By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: On Monday, three reporters from nonprofit online news site InsideClimate were honored with a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Canada’s tar sands and rupturing oil pipelines. Elizabeth McGowan, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer were honored for their reporting on “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard
Continue readingTag: Journalism
Northern Insight: No free lunches… ever
Update April 9: I heard that CKNW’s Bill Good responded on his April 5 morning show to selected critics, people he declined to identify other than through reference to hated bloggers. For a number of days, I tried to listen to the station’s audio vault but the file for 8am
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis: World Press Freedom Day celebration to highlight free expression in tough times
By: Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom | Press Release: OTTAWA, April 2, 2013 – On May 3, 2013, editors, writers, politicians and policymakers from across Canada will celebrate freedom of expression and its champions during a luncheon at the Ottawa Convention Centre. The lunch and awards ceremony mark UNESCO-designated World Press Freedom Day and will
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis: Associated Press Ditches “Illegal Immigrant”. And A Lesson For Jason Kenney
Surely this progressive step by the AP should enlighten Canada’s mainstream media, the Canadian Border Services Agency and immigrant-bashing Conservative politicians such as Jason Kenney. It should make them “see” that recent non-European immigrants are as human as European immigrants and their immigrant ancestors? By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: The Associated
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Pundit, partisan, or?
A garrulous right-winger, Alise Mills has appeared on CKNW, CTV, Sun News Network and CBC. Because she is pervasive, it’s worth learning a little about her. In the preceding article, you can hear Mills discussing blogs that she calls “absolute garbage” but I offer information about her that is a
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Breaking bad news…
Is anyone else mildly freaked out by how many news stories they learn of first on Twitter? Or is it just us Twits? Alltop is breaking funny. Noise to Signal Cartoon
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Mainstream headlines demonize Quebec student protesters (again!)
(video – 5 mars 2013, Montréal. Ostie d’grosse manif de soir contre la hausse éternelle from Mario Jean on Vimeo.) Tuesday, March 5, 2013, marked the rebirth of Montreal nocturnal protests against the commodification of university education. Below are a few of the sensationalist headlines (linked) that appeared in some of
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Mainstream headlines demonize Quebec student protesters (again!)
(video – 5 mars 2013, Montréal. Ostie d’grosse manif de soir contre la hausse éternelle from Mario Jean on Vimeo.) Tuesday, March 5, 2013, marked the rebirth of Montreal nocturnal protests against the commodification of university education. Below are a few of the sensationalist headlines (linked) that appeared in some of
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Mainstream headlines demonize Quebec student protesters (again!)
(video – 5 mars 2013, Montréal. Ostie d’grosse manif de soir contre la hausse éternelle from Mario Jean on Vimeo.)
Tuesday, March 5, 2013, marked the rebirth of Montreal nocturnal protests against the commodification of university education. Below are a few of the sensationalist headlines (linked) that appeared in some of the city’s mainstream news outlets the next day. These headlines demonize the protesters as violent criminals and sadly continue a shabby tradition of “news” coverage from last year’s Maple Spring.
English-language Media
Free tuition protest ends with smashed windows, arrests (CTV Montreal)
62 detained as protests resume (The Gazette)
Quebec student protest turns violent (Global Montreal)
French-language Media
Manifs: des commerçants veulent une police plus réactive (La Presse)
Droits de scolarité : comparution de six manifestants (Radio Canada)
Violences et arrestations (TVA)
Sure, a MINORITY of protesters got out of control, but they do not represent the inspiring collective spirit of the MAJORITY of people walking peacefully through the streets of downtown Montreal, side by side, English- and French-speaking (among others), and with the common goal of universal accessibility to higher education.
On the encouraging side, the prize for most objective headline goes to CBC Montreal for
Students rekindle nighttime protest against tuition hikes (CBC Montreal). Et voilà. It can be done.
Autonomy For All: Solid Monckton Journalism
Viscount Monckton is on another one of his highly lucrative climate denial evangelism tours of Australia. I caught this great piece from a Tasmanian newspaper called “The Mercury”, Monckton’s Hot Air: At a public lecture in Hobart this week, he said there had been no global warming for at least
Continue readingbastard.logic: Ethics in Exile
Silly Prince George Citizen, holding a staff writer to account for generously liberating other writers’ work: To our shock and dismay, multiple incidents of plagiarism were uncovered from work over the last number of months. The staff member plagiarized various online new publications, while writing opinion pieces that appeared in
Continue readingbastard.logic: Ethics in Exile
Silly Prince George Citizen, holding a staff writer to account for generously liberating other writers’ work: To our shock and dismay, multiple incidents of plagiarism were uncovered from work over the last number of months. The staff member plagiarized various online new publications, while writing opinion pieces that appeared in
Continue readingbastard.logic: Cosign With Jay Rosen
This: Editing by click rate is stupid and unethical. Chasing traffic is an abyss. The hamsterization of journalism is degrading the work environment for news professionals. Expecting reporters to report, write, blog, tweet, shoot video, sift the web, raise their metabolism, and produce more without time and training is guaranteed to fail. Trading
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Take a look at the Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting…
Take a look at the Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting (CCIR). It’s a very important non-profit organization that organizes and promotes investigative journalism in Canada and far beyond. Groups like this — and the reporters who are affiliated with them — are desperately needed in this era of corporate media
Continue readingNorthern Insight: "All bets are off"… or not
It’s been a while since I complained about CBC pundit Stephen Smart but his 5pm news report today was egregious. He suggested the current Angus Reid poll indicates an important shift that gives new hope to BC Liberals. The claim was misleading and not …
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Propagandists in the service of the powerful
For more than half a century, the Soviet Union’s news agencies were universally recognized as untrustworthy. Strict political controls ensured that content served interests of the nation’s autocrats.
In the democratic world, most have been contentedly…
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Pro-media: watchdogs or lapdogs?
Katie Hyslop has a worthwhile piece in The Tyee about the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation. Teacher Decries Pension Plan’s ‘Unethical’ Investments, The Tyee, Nov. 13/12
“[Paul] Hutcheson started researching the B.C. Teachers’ Pension …
mark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: The Journalist: More Trustworthy than the Prison Snitch
Montreal (The Skwib) — In their yearly survey of how much trust we have in a variety of occupations, Leger Marketing discovered that journalists were more trusted than quite a few other occupations. Nearly 49 percent of Canadians felt that ……
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Platform for hatred
In my childhood long ago, Canadians used ethnic slurs without much thought. My east Vancouver family, not hateful people, disdainfully labelled central and eastern Europe war-victim refugees as DP’s or Bohunks. In those days, a black child was a Pickaninny or a Tar Baby; the parents called Spades, Spearchuckers, Coons, Spooks,
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Media fails to give an honest account
http://edocs.lib.sfu.ca/cgi-bin/Cartoons?CartoonID=2239 Yesterday, the Liberal government claimed its diligent examination of TransLink had resulted in $139 million in annual savings. As I noted, the claim was easily determined to be false. Yet that did not stop the media echo chamber from repeating, even amplifying, the delusive assertions. A news commentator recently
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