue. It's risky, to say the least. John Yemma, editor of CSM, is almost certainly right though when he says this is "a leap that most newspapers will have to make in the next five years". Anybody want to place a bet on when the last print edition of the New York Times runs?

This is the most prominent example yet of a major US newspaper trying to adjust to the disruption in the industry. As I've said before, I think the example of the music industry is instructive: after failling to control the spread of digital downloads, the music industry has more-or-less embraced the Internet, and is finally showing a profit again. Newspapers will find the same process just as painful -- more so, probably -- but on the other side they'll come out just fine because the underlying demand is there: people still want news, and they want the context and density that text allows. What's killing newspapers is that people think that waiting 24 hours for the news is about as reasonable in 2008 as taking 6 days to cross the Atlantic by steamer.

Posted by RRJ at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Andrew Wallace

The New York Times announced the latest edition and the first one-name wonder to their venerable collection of op-ed columnists. That's right, activist, philanthropist and U2 front man -- the one and only Bono -- is going to rock the Gray Lady's editorial page in 2009.

Editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal made the Times' decision public at Columbia's School of Journalism last week, stating that the Nobel Peace Prize nominee will write six to 10 articles next year on Africa, poverty, and, apparently, Frank Sinatra. What's more, Bono being the great humanitarian that he is, will be providing his services free of charge (his spokeswomen said if he was to be paid the money would go to charity anyway).

In making the announcement, Rosenthal also took the opportunity to get off a couple pot shots at the rank and file of conservative columnists in the U.S. He noted that "Condoleeza Rice is a particularly bad op-ed writer," and that "The problem with conservative columnists is that many of them lie in print."

Photo by Danny Hammontree used with Creative Commons license.

Posted by RRJ at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Paul Wells (now of Macleans) has a nice little remembrance of the early days at the National Post, now improbably ten years old:

When we launched, one of the most famous journalists in Canada told friends we were a disaster and Black would have to go right back to the drawing board or a complete, humiliating relaunch, or fold the paper in months. A year later this fellow applied for a job. On Fridays one section of the paper would be responsible for buying drinks for everybody in Don Mills. Pitcher of martinis. Beaujolais nouveau. Margaritas and Corona from Sports. Nobody ever said so, but one unspoken theme was: There. we've lasted another week longer than anyone said we would.

Everyone who came from another Southam paper had a clause in their contract stipulating that if the National Post folded within two years they could go back to their old jobs. Everyone except me; I didn't know I was allowed to ask for that. No matter: today the National Post is 10 years old.

I've never been the Post's biggest fan, but even it's rational critics will concede that the competition it caused within Canadian newspapers has led to a lot of positive change. It's sad, then, that it looks like the Post is going through some rough times lately -- like so many newspapers. The latest news is from D.B. Scott's blog, where he reports that the Post is once again cancelling its Toronto section. This was one of Wells' early criticisms of the Post's management, so I wonder what he thinks now.

Posted by RRJ at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Andrew Wallace

The largest broadcast partner of Raptors basketball and the largest cable provider in the Toronto area are locked in a bitter tug of war over broadcasting the NBA franchise's games this season. And if the battle isn't resolved by Nov. 16, it's local fans that'll ultimately lose out.

The problem is that TSN2 is set to carry a good chunk of the Raptors action this season, but Rogers Cable isn't making the freshly minted station available to subscribers. Although Rogers had been in a basketball broadcaster in years past, it bowed out this year and TSN picked up the slack. The network grabbed 48 games, splitting them between its new digital and regular cable stations. The rest of the Raptors telecasts are divided between The Score (20), CBC (12) and Raptors TV (2).

While negotiations between the two parties are ongoing, the Star's Doug Smith reported on Thursday that "no resolution is imminent." TSN President Phil King called the situation a priority, but Rogers, the only major Canadian carrier who hasn't picked up the new station yet, declined to comment.

Regardless of who's to blame though, without an end to the standoff the majority of the Raptors fanbase will miss out on more than a quarter of all televised tilts. And that's not good for anybody.

Photo by Daniele Sartori used with Creative Commons license.

Posted by RRJ at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Morgan Passi

Today is a "sad day" for North Island Publishing Ltd. and a sad day for magazines.

