The wonder technology of tomorrow, as covered in the year of my birth.

Posted by RRJ at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Follow-up: the Times v. GateHouse spat, which saw two media companies in court over the issue of who, how, and when one website could link to another, has been settled. The Columbia Journalism Review has an interview with Dan Gillmor about this:

Dan Gillmor: It looks like GateHouse basically prevailed in their argument, or at least in their settling of it. But I'd call it a Pyrrhic victory. I think Gatehouse was making a tremendous mistake in the suit, and though there's no legal precedent that's been set here, it's just not good for the Web. Links are the glue of the Internet. It's what this is all about....

I think it's too early for people to predict some sort of sweeping problem here. But [copyright] is certainly a concern. It would have been nice, at some level, if the Times had said, 'Well, you're idiots, but we'll stop sending you traffic, if that's what you really want.' And that might have just ended that.

I don't think they're idiots, I just think they're mistaken. Attacking links is just a mistake.

Posted by RRJ at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Lora Grady

Conde Nast has killed another one. Shelter magazine Domino will cease publication after its March issue. The website will not survive either.

Posted by RRJ at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

It's easier to make fun of celebrities if you don't inadvertently prove them correct, Mr. O'Reilly.

Also, it just became more acceptable for men to appreciate Jessica Alba. Y'know, for her historical knowledge.

Posted by RRJ at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Daniel Kaszor

When we took over this blog we promised no more stories lifted from D.B. Scott's blog and no more stories about the TTC. Well since we've already broken one of those commandments this week why not break both. Let's talk TTC.

Since hooking myself into the Twittersphere in late October I've been amazed at its potential for ground-level citizen journalism. During the Toronto west-end blackout on the 15th and 16th of January, twitter was how I found out about what was going on. The National Post was one of the first places to give the scope of the outage because the web editor was following updates on twitter.

After the shooting at Osgoode station this past Thursday I decided to find out if there was a way to harness twitter to give me more info on TTC happenings. I found TTCupdates. If you follow @ttcupdates on Twitter you get all official TTC alerts sent to your Twitter feed. Although this is nice, the TTC already does that when it sends out e-mail alerts and through its RSS feed. The really interesting stuff happens when you follow @ttcu_community. There it will aggregate all of the user tweets tagged with #ttcu and give you eye-witness reporting from several areas of the city. For example it was there that I learned that the Bloor line was shut down a few days ago because police were chasing someone on the tracks.

Of course, the info is unfiltered, and I have no way of confirming that there was truly someone on the tracks. And while getting these feeds directly gives you information you might not get through traditional media outlets, it also means that you may get info that traditional media outlets don't give for for a specific ethical reason. For example:

#ttc #ttcu Jumper at College Subway Station. Use alternate route

People should be more considerate to the public when considering suicide by TTC. Big mess, wasted resources, and pissed off travelers #ttcu

Posted by RRJ at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

By Molly Doyle

For just $1.99 you can purchase and download it off of iTunes. But it's not a song or a video. A new e-zine, (a small magazine for your phone) can be downloaded for you to flip through on your iPhone. The Magazine is the name of this 12-page issue with not a whole lot of text for the readers. According to D.B. Scott, it's more like a "bargain-basement Maxim."

So now instead of just logging onto websites and browsing through online content, if you have the proper wireless device, you can pay for and download a small magazine. This may have potential if it doesn't require a lot of reading on your cell phone, but will it have content that is even worth paying $1.99 for?

Maybe this is the new magazine of the future...

Posted by RRJ at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Bill Kristol wrote his final column for the New York Times today, instantaneously raising the standard of that newspaper's commentary. It's difficult to think of a single example to encapsulate how bad he was for the NYT, but my favourite has got to be when he accused Jon Stewart of having incorrect information because he read... the New York Times. Way to burnish the brand there, folks.

