It’s not every day you see terms like “corporate obstructionism” and “institutional corruption” used to describe the way things are done at one Canadian university in a peer-reviewed academic paper written by scholars from two other institutions and published in a respected academic journal. This is one reason I think
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Scripturient: Goodbye, Information Age
“Say goodbye to the information age: it’s all about reputation now,” is the headline of an article by Italian philosopher and professor Gloria Origgi, published recently on Aeon Magazine’s website. She writes: …the vastly increased access to information and knowledge we have today does not empower us or make us
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Donner Canadian Foundation, prominent funder of right-wing groups, helps bankroll new ‘think tank’ closely connected to CTF
A new “think tank” with close connections to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation received $50,000 last year from the Donner Canadian Foundation, a prominent funder of right-wing ideological organizations in Canada. SecondStreet.org describes itself on its website as “a new think tank that will be launching in early 2019.” The organization’s
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Video Of The Day
Someone stole a package from me. Police wouldn’t do anything about it so I spent the last 6 months engineering up some vigilante justice. Revenge is a dish best served fabulously. Vid link- https://t.co/9OjD6ETdbZ pic.twitter.com/u4o0doWglr — Mark Rober (@MarkRober) December 18, 2018 I happened upon this video about an engineer
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Videos Of The Day
Busting a scammer: Busting a gut, as someone tries to put gas into a Tesla: Boring a Tunnel: Back in Time, to 1929: Busting your pants: pic.twitter.com/2bZMjC4AaW — Microfrost (@Microfrost_) December 19, 2018
Continue readingScripturient: The slow death of media credibility
A story in the recent issue of New Republic opens: “A decade of turmoil has left a weakened press vulnerable to political attacks, forced into ethical compromises, and increasingly outstripped by new forms of digital media.” This points to the continuing erosion of public confidence in traditional media. While this
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Linda Solomon Wood writes that Canadians need to be wary of fake news being propagated in our midst: (W)e face a continuous, deliberate, planned assault on the truth. Not just on the facts themselves, but on truth as an idea. On truth
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Dean Baker responds to attempts to paint inequality as an inevitable result of market forces by pointing out the choices being how our markets are structured. And Jonathan Tepper discusses how the concentration of wealth and power has created giant corporate monopolies which
Continue readingScripturient: What’s wrong with local media?
“It’s about trust. Our relationship with our readers is built on transparency, honesty and integrity.” So opens the front-page piece in this weekend’s Connection, titled in all-caps, “Local News Needs Support ‘Now More Than Ever’”. It echoes the theme of”now more than ever” written for National Newspaper Week, Oct. 1-7.
Continue readingThings Are Good: People Who Trust News Sources More Likely to Identify Fake News
Figure 1 from Cook, Ellerton, and Kinkead 2018. CC BY 3.0 A recent survey to find out who is susceptible to “fake news” found that people who hate the media were more likely to misidentify misleading information. The research studied a few thousand individuals in the USA about their thoughts
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Not the #BPocalypse: The Biggest Spill You Never Heard Of
A year ago, during the #PriceOfOil news bonanza about Big Oil corruption and harm in Canada (and Saskatchewan), a few prominent journalists including a couple at @CBCSask got very snippy with me. They insisted they do all they can to bring us those stories. Have you heard of the Taylor
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Learning the Power of Lies – Arnold Isaacs
What’s going on in the US is chilling by nature. The democratic underpinnings of their society are being being eroded at frightening rate as misinformation, lies, and propaganda replace the space once reserved for reasonable public discourse. This process of disintegration isn’t new, but is hastened by the current
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Inside baseball: The ‘newsroom’ returns to Alberta, sort of, in government press secretary office consolidation
In one way, the Alberta NDP Government’s reorganization of its political communications staff is pure inside baseball. It’s interesting just the same, because it undoubtedly reflects the declining importance of mainstream media as an election campaign battlefield in this province, not to mention the structure of corporate news departments as
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The furious denunciations of Tzeporah Berman in Alberta are unprecedented, hypocritical and dangerous
Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. — George Orwell, 1984 + + + The stream of vituperation directed at B.C. environmentalist Tzeporah Berman for her consistent opposition to Alberta’s pipeline demands is unprecedented, hypocritical and dangerous. I am not just talking about the death threats
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Manipulation 101
It is to state the obvious that politicians and their party apparatchiks are practiced manipulators. They target their demographic, employ experts to craft messages to that demographic and, sadly, seem to expend a disproportionate amount of time on the art of politicking at the expense of true democratic representation. Managing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Michael Harris laments the lack of any consistent connection between reporting on severe weather events and the climate change which is producing them in unprecedented numbers: Mainstream news coverage does well with reporting episodes, but misses the boat on thematic coverage. CNN is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Notwithstanding common sense, no one should be surprised by Doug Ford’s use of Section 33 to shore up his lousy law
No one should be astonished Ontario Premier Doug Ford plans to use the Canadian Constitution’s Notwithstanding Clause to wiggle out of a judge’s scathing ruling declaring his hurried and sloppy legislation to cut Toronto City Council from 47 to 25 members to be unconstitutional. Mr. Ford and a lot of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Say hello to the hurtin’ Albertans, Mr. Trudeau: If the premier ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!
Welcome to Alberta where, as the prime minister of Canada no doubt discovered yesterday afternoon, if the premier ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy! And, right now, the premier ain’t happy! Old Alberta New Democrats have been familiar with this hurtin’ refrain for some time. Don’t jump to the conclusion that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: MP’s Tweet sets off teapot tempest as Trump’s tabloid crony David Pecker exits Postmedia board
It’s interesting that the presence of David Pecker on the board of Postmedia Network Inc. only became a topic of public debate after he left the largest publisher of daily and community newspapers in English Canada last week. The fact the evocatively named CEO of American Media Inc. was known to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Ed Finn laments the lack of labour coverage in today’s media landscape. But David Climenhaga points out that a combination of the omission of unions from much of the media and their vilification by corporate propaganda mills hasn’t stopped an increasing number of
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