After 21 years, North Island announced yesterday that the November/December issue of Masthead magazine will be its last. The recent financial crisis was the final nail in the coffin for the trade magazine that, according to North Island president Alexander Donald, "has not been financially viable for several years now."

MastheadOnline.com will also be closing, though its termination date hasn't been announced.

With a targeted print circulation of 2,800 and a website with 60,000+ page views per month, Masthead is highly respected within the industry. Its closure is especially tragic for us at the RRJ. Both publisher Doug Bennet ('87) and editor Marco Ursi ('06) are Review alumni.

Stay tuned for more details in early November, when the RRJ's Heather Li takes an in-depth look at what Masthead's closure means for magazines in Canada.

Posted by RRJ at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Ivor Shapiro has a more detailed take on this round's coverage of the Canadian election, specifically looking at how the media lived up to the lessons learned from the last election of 2006. Read the whole thing, but I liked this bit in particular:

First of all, as suggested by the Yaffe example, the Canadian op-ed sphere is healthier than ever, because the print column has been supplemented by the j-blog. The Star, for instance, added to its impressive range of print columnists by assigning veteran David Olive to blog with daily analysis of the campaign. Maclean’s offered its vast slate of columnists with blogs representing many shades of political opinion. Favourites of Carleton j-school chair and long-time political junkie Chris Waddell included the Globe's Jeffrey Simpson and the National Post’s John Ivison - but of course we could go on and on.

The trouble is, opinion was never the problem. The proliferation of printed and electronic commentary could, if anything, become a distraction from the glaring gaps that have been identified in election reporting. The question is not whether voters are exposed to enough opinions, but whether they are getting the facts. [Emphasis added.]

Clearly the press isn't solely responsible for Stéphane Dion's defeat last week, but for all the talk of how "complicated" and "hard to understand" the Green Shift was (and I don't think it was, really) how many journalists asked themselves if that represented a failure on their part?

Posted by RRJ at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Marit Mitchell

The Globe and Mail has made another foray into uncomfortable territory: trying to be cool. Nerd Girl, a blog by UBC post-doctoral researcher Jennifer Gardy, comes off as a weak attempt to lure the hipster crowd. On Monday, Nerd Girl posted a flip little piece about the mating habits of university nerds, hardly cutting-edge reporting.

In forcing an analogy comparing university types to various animals, Gardy remarks that "the campus environment is not without its share of bottlenose dolphins, animals who are not above using coercion to force sex upon an unwilling partner. Sorry to ruin your rosy view of dolphins, but they're actually jerks. Don't feel so bad next time you accidentally eat non-dolphin-safe tuna."

Both the content and presentation sits all wrong: the juxtaposition of the "nerd" label with a hot chick in a lab coat reeks of insincerity and trying too hard.

If the Globe genuinely knew anything about the hipster crowd, they'd know that hipsters hate to be lured. A hipster's success as such depends entirely on nurturing the illusion that everything they do is original and either ironic or apathetic, preferably both. We all know that the Globe is fighting to get under-30-year-old eyeballs on their pages, but flaky sex jokes from supposed post-docs isn't going to do it.

Posted by RRJ at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By Morgan Dumas

The web is re-defining the way writers of all kinds get the word out about their causes, interests, and crusades.

Linda Crabtree, a St. Catharines-based writer and volunteer travel consultant who uses an electric scooter is in the mist of fighting a campaign to ensure all washrooms are updated and made wheelchair accessible. She is insistent that washrooms not only be updated to meet the standards of the code, but also to ensure they have what people in wheelchairs actually need, including; extra space, grab bars and an appropriate height toilet seat.

As a person in a wheelchair, I was thrilled to hear of Crabtree's work and how she made Barry Smith, the president of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, reconsider the wheelchair accessibility of the MTCC. One crusading writer can have a big impact.

Crabtree hopes to make Ontario more tourism friendly for people in wheelchairs and scooters by renovating and updating the accessibility of wheelchair washrooms all over.

At this point, she can only hope that Ontario as a Province will take on her plan and put it into action as soon as possible, especially since it's long overdue!

Note to journalists: We'd all be well-advised to read Crabtree's tips for writing about people with disabilities.

Posted by RRJ at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Nir Rosen has an excellent article in Rolling Stone about being embedded in Afghanistan. Embedded, that is, with the Taliban.

