Press Gallery – Enlightened Journalism

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Recent headlines are archived here. Links may degenerate over time.

Think Kim Bolan has it bad? She's in good company globally. Take the Algerian journalist threatened with lawsuits and prison terms for her reporting on fanatical fundamentalist groups, terrorism and government corruption in the newspaper El Watan. Now on her fourth pseudonym, she's one of the recipients of the International Women's Media Foundation's Courage in Journalism Awards.

When it comes to newsroom layoffs, is there anything more sadistic than letting your employees watch the axe fall in slow motion? But that seems to be the Dallas Morning News' modus operandi, according to this internal memo from Oct.5, telling employees it's time to start collecting for their colleagues' severance fund. Just one of dozens of bizarre internal memos archived by Poynter.

Here's one for the "why didn't I think of that" file. Montreal journo Craig Silverman's new Regret The Error Web site takes inventory of the daily barage [sic — just doing our part] of North American news bloopers.

Car In Canada is one stop shopping for computer-assisted reporting. Database links, FOI tips, lists of top CAR articles — everything you need to take home a CAJ award next year. Only question is, do computer-specialists really need an explanation of how to use a navigation bar?

A new BBC-compatible news encyclopedia program offers interactive, in-depth news using Wikipedia for reference. Context and background now just a click away — even for the most abbreviated dispatch.

Bland political coverage got you down? Wimblehack aims to make things just a bit more interesting, upping the states with a round-robin write-off to determine the world's worst election coverage journos.

A. J. Liebling. Now there was a man with no lost love for newsroom beancounters. Witness this except from his latest collection: "They came to newspapers like monks to cloisters or worms to apples. They are the dedicated. All of them are fated to be editors except the ones that get killed off by the lunches they eat at their desks until even the most drastic purgatives lose all effect upon them. The survivors of gastric disorders rise to minor executive jobs and then major ones, and the reign of these nonwriters makes our newspapers read like the food in The New York Times cafeteria tastes. It is as if, in football, only bad players were allowed to become coaches. Indifference to language thus becomes hierarchized. The proprietor wouldn't know decent writing if he saw it; the managing editor wouldn't know decent writing if he saw it." Ahem, I think they call that falling up.

Fox News sheds last pretense, launches "24-hour Bus h propaganda" broadcast, starting with this little gem on foxnews.com. "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" the Fox article by chief political correspondent Carl Cameron, quoted John Kerry as saying after the debate. Hmm, if that's what your top reporters are up to, wonder what sort of copy the drones are churning out?

And in the "Oh, go away" department: Conrad Black is suing Toronto Life magazine for $2 million, claiming a recent story made him look "so irredeemably evil that he should be consigned to Hell." The truth, it stings.

The Internet's answer to the old-time news ticker.

In praise of J-School. Columbia launches Master's program, declaring the days of anti-intellectual journalism over. According to one Master's candidate: "A huge problem in journalism are dilettante writers who know little about their subject matter. They're spun by their subjects because they have no context or way to interpret how they're hearing." Take that Allan Fotheringham!

Ah, the good old days, when networks pulled all the punches and weren't ashamed to admit it. Barbara Walters reminisces about ABC's no-tough questions rules.

Globe keeps content password protected.

Sexual harassment or life? Journalist Judith Timson recalls the bad old days when editors barked: " Stand up and show us your legs, there's a good girl."

Covering hurricanes 101. Rule number one: "Always choose the flimsiest rain jacket available."

Deadly pox viruses. Undercover police surveillance of your peacenik potluck. Just two of the many stories mainstream news wouldn't touch last year. But Project Censored would.

Journalism hath no fury like an intern scorned. As this intern discovers, barring "deus ex masthead — someone in the right rung moves, gets pregnant, or is struck by various forms of career lightning — an internship won't land you a job; if the timing doesn't come up in your favor, it's just back to waiting in line."

Province editor-in-chief Vivienne Sosnowski joins brain drain to U.S. with a new job at the San Francisco Examiner. The Examiner's article announcing the move triggers a correction. Looks like she'll have her work cut out for her.

Salaried eccentrics to the fore! The Tyee goes out on a limb in its latest Media Check column and drops an industry bomb: "journalism has always attracted a few miscreants." Engarde!

It's that time again here at Press Gallery where we single out yet another hapless, overworked journalist and join in a chorus of 'tisk, tisks' over the latest plagarism scandal. So without further ado, today's case hails from The Seattle Times, where an associate editor and business columnist was found guilty of "failure to attribute" in stories dating back to 1997. Might we suggest a mandatory Lexis-Nexis check on every news desk?

So entranced by the written word, you spend your spare time watching Flash presentations of your favorites on screen? Wordcount — a visual barometer of the frequency of the 86,800 most common words in the English language — can help.