My disdain for Kristol has nothing to do with his politics. There are plenty of writers out there like Richard Perle who are even further out in the gamma quadrant but can at least write well, and to my knowledge aren't in the habit of making basic errors of fact. Errors of judgment, maybe.

This brings us to the next question, who should replace him as the Times' pet conservative. I don't know if he's back from his stint in Israel, but I have a suggestion...

Posted by RRJ at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Daniel Kaszor

Oh Lord.

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

By John McGrath

This seems unlikely to succeed: a printed summary of popular blogs.

The Printed Blog, a Chicago start-up, plans to reprint blog posts on regular paper, surrounded by local ads, and distribute the publications free in big cities.

The first issues of this Internet-era penny-saver will appear in Chicago and San Francisco on Tuesday. They will start as weeklies, but Joshua Karp, the founder and publisher, hopes eventually to publish free neighborhood editions of The Printed Blog twice a day in many cities around the country.

"We are trying to be the first daily newspaper comprised entirely of blogs and other user-generated content," he said. "There were so many techniques that I've seen working online that maybe I could apply to the print industry."

We've seen this kind of effort before: an odd desire to mix elements of Internet and print media. I'm not quite willing to put actual money on the line here, but it's hard to believe that commuters reading free dailies are really yearning for content that's even more hastily produced and less valued than the current batch. Posted by RRJ at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By John McGrath

Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com has a post about how not to save The New York Times, in response to the ideas of Henry Blodget:

Blodget's proposed hybrid subscription model is silly for all the same reasons that the FT's current model is silly, or that any subscription model is silly. People don't understand such things, and they avoid sites they don't understand. No one likes visiting a website, clicking on a link, and bumping into a subscription firewall. And so people tend to avoid such sites, given the choice. With the WSJ, they often have no choice: the WSJ has much less competition, for most of its coverage, than than the NYT has. But with the NYT, there's pretty much always a choice: it deals in news, and news is a commodity....

More than anything else, Blodget's plan would be an admission of defeat. All of his ideas destroy brand value and the iconic New York Times franchise: the really smart thing to do would be to build that up instead. Is that possible as a publicly-listed company? Maybe not: and if it's not, then the Sulzbergers should find a way to go private, or non-profit, or something along those lines. But a slash-and-burn approach where you fire your most important reporters for lack of "productivity" and make it as hard as possible for your most loyal and valuable readers to read your content? That's just idiotic.

In other news, it looks like the NYT may have found a guardian angel: Carlos Slim Helú, who has apparently agreed to lend the newspaper company $250 million at a whopping 14% interest rate. All of this to try and stave off the Times' creditors.

Posted by RRJ at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

We're not going to be all-Obama, all the time, but this headline was inevitable.

Posted by RRJ at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Christal Gardiola

On his first day at the job, all eyes are on Barack Obama. The New York Times offers this photograph that captures the inauguration scene:

A slew of Canadian media organizations covered the event and each outlet shared its own take on the magnitude of Obama's induction as the 44th president (and of course first Black president) of the United States. The Globe and Mail used Google maps to outline parades and celebrations happening in Washington. Meanwhile, Heather Mallick expressed her wariness about Obama's slogan "Be the Change"

What change? Does it make me uncool to wonder if I shouldn't make the change rather than be it?... I'd expect this amorphous self-improvement sloganeering from inauguration evangelist Rick Warren and his "purpose-driven life." Or from Oprah and her daft "live your best life," but it seems odd coming from a sensible person like Obama.

The Star, however, wins the prize for the most creative angle on inauguration day. The Toronto daily analyzed Obama's and former presidents' speeches to determine the most common words used in inauguration addresses. Not surprisingly, "America", "freedom" and "nation" are some of the most common words found. Between Obama, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, "America" was mentioned 41 times; "freedom" has 15 counts while "nation" came close with 40. Surprisingly, Kennedy and Lincoln included the word "God" in the speeches far more frequently than Bush.