Pashtu is not exactly in high demand, and the book Berlitz gave me was clearly designed for military purposes. It contained a list of military ranks, including "General of the Air Force," and offered a helpful list of weapons, including "land mines" and "bullets." It also provided the Pashtu translation for a host of important phrases: Show me your ID card. Let the vehicle pass. You are a prisoner. Hands up. Surrender. If I wanted to arrest an Afghan, I was now prepared. The book did not include the phrase I needed most: Ze talibano milmayam. "I am a guest of the Taliban."

Consider this part two of Afghanistan day here at the RRJ. If you're wondering what you should take away from this kind of journalism that's so hard to come by, you might consider the title of Rosen's piece: "How we lost the war we won."

Posted by RRJ at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

We're very excited to start the new season of online features at the Ryerson Review of Journalism. Our first feature for the 2008-2009 year is Morgan Passi's, about how Canada's news media are preparing to cover the 100th death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan.

I've worked at the show and know Shorten to be a confident woman. Right now, however, she is so bothered by the thought of covering the 100th death that she fumbles her words and cannot look me in the eye. She recognizes the symbolic meaning of 100 but worries about turning a human being into a number. By doing so, she says, "you somehow diminish the death of number 53, 54, number 72, and it turns the death toll in Afghanistan into something approaching a score in a game."

There's the irony. Although the death of the 100th Canadian soldier is heartbreaking, it's also terribly convenient. News organizations have a perfect opportunity to highlight the Afghan crisis. When the death toll breaks the triple-digit barrier, the country will be listening. But with such a captive audience comes the responsibility of covering the 100th soldier's story without discounting the other 99.

Read the rest of Morgan Passi's article here.

Posted by RRJ at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

I'd be lying if I said one of my favourite types of political journalism wasn't the post-defeat tell-all by anonymous sources. I know I shouldn't enjoy it as much as I do for a variety of reasons, but a little dash of electoral schadenfreude is just too good to pass up.

Sen. Clinton's defeat in the Democratic Party primaries gave us two great examples, the better one (in my opinion) being from Michelle Cottle at The New Republic. For the raw intelligence, though, you want to read Joshua Green's piece in the August Atlantic Monthly complete with internal memoranda.

The post-defeat tell-alls of Stéphane Dion's campaign have already started in the Globe and Mail today, and the one thing I can tell you for certain is that whoever wins on November 4th, we'll have yet another round of post-defeat tell-alls to read.

Photo by TheeErin used with Creative Commons license.

Posted by RRJ at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

So the last round of Presidential debates was last night, and plenty of other websites have commentary about those if you're interested. But I'm curious about the effect those snap polls are having on political journalism. As recently as 2004, the debate night routine was pretty simple: get your party's surrogates to loudly and clearly proclaim that you won, no matter what.

But these polls have changed that routine pretty dramatically. The best example was CNN last night, where the pundits began to tentatively praise McCain's performance for about 30 minutes, until the polls came in giving the victory to Obama in a landslide. Suddenly, the journalists and partisans on all sides were busy talking about how McCain had clearly alienated independents. Instead of dueling partisans trying to claim victory, we were left with the (much better, in my view) case of analyzing something real.

I'm a blogger who thinks that journalism is always better when informed by facts, so I say huzzah to the instant poll!

Posted by RRJ at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

So 59% of eligible voters bothered to show up at the polls yesterday. Frankly, I'm surprised it was even that high, considering that the election coverage -- from reporters who allegedly enjoy this stuff -- was pretty lackluster. I don't blame the journalists, because the entire country seemed to have decided that this was a pretty boring election. Though I swear I watched Peter Mansbridge repeat, almost verbatim, what a CBC reporter had just said to him as if it was new. If Mansbridge is phoning it in on election night, how can the rest of us be expected to keep our eyelids up?

A week and a bit ago, Regan Ray Sue Ferguson wrote about the dynamics of the press and the politicians, and how the parties seem to have tamed the press this time around. Ray was writing about childcare, but the questions she raised are important for any issue: are we letting the politicians control the narrative?

Photo by midnightglory used with Creative Commons license.