And on that note, here's an alternative to the old boys' club. The Association of Young Journalists, a U.S.-based professional networking and social group for scribes under 35 has just expanded to Canada, with new chapters in Toronto and Ottawa.

Ever wondered why, when you're young, talented and educated, you just can't get a job in the media to save your life? This is why. For the love of God, enforce the retirement age.

It's musical chairs time again. Canadian newspapers prepare for another round of exec poaching. There's only one thing missing from the list of likely candidates. Women.

Come rain, sleet, snow, hail, or hurricane? Florida newspaper, the Charlotte Herald Sun, doesn't let hurricane Charley stop the presses.

Ah, the glamourous and lucrative life of a magazine fact-checker, where the 401K plan amounts to nothing more than a portfolio of frivolous information.

Press Pass Q is a free monthly newsletter round up of gay and lesbian press news. Think of it as Keen Eye for the Queer News Guy (Or Gal). With more than 2,000 subcribers it's got to be fabulous, darling!

On the relative merits of "ass-welt journalism."

Plaglarism Confidential: "As per the one year lag on U.S. cultural imports, dishonest journalism headed north this spring."

Nine million readers can't be wrong — The Guardian UK makes a case for free on-line content. Ahem, CanWest, are you listening?

Paying for on-line news. Readers think it's a scam. Marketers think it's a goldmine. "Registration is a vital step in building a marketing platform that allows managers to profile users," rationalizes one biz flak. Too bad most take one look at their inane registration surveys and just make s--t up.

A California weekly newspaper has turned from journalism by committee to journalism by community — the residents of Bakersfield, CA are both making and writing the news.

Reportage: the online magazine of photojournalism brings in-depth photo essays out of the darkroom.

Missing: equal news coverage in both white and black missing persons cases.

Stymied on spelling? Reverse dictionaries take the fear out of spell check.

Do we want to be first or do we want to be right? Is it too much to ask for both?

Anti-blogging bile.

You haven't really scrummed until you've been thwacked in the head by some cable-access videographer with a 50 lb. camera. Us print reporters mostly ooze venom and write nasty things about TV clods in our notebooks. But we're kinda passive-aggressive that way. TV reporters, on the other hand, start post-press conference brawls.

The hardest thing to find on deadline? It's not a lede, it's a real live human being — the sources who embody the issues and give you your colorful soft lede. The Post's Brad Evenson jumped this hurdle by simply concocting patients to liven up his medical stories. Meanwhile, the Post's silence on the matter grows deafening.

Anyone interested in a cushy Newsday post editing the comics page for unseemly cartoon body parts? Looks like one's about to pop up.

Shameful flack stunts and the hacks who exploit them.

New York Post editors, reporters and press workers caught drinking on the job. How else to explain away a gaffe so severe the paper declared Richard Gephardt as John Kerry's running mate?

The Lexington Herald-Leader publishes the mother of all corrections. "It has come to the editor's attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission." Alrighty then. Dare we inquire about their editorial approach to the gay rights movement?

In a brusque note to readers, the National Post introduces its very own Jack Kelley. Brad Evenson misattributed quotes and made up names for sources in stories he wrote as a senior medical reporter. That sloppy quality control allowed Evenson to get this far while piping news is one thing, but what's worse, the Post has failed to do a satisfactory post-mortem. (Oh, and did we mention he's won the Aventis Pasteur Medal for Excellence in Health Research Journalism award? Twice? Does no one fact-check anymore? Does he give back the cash? Does his name gets scratched off the plaque hanging in the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame? So much to think about before you make s--t up. So why not stop doing it and cease putting other journalists to shame?)

Given up on crafting perfect story end notes after one editor too many hacked from the bottom and called it a day? Keep trying: resonant endings, not flashy ledes stay with readers.

By 2007 you'll spend 3,872 hours a year swimming in an amniotic bath of mass media. Orwellian fantasy or scientific projection?

Ready for a hefty dose of humility? Or perhaps you're into masochism? A read of this New York Press piece, where journos are no more than "souped-up shoe salesmen with lit degrees" will do the trick.

The BBC has launched a remedial school for reporters. Because "inaccuracy, like autism, is a spectrum disorder."

Wired magazine publishes a laundry list of reportorial lies, damned lies, and well, grossly innacurate news.

Where are those Fox News censors when you need them? (PG note: Rated XXX.)

Guerilla Media pans CanWest empire (while bumping the Vancouver Sun's circulation) with a 12,000-copy spoof. CanWest counters: Ahem, we are not amused, vow to pursue charges of copyright infringement.

Senior government officials and sources close to PressGallery advised linking to this NYT article on the rampant and often needless use of anonymous sources. In other news, one reporter pledges to out anons, one tip at a time.