Posted by RRJ at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Bob Woodward has some thoughts on lessons the Obama administration could learn from the Bush Presidency. Which is as good a reason as any to link to something old that I had missed when it originally came out: Slate has a round-table discussion between Jacob Weisberg, Oliver Stone, Bob Woodward, and Ron Suskind on the true nature of George W. Bush. Woodward and Suskind in particular really have to be the two journalists to have best illuminated the darkness of the Bush years: Woodward with unparalelled access to high-level sources, and Suskind with a decidedly different path.

Personally, I think Suskind comes out of the Bush years looking much better than Woodward. Woodward spent the early Bush years writing books that were, charitably, far kinder to Bush than events have been since. Suskind understood the Bush Administration very early on, and never lost that clarity. Whether it was his 2003 article for Esquire that taught us all the words "Mayberry Machiavellis" or his books "The Price of Loyalty" and "The One Percent Doctrine", students of the early 21st century would do well to keep Suskind on their reading lists.

In the debate, Suskind takes Oliver Stone to task for his portrayal of Bush:

But, Oliver, what left me feeling a touch of ennui at the movie's conclusion is how this played out cinematically -- not in spite of your use of available sources but, maybe (ironically), because of it. Bush comes off largely as a victim of circumstances, a man overwhelmed and overmatched. How could there not be WMD? Why is this war turning into a debacle? Who's responsible?

I don't buy it. Never have. Here, on balance, you and I agree, Bob. It's a matter of Bush exercising free will. It's his war. He's responsible. What qualities in W's architecture drove events? It was his preternatural faith in the power of confidence. He felt that believing in something with absolute certainty (even if it's willed rather than earned) is the key to victory, the spine of leadership. And once victory is won, no one will ask inconvenient questions about how it was achieved. The Bush view, then, is win first and win big -- and if there's a mess, we'll clean it up later. And, someday, the winners will write history. It's the gambler's philosophy, a model that rests on pure nerve, a familiar two-step in the nation's history and culture, and one you see so often of late in public and private spheres in America. Eventually, complex reality will make itself felt.

Alernately, you could have just read The Onion all these years, and still been shockingly well-informed.

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

By John McGrath

Seth Godin has a good post about how little of what we call a "newspaper" actually goes towards covering the daily news:

What's left is local news, investigative journalism and intelligent coverage of national news. Perhaps 2% of the cost of a typical paper. I worry about the quality of a democracy when the the state government or the local government can do what it wants without intelligent coverage. I worry about the abuse of power when the only thing a corrupt official needs to worry about is the TV news. I worry about the quality of legislation when there isn't a passionate, unbiased reporter there to explain it to us.

But then I see the in depth stories about the gowns to be worn to the inauguration or the selection of the White House dog and I wonder if newspapers are the most efficient way to do this anyway.

Anybody who's been reading this blog for the last few months knows that I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Today we get the news that web-news hub Talkingpointsmemo.com has hired old Washington hand Matt Cooper to help with their increasing coverage of US politics, and I think we can see that it's clear that there's going to be at least as much demand for quality news in the future. The question for nervous reporters is how they can deliver it. Or get hired by TPM.

Posted by RRJ at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Jacqueline Nelson

There's been a lot of talk among columnists and interested patrons of comment boards about the 16 employees and directors of a swanky golf club in Ontario's cottage country who now face 34 liquor licence charges. They reportedly served a party of four approximately 31 drinks over three hours, and then let the foursome get in a sports car and drive off to crash through a guardrail and land in a river. Three people died.

Ouch.

An editorial from The Calgary Herald is indignant that the staff are being charged -- which The Globe and Mail has said may set a bad precedent:

"Not only should employees not be expected to risk their own safety by engaging in confrontations designed to deter drunk customers from driving home, but bar owners or company directors who may not even have been on the premises on the night a given incident occurred should not be expected to share the blame, either."

This frustration is understandable, but I couldn't help but think what it would mean if we applied the same rules to journalism. We're already under enough pressure thinking about libel, but what if entire media outlets were held accountable for every action committed as a result of one of our stories? What if every person influenced by the morning paper was our responsibility? Or worse, what if, at the Herald suggests, we weren't accountable to our readers at all? Where would society be then?