Update: the j-source article cited above was written by Sue Ferguson, not Regan Ray. My apologies. - JM

Posted by RRJ at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has an interesting piece on how people are increasingly turning to blogs for their campaign news, and asks why the major outlets still bother putting people on the campaign buses:

"Anything interesting that happens on the road is going to be eaten up before you can get to it," says Slate correspondent John Dickerson. "By the time you see the papers, you feel like you know it all."

On the road, some of the nation's top print journalists morph into bloggers who post paragraphs on each mini-development, giving them a more stenographic role that leaves less time for actual reporting, or even thinking. Obama advisers have concluded that newspaper and magazine stories no longer have the same resonance but that a brief item by, say, Politico bloggers can spread like wildfire.

With a single correspondent's campaign travel costing as much as $10,000 a week, the number of cash-strapped news organizations willing to pony up has been dwindling in recent years. Only five newspapers -- the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune -- are traveling regularly with Obama and John McCain. The big regional papers, USA Today and Time magazine are there only intermittently, and Newsweek, which had been a constant presence on the trail, pulled back last week for financial reasons

I don't have much to add, only that I think this is yet another area where the US eclipses Canadian politics on the Internet. There are some excellent Canadian bloggers, but the closest thing to Politico's bloggers would be... I dunno, Kady O'Malley?

Posted by RRJ at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Greg Harris

Thursday, October 9th. Opening night in the NHL. While most Toronto residents are celebrating the Leafs' 3-2 upset win over the Detroit Red Wings, I'm still waiting for my team to take the ice. Not wanting to watch a washed-up Def Leppard in concert, I flip to a college football game on The Score, waiting until 10:30, when my Calgary Flames will take the ice against the Vancouver Canucks. When the time comes, I flip the channel, to hear the announcer say:

"Manitoba and east will now be switched to The National, West will..."

He doesn't even get to finish his sentence before the familiar theme song plays. WTF?! I'm gonna miss the first period of my team's season opener on account of Peter Mansbridge?

For 12 agonizing minutes, I sit uncomfortably as CBC's leading anchor waxes poetic on the stock market crash, a Snowbirds plane crash, the listeriosis fallout, and the new Russian hockey league, before ending with some cute line about how that's enough of the Russians, let's take you to the best league in the world!

As it turns out, the Canucks were holding a tribute to deceased defenceman Luc Bordon, and I didn't miss a minute of the action. However, I can definitely say that I've never felt more uncomfortable on top of Peter Mansbridge.

Posted by RRJ at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By John McGrath

The Gazette of Montreal, which has a strike deadline looming, allegedly tried to hire Concordia J-schoolers as scabs-in-reserve. Also, the manager in question offered them a pittance to cross the line. Our colleagues at Concordia told them where to stick their offer. Well done, Concordians. (Is that the word?)

Posted by RRJ at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Not a great moment for CBS News: Dean Reynolds, who's been covering Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, was given a few days on the other side of the race, and suddenly realized how green the grass is on the other side:

The national headquarters in Chicago airily dismisses complaints from journalists wondering why a schedule cannot be printed up or at least e-mailed in time to make coverage plans. Nor is there much sympathy for those of us who report for a newscast that airs in the early evening hours. Our shows place a premium on live reporting from the scene of campaign events. But this campaign can often be found in the air and flying around at the time the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" is broadcast. I suspect there is a feeling within the Obama campaign that the broadcast networks are less influential in the age of the internet and thus needn't be accomodated as in the days of yore. Even if it's true, they are only hurting themselves by dissing audiences that run in the tens of millions every night.

The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps. When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious. Obama holds news conferences, but seldom banters with the reporters who've been following him for thousands of miles around the country. Go figure.

I don't imagine Reynolds' readers are terribly sympathetic. (As one of them, I'm definitely not.) First of all, political journalists love covering elections, even if they don't always admit it. Imagine how somebody who isn't getting paid handsomely to do their job would read this: Reynolds is literally getting flown across the country on someone else's tab, getting to see places and meet people that his audience never will. (That's kind of the point of being a journalist, right? Giving our audience the information they can't get on their own?) To most people, that would be exciting enough on its own that they'd be willing to put up with some inconveniences.

The substance of Reynolds' complaints is even less impressive. The McCain campaign pays for a nicer plane? They print out their schedules? This is the kind of thing that a top-shelf reporter gets paid to pay attention to?