Where good stories go after the kill-fee cheques clear.

BC-Bulletin-White men still running Canadian TV. 1st Write thru.

All aboard the CBC's election bus blog.

Ah, the good old days of j-school when streaking and Twister formed the core curriculum.

Only in Montreal could you sell a $10 magazine the size of a coffee table exclusively in nightclubs.

There's one in every newsroom — just one if you're lucky. Nasty byline hounds who torque their stories into over-written drive to get them on the front page, steal or add themselves to your byline to get a piece of the action, show up to work high/drunk and turn in trash, only to claim credit when exasperated copy editors turn it into something readable. They are the bane of average-joe journalists and they are only getting worse.

How to sum up the life of a freelancer? Coffee. Procrastination. Guilt. Repeat.

Journos hate their jobs. As a headline, it's as predictable as 'Government funds study.'

Toronto city hall now last bastion of bow-ties.

Does what makes a story newsworthy depend on the editor? Does what makes a story award-winning depend on the judge? The Excellence Project, a database of top Canadian journalism, aims to find out.

News vs. Content.

East Coast community news owners Optipress take cookie-cutter journalism to a new level.

A CRJ "exposé" reveals journalism's dirty little secret: 89 per cent of us are educated. Horrors. What's more: "We are part of the professional class, reasonably affluent and well educated." Yes, we could all do a better job of covering poor and working class communities, but returning newsrooms to pre-union hack sweatshops won't help anyone.

Casting Aspersions on the Post. Sure, it's bleeding money and circ's down, but, hey, it "can be a very good bully pulpit for people."

Speaking of bullies: I'm sure Conrad Black has a perfectly good reason for bilking shareholders to pay for private jetaways to Bora Bora. Like evading capture?

To blog or not to blog? The Globe's David Akin answers the question.

Going to the States to cover a story? Bring your passport. But don't leave home without your special press visa.

Journalism review mags: industry watchdogs and loss leaders.

Montreal journalist Philippe Roy blogs about press freedom from behind the Great Firewall of China.

Leaving the Neil MacDonald-Israel debate well to the side, does anyone else find it ludicrous that the National Post has derided the CBC for "sex(ing) up" its coverage?

Your morning paper, without the coffee stains.

Take a bow, Health Canada. The CAJ's 2004 Code of Silence Award celebrates what goverment does best: hide information from journalists. And what journalists do best: gleefully mock government.

Want to reach women readers? Go where they're going in droves — online.

New Asian-Canadian culture mags try not to slip on Banana 's peel.

Yes, there is a newspaper that outweighs the seven-pound Sunday New York Times.

Bob Woodward = Bestseller. Plan of Attack is a tour-de-force.

Maritime journalist fired for plagarism. Or is that shoddy attribution?

Good storytellers can find magic in even the most mundane assignments.

There's no doubt the Star is an investigative heavy hitter. But can they also hit and miss?

Al Gore and his band of merry investors plan to launch a news network. We can only hope Bush stays out of TV. Oh wait, he already has a news network Ñ itÕs called Fox. And CNN. And MSNBC. And É sigh.

It's World Press Freedom freedom Day. Canada can't gloat when it's ranked 23rd in the world for journalistic freedom — right up there with Malta. It's actually been a particularly lousy year for journalists in this country, according to the Globe.

And on that note, here are the Committee to Protect Journalists' top 10 world's worst places to be a journalist.

The CAJ and CJFE: More Than Just Acronyms?

"The Times used to feel an obligation to print lots of things that we knew no one much would read - the new members of the Peruvian cabinet, for example - just to get them on the record. Fortunately those days are over." Times staff tries to shuffle off paper-of-record coil.

Nothing like hate mail from insane Americans, says the Globe's John Doyle.

New and improved! Four out of five journalists recommend Press Gallery's expanded Ref Desk resources.

Shopping magazines are the height of avarice. Americans love them.

Nightmarish PR techniques.

Newsroom beancounters: feel the wrath of a reporter scorned!

"Crawling toward the goal post of equity." Doesn't that sound like fun? If you're a woman in the newsroom get used to it. Just how is it possible that women make up 70 per cent of j-school grads and just 37 per cent of newsroom staff?

Listen in as the Van Sun and TorStar top eds Kirk Lapointe and Mary-Deanne Shears explain on CBC Radio why the plagarism buck didn't stop there.

The Kingdom and the Author. Gay Talese criticizes new journalism for marking the "beginning of journalists wanting to be celebrities."

Why go to Iraq when you could be an embedded journalist in a much safer virtual reality world? Wagner James Au is a reporter/character in the on-line game Second Life.