Just some food -- or perhaps drink -- for thought.

Posted by RRJ at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Daniel Kaszor

I've long been a proponent of NPR's Planet Money podcast. Spun out of an episode of This American Life (The Giant Pool of Money), Planet Money is a show that tackles complex economic issues and then presents them in a way palatable to a general audience.

This is a fine dance. It's every journalist's goal to take a complicated issue and make it accessible without dumbing it down, and that seems to be exactly what Planet Money does.

The podcast for January 14 looks at a particular industry hit hard by the economic downturn -- the media. They talk to a newspaper carrier who says the editions have gotten so skinny he can't toss them onto porches correctly anymore, and an expert on "punctuated change" on how it's hard to tell the difference between an industry that's dying and one that's just changing.

All round a good listen.

Posted by RRJ at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

The people have spoken, and they demand more Joe the Plumber-themed content! So here's Rick Sanchez of CNN going all Olbermann on old Joe ("Samuel".) When Rick "I get tasered for other people's amusment" Sanchez is giving you the lesson in journalism that you so richly deserve, it's probably time to go home. Samuel.

I did not know that Sanchez was born in Cuba. Learn something new every day.

Posted by RRJ at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By John McGrath

I suspect there's more than a little jealousy in some newsrooms today, as the National Post records it's first profit in the middle of the worst climate the news business has seen in some time.

The cutting thing to say would be something like "hey, it only took 10 years!" or to call it the "National-except-for-Manitoba-and-Saskatchewan-Post", and it's true that one data point doesn't make a trend. Still, I'm going to take this little ray of light in the storm as a hopeful sign. My sincere congratulations to the Posties.

Posted by RRJ at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Good news: The New York Times starts an "environmental SWAT team" dedicated explicitly to quality green journalism.

Bad news: CNN is doing itself no favours by keeping Lou Dobbs on the air.

Posted by RRJ at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

The Wall Street Journal has released the 15th annual "Index of Economic Freedom" which, it alleges, correlates strongly with wealth. Or, as Terry Miller puts it in the WSJ's article, "The 2009 Index... provides strong evidence that the countries that maintain the freest economies do the best job of promoting prosperity for all citizens."

It's really difficult to grant the list any real credibilty after even a moment of analysis, though. It's an ideological project masquerading as analysis. To start with, if you look at a list of the wealthiest countries (by per capita GDP) you'll find some definite counter-examples. Indeed, there are only three countries that appear in the top 10 of both lists: the United States, Singapore, and Ireland.

From there, it gets substantially more ridiculous. More than one person has already commented on the Index's implicit endorsement of East Asian authoritarian city-states, but to my eyes the most egregiously unserious point on the list comes near the bottom, where we see Venezuela ranked at 174, with the Democratic Republic of Congo ranked at 173.

I certainly don't expect the WSJ to endorse, approve, or even barely tolerate a left-wing populist like Chavez. But ranking Venezuela behind a state that barely exists in fact, with a per capita GDP of $300 (compared to Venezuela's almost $13,000) is insulting to the Journal's readers. How much economic freedom can there be in a country where the life expectancy for men is 52? This is a joke, and a bad one at that.

If it's going to agitate for free-market policies, surely one of America's biggest papers can do better than this, even if it's cooperating with the Heritage Foundation.

Posted by RRJ at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Chantal Braganza

Yikes: The Canadian Newspaper Association released their fourth Freedom of Information Audit [PDF link here] this past Sunday. Not great news. But also, not surprising.

"As in previous years, the CNA's 2008 audit finds that officials across Canada are disturbingly inconsistent in their compliance with laws that underwrite the public's right to know."