And what's with Reynolds' closing line?

Maybe none of this means much. Maybe a front-running campaign like Obama's that is focused solely on victory doesn't have the time to do the mundane things like print up schedules or attend to the needs of reporters.

But in politics, everything that goes around comes around.

Huh? Is it just me, or did Reynolds just put the Obama campaign on notice?

Photo by Jon Bradley used under Creative Commons licens.

Posted by RRJ at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's a fantastic small piece from the American News Project, one of the better new online news channels. It really can't be said enough that the people who sold gullible journalists a bill of goods about tobacco are almost all the same people who tried, and for about a decade and a half succeeded, to do the same on climate change.

One of the classic example of "balance" that isn't. Balance = doubt, and doubt was their goal.

Posted by RRJ at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Paul Farhi has an interesting piece in the American Journalism Review:

When the obituaries are written for America's newspapers, count on journalists to indict themselves in their own demise. You've heard it before, from a thousand bloggers and roundtable know-it-alls: We were too slow to adapt, too complacent, too yoked to our tried-and-true editorial traditions and formulas. We could have saved ourselves, goes the refrain, if only we had been more creative and aggressive and less risk averse.

To which I can only reply: Oh, please.

As newspapers shuffle toward the twilight, I'm increasingly convinced that the news has been the least of the newspaper industry's problems. Newspapers are in trouble for reasons that have almost nothing to do with newspaper journalism, and everything to do with the newspaper business. Even a paper stocked with the world's finest editorial minds wouldn't have a fighting chance against the economic and technological forces arrayed against the business. The critics have it exactly backward: Journalists and journalism are the victims, not the cause, of the industry's shaken state.

Well, speaking as a blogger and (aspiring) journalist, why not blame both? Farhi makes as strong a case as anyone can that the problems that challenge the newspaper industry are economic and technological, not professional. But one set of problems for journalism is the immediate, acute illness, while the professional woes have been chronic and long-term.

Farhi's argument takes the form of a defense of journalism: "..a paper stocked with the world's finest editorial minds..." Farhi isn't being fair to the critics. Everyone recognizes that the economics and technology of journalism have made the newspaper business more difficult. But there have always been technological challenges to the newspaper, since the advent of radio. There has not always been quite the same level of disgust with the major news media as there are today. (Those numbers are from 2006, so let's hope this year journalists beat out bankers.)

But in one sense, Farhi is absolutely correct: even if people had always loathed reporters, technology has given them a choice to find other media they prefer. I don't think newspapermen and women get very far by railing against greater choice.

Photo by inju used with Creative Commons license.

Posted by RRJ at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By Laura Janecka

There's a giant elephant on the stage that is our Federal election, and it seems Dumbo is trampling all over voter's stock portfolios.

In the last week I have watched my nest egg fall 60%, and I am not the only one sweating through this "recession". Last week the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) dropped 1,300 points, meaning hundreds of billions of dollars were lost. This kick to the investing balls has hurt everyone, from young savvy investors to pensioners relying on shares to see them through their retirement.

So while Layton battles Harper, the rest of us are wondering what we should do: cut our losses and move on or sweat it out? Canada's news broadcasters are here to help!

CBC and CTV News' went to the experts on what we should do "to weather the financial storm." CBC spoke to financial experts while CTV sat down with financial planners, including author of Professional Financial Advisor II, John De Goey. CBC and CTV had similar advice to give:

• CBC News gave five suggestions, which included: preparing for tougher credit rules; getting rid of high interest debt; reducing frivolous spending; and down selling investments.

• CTV News' advice reminds the investor that "it" has happened before and it will happen again. For investors, they suggest dividing investments between stocks, commodities, bonds and cash. For retired Canadians they recommend selling bonds and not stocks, and for the rest of us to hold off buying things we don't need right now -- including houses. They say: "this is time for caution not a time for extravagance."

And what CBC and CTV are both saying right now: Don't panic! Fat chance. It would be easier to actually move an elephant off a stage than to keep a calm head.

Posted by RRJ at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Le Soleil.

Posted by RRJ at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

So in an interview with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Sarah Palin responded to a question about her gaffe-filled interviews by shooting at the messengers:

Well, I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago.