UK's Attitude mag celebrates 10 years of being here and queer.

The European Journalism Centre offers a wealth of quality news and international reporting resources, whether or not "BRUSSELS—" is your dateline.

The gossip blog mantra: "try to be accurate, but more importantly, be funny." Newsroom credo it's not.

Not only are young readers not picking up newspapers, when they do, they barely skim it.

Flacks can't fake it anymore.

The Onion. Yes, it bills itself as "America's finest news source, but it also clearly states that it is a "farcical newspaper featuring world, national and community news." Sadly, not every one reads the fine print. Maybe Canadians and Chinese just don't get irony.

The Toronto Star's Prithi Yelaja makes a career-ending move — plagarizing a Village Voice article while reporting on the road. With 14 years in the biz, it's proof it can happen to anyone.

BlogsCanada site under fire from the Government of Canada for copyright? Seems like shades of PaulMartinTime to me.

Intern + Work - Pay = "Despicable." Publisher does the math on slave labour.

How do you conduct a bang-up interview? 90 percent of it is just listening.

Good news doesn't have to be snooze-worthy.

A New Yorker of the North — "nice idea, but not in Canada?"

Alt. weeklies survive on freelance copy — but can freelancers survive on alt. weekly rates?

Should newspapers institute a Logan's Run policy for rock critics? Or for all scribes on staff for that matter?

News morals at all time low? Consider this 1914 treatise by H.L. Mencken. Newspaper morals, he writes, are mere reflections of the public's morals, and "the art of leading the vulgar, in itself, does no discredit to its practitioner."

Is it unethical to lurk on the list-serve of a professional association and then lift quotes directly from it without calling sources first to a) fact-check b) ensure you understood what they meant c) determine they are who they say they are and d) offer them the courtesy of alerting them to your story? Apparently not.

Feature writers scorned! No glory for soft news. But hey, who cares?

Young reporters pull their weight. (And in many cases, that of their colleagues).

What kind of newspaper falls for a story about a 100-year-old formaldehyde dragon embryo? You'd be surprised.

Do editors confuse youth with callowness, with their cynical obsession with trite female columnists?

An autopsy of Canada's oldest paper.

The much-maligned convergence trend actually produces Pulitzer-quality journalism.

CBC discontinues Disclosure.

Still don't understand RSS news feeds? You're not alone, but this is your best hope.

The Tyee tracks how reporters' FOI requests are flagged by the B.C. government. Let the flurry of confidential memos begin!

Note to self: ex-nay on the column recycling.

Snoop on former colleagues at Media Buddies. Or hey, harass your old boss.

The Cornflakes Test: how much gore can go on the front page?

Martha Stewart Living magazine asks readers: should we change our name to a) Living magazine b) Doing Time magazine or c) Convicted Felon Living?

Dear God. Former Post staffer sues David Asper for $405,000 after he zipped open his fly, stuck a finger out and wiggled it at her.

The Robber Baron gets his own after-school special.

Wal-mart's new All You magazine looking for cheap, sweatshop journalism. Yes, it's satire — for now.

The Toronto Sun gets a shiny redesign. Don't worry, it assures readers, "we won't overburden [you]. We know time is your most valuable asset — so we'll ... [give] you the right amount of information on every story." Sun code for "more briefs?" I've got a better idea for a redesign. It's 2004. Ditch the chicks in bikinis.

The Senate's new interim report on the state of the media is a goldmine of up-to-date Canadian media stats. At last count? CanWest: 28.5 % media ownership; Quebecor 21%.

April 1 is the official media amnesty day. The one day a year you can make s--t up but keep your job.

Lawrence Lessig's new book,"Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Clamp Down of Culture and Control Creativity" is available in its entirety on-line through Creative Commons, of course.

Faux journalism. Even better than the real thing?

A Newspaper Guild poll finds members think "quality news product" now an oxymoron.

Wal-Mart, having effectively hollowed out the retail sector, now turns to publishing.

And could CanWest plan to find the cash for said multimedia newspaper by pulling out of CP? (Those who have been watching the creation of the Canada News Desk have seen this coming.)

CanWest pledges to create a "multimedia newspaper" which will create "huge employment opportunities." The jury is out...

This bellwether is writing about simultaneous media consumption while on the laptop and watching TV.

Say it ain't so! The Globe and Mail's new on-line site makes the first step to paid Web subscription. Calling all remaining on-line Canadian news content...

Don't you just love how every single solitary newspaper manages to spin the NADBank survey into good news for their publication? We're talking years of practice here.

The definition of a PR crisis? Poll shows politicians more trustworthy than journalists.

The Northern News Service offers a taste of life North of 60. Brr.

Young, smart and gainfully employed? you must be clicking through your morning newspaper.

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