So if your FOI request this year past was not;

a) prohibitively expensive, as in the $103,420 the City of Windsor asked for in exchange for lists of payments for goods and services

b) time consuming, like the thirty days and six month extension the CBC imposed on information requests for salaries and classifications of its top employees

c) inconsistent, as some institutions (mostly federal) were able or willing to offer the same information in these previous examples for free and in less time;

it may be possible that it was part of the nation's 30 per cent that were denied entirely, or 29 percent still in FOI limbo. As far as reports go, it's a well-organized and interesting read. The CBC has some coverage on it online. They also, got a D, the worst grade on the report card among federal departments and agencies. Long way to that gold star, guys.

Posted by RRJ at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Stephen Walt, scholar of International Politics and now blogger for Foreign Policy, writes about his assertion, c. 2000, that then-President Clinton's successor would follow roughly the same course:

To say I was wrong is something of an understatement. I could offer excuses -- "Uh, 9/11 changed everything! "Er, Bush pretended to be a realist!" "But he told us his foreign policy would be 'humble!'" -- but the cold fact remains that I just plain blew it. I knew it wasn't going to be good, but I didn't realize just how bad it could get. How bad was it? See here.

Refreshingly candid, and kudos to Walt. It's sobering to remember just how commonly-held that particular belief was: the 2000 election was basically narrated by the press as being inconsequential, because whoever won would have to follow the same policies. Er, not so much.

So we should all remember how wrong that presumption turned out to be when the brain trust at Newsweek tell us that Obama will have to continue the Bush Administration's policies.

For the best response to Newsweek's unfortunate article, see Charles Kaiser at the Columbia Journalism Review.

Posted by RRJ at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Oh Joe the Plumber, why can't I quit you?

See especially starting around 1:20 or so.

Posted by RRJ at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Heather Li

Bill Brownstein of the Montreal Gazette wrote a very entertaining article about newspaper corrections in 2008 and what the outlook is for 2009. Brownstein quotes the following correction from the National Post:

There is no documented evidence to suggest dance poles sold at Condom Shack cannot bear the weight of a user. An unsubstantiated claim appeared in a Post Homes feature on Saturday.

Brownstein makes the overall point that accuracy is still supposed to be king in the industry, and without it readers have a hard time believing what journalists write. Our profession still ranks pretty low on the Most Respected Careers list, but we all know those goody-two-shoed doctors and engineers would be nothing without us!

Posted by RRJ at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Well, it can't all be about the death of newspapers. via Boingboing, Stephen Fry has a podcasted exploration of a subject close to the hearts of many writers I know: the "correctness" or lack thereof of contemporary English. (MP3 link here.) I share this link to drive some of my colleagues just a little bit nuttier.

You'll also note that Fry starts his podcast with a hefty endorsement of open-source software, and it just so happens the New York Times ran an interesting article about the rise of Ubuntu, an open-source competitor to the Windows operating system. For extra nerd points, it involves a one-time astronaut.

Posted by RRJ at 08:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

According to an email sent to staff for the Globe and Mail earlier today on behalf of that paper's publisher Philip Crawley:

The sharp downturn in print advertising revenue in the last six months leaves me with no alternative but to reduce staff costs. Helped by your suggestions after the last Town Hall in November, we have made substantial progress in cutting spending across the company, but not nearly enough to offset the loss of sales revenue.

I regret to say that voluntary severance alone is unlikely to produce a large enough response to avoid layoffs. [Emphasis mine - JM]

Probably just the first of many, many more cases like this in Canada.

Posted by RRJ at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

With the journalism industry having decided it's under attack from the Internet, it was only natural we'd see this: news outlets suing each other over copyright infringement. Because it worked so well for the music industry, which in no way alienated customers or looked ridiculous suing grandmothers and six-year-olds.

GateHouse media owns three Newton-area news sources that Boston.com has culled material from -- a free weekly newspaper called the Newton TAB, a daily newspaper, The Daily News Tribune, and the online version that publishes stories from both -- a Web site known as Wicked Local.