There are two ways you can respond to this, I suppose. My first instinct was to laugh, curse and consider whether I really want to share an academic credential with the Governor of Alaska. That this comes on the heels of the McCain campaign's complaints about "gotcha journalism" is more aggravating. Fortunately, the Columbia Journalism Review found the funny:

...to patrol the situation -- and, we hope, to remedy it -- we've developed specialized software that will allow us to track the levels of gotcha-ism present in each and every one of the four interviews conducted between Sarah Palin and members of the media. Gotchaware™ uses a complex algorithm -- accounting for, among other things, elapsed seconds of Awkward Pause between the interviewer's questions and the interviewee's answers, the degree of inquisitive head-cocking on the part of the interviewer, the centrifugal force of the interviewer's professorial foot-circling, and the number of undergraduate institutions attended, in all, by both participants -- to calibrate with remarkable precision the glib elitism and all-out maliciousness a journalist betrays in his or her interview.

Gotchaware™ tracks a reporter's rudeness as he or she tries to trap Ms. Palin with questions about tribal regions ending in "-stan," queries relating to an economic crisis that no one but Hank Paulson really understands, requests for clarification following nonsensical answers, the use of polysyllabic words, etc. And it works, according to our pilot runs of the software...

Read the rest.

I feel like I should add that I just watched Lou Dobbs talk on CNN about how the national liberal media, including CNN (in Lou's own words!) have been "unconscionable." Mr. Dobbs, there's a simple reason why neither Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, John Edwards, or Joe Lieberman were ever quizzed like Gov. Palin has been: because nobody would have thought it was necessary to do so. Those men (and Sen. Clinton, I hasten to add) were substantially known quantities. Their views were public record, their competence or lack thereof could have been argued based on their records. Gov. Palin has no similar record, and the media has an obligation to inform its viewers.

Heaven knows Sen. Obama -- when he began running for President, a similarly unknown quantity -- was quizzed repeatedly by reporters on his views. The thing is, he had answers.

Posted by RRJ at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

I'll admit it: I'm not a fan of live-blogging. Why bother? In the case of debates, I don't think it really adds anything (it's the Web equivalent of director audio commentary, except it's usually even more boring) and you've really got to have personality in your writing to pull it off well.

Plus, there's what economists call opportunity costs. Maclean's, for example, had its bloggers live-blogging the French language leaders' debate, but since then there's been no update on the Election Central site of that magazine. That's as of 11:30 pm, according to Stephen Colbert on the TV behind me.

Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star -- not live-blogging anywhere that I could see -- has a far more coherent and useful reaction reaction to tonight's events for the Star's readers. (Unless, of course, you disagree with her...) Maybe she had a column due for tomorrow anyway, I don't know. But it's up before Maclean's has had any time to put something more substantial together .

Maybe it's an unfair comparison -- bloggers vs. a columnist, newspaper vs. weekly magazine -- but was there really a screaming demand for live-blogging both debates from start to finish?

Posted by RRJ at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Heather Li

Yesterday, the Star Media Group signed an agreement to purchase SUHAAG Group Inc., a leading South Asian event, publishing and promotions company in Canada with particular success in the wedding, fashion and lifestyle industries. SUHAAG was created in 1997 by Guatam Sharma to build media opportunities within the South Asian community, and launched SUHAAG Magazine in 2000 as an extension of its successful bridal shows. The purchase is part of the Star's focus to be "the leader in the multicultural publication sector." It already owns Sing Tao, the largest Chinese newspaper in Canada; Canadian Immigrant Magazine; and Desi Life, a bi-monthly magazine for the South Asian communities in the Greater Toronto region.

From a business perspective, it's a smart move for the Star Media Group, especially considering South Asians are a rich, talented and hard-working ever-growing community in Canada to capitalize on. But personally, it feels like a media conglomerate building itself up before anyone else notices. For now, SUHAAG Group Inc. will run as it was before. No tinkering around by the Star... yet. Once the popularity of these niche-cultural-community magazines explode though, a cross-concentration of news information is likely to happen. Maybe it doesn't matter when SUHAAG is more concerned with bringing in money from glamourous weddings than getting its political viewpoint out in the mix. I'd like to believe though that our cultural news outlets can be successfully represented rather than diluted by our big media corporations.

Posted by RRJ at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)