According to the complaint, GateHouse claims that Boston.com is using material from Wicked Local without its permission, thus violating copyright law. Additionally, GateHouse alleges that Boston.com's "deep links" to the original stories, which bypass the Wicked Local home page, further violates its copyright in the material by confusing readers about where the content comes from.

For a profession chock full of people who allegedly pay attention to current events, you'd think that the news industry would, at the very least, be interested in not wasting time repeating other people's mistakes. The music industry has finally abandoned it's lawsuit-heavy approach, and is instead trying to work out some different survival strategies.

The fact that iTunes is the #1 music retailer on Earth kind of disproves the notion that people refuse to pay for anything on the Internet, I think. After spending years claiming that our computers and CD-ROM drives had to be locked up or else musicians would starve, the studios have relented. I'll know news has matured when we stop seeing silly slapfights like this.

via.

Posted by RRJ at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By John McGrath

I think I can speak for all of us at the Ryerson Review of Journalism when I give warm professional welcome to America's latest Middle East correspondent, Joe the Plumber.

I think it's clear now that the election of 2008, having begun in 2006 sometime, will probably continue until 2010 or so.

Posted by RRJ at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Morgan Dumas

According to a recent article on Canadian Magazine blog, in 2009, Magazine publishers are going to be faced with a 53% increase in the price they must pay for their share of the blue box recycling. Stewardship Ontario recently released its fees for publishers this year and by the looks of it, the price has now risen to 3.37 cents/kilogram compared to last year when it was only 2.182 cents/kilogram. This increase is nothing, when compared to how much it has increased over the past 6years ago, when in 2003 the price was only 0.081 cents/kilogram.

It is now mandatory that all publishers who have more than $2 million in Ontario gross revenues register and inform the blue box program of the weight of their contribution. They must then, using the annual fees schedule, pay a quarterly fee.

I would have to agree with Magazines Canada CEO Mark Jamison who sent a letter to the Ontario Environment Minister regarding the increases over the past few years and his demand that Stewardship Ontario freeze rates at the 2008 level until a recent study has been conducted on waste diversion and then possibly implemented.

Like Jamison, I agree that to keep increasing the amount Magazine publishers have to pay by such significant increments each year is an issue alone and when they continue to do this during times of economic uncertainly that is just the icing on the cake and needs to be looked into sooner rather than later.

Posted by RRJ at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

via Gristmill, this kind of initiative is long, long overdue:

Climate Central is an accessible one-stop source for timely, relevant, high-quality climate information through a variety of channels, targeting the media and leaders in business, government, and religion. It operates without partisanship, bias, or lobbying.

Using both staff experts and an extended blue ribbon network of scientists, Climate Central assesses and synthesizes the latest science, technology, and policy proposals. Our experienced communications team turns that information into creative, easily understood, and graphically rich pieces for print, television and the web.

Better networks between scientists and journalists is just one of the things we need, especially when it comes to climate change. When, in 2008, Politico could still run climate stories that are so badly ignorant of the science that they're forced to apologize for them, it's pretty clear journalists need some remedial lessons. Here's hoping that Climate Central can provide them.

Posted by RRJ at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Daniel Kaszor

This morning the New York Times announced that they would be running advertisements on the front page of the newspaper.

The first such ad, appearing Monday in color, was bought by CBS. The ad, two-and-a-half inches high, lies horizontally across the bottom of the front page, below the news articles and a brief summary of some articles in the paper. In a statement, the paper said such ads would be placed "below the fold" -- that is, on the lower half of the page.

Now, it's pretty obvious why they're doing this, but I don't know. Even though most papers nowadays have ads on the front I hoped the Times would never go there. Sooner or later this is going to lead to full covers bought by advertisers. Then it's just a hop, skip and a jump to getting "MTV" or "Batman" themed editions of the paper.

Posted by RRJ at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By John McGrath

Happy New Year, everyone. The RRJ Blog is back in business after a much-needed rest, and normal posting will now resume.

Posted by RRJ at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)