By Alison@Creekside A leaked 2004 CSIS report from LaPresse on Thursday purports to be a summary of a conversation between Abousfian Abdelrazik and Adil Charkaoui in 2000 in which they plotted to blow up an airplane enroute between Montreal and France. It has already been enthusiastically repeated across our national press: CBC: CSIS file reveals plot to bomb […]
Postmedia: Layoffs? What layoffs?
By Brian Brennan Television reporter Tom Clark parts company with CTV News, and the network issues a public statement to that effect. Kevin Newman steps down as Global anchor, and his network does the same. But what happens when dozens, perhaps hundreds of print reporters in this country leave their jobs, either voluntarily or otherwise? […]
Lessons for Project Samosa
By Alison@Creekside The publication ban on Project Samosa, the RCMP’s latest salvo in the war on terror, has the media scrambling to get unnamed sources and security experts to augment and substitute for accounts of court proceedings. By a happy coincidence for war on terror fans, this allows for far more pants-pissingly terrorfying conjecture than […]
CanWest Idol
By Frank Moher Let’s play CanWest Idol! — in which we decide who should get to buy the bankrupt media company’s assets. The finalists for the TV operation appear to be just two: Shaw Communications and Catalyst Capital. The former is the Alberta-based cable company; the latter is the front-organization for Leonard Asper and New […]
Hollinger’s lump of coal
By Brian Brennan Why is the mainstream media not covering this story? Why have The Globe and Mail, CBC, The National Post, Maclean’s et al. seemingly missed out on the fact that Hollinger Publishing — Conrad Black’s former newspaper holdings company — has been forced into bankruptcy protection? Why have these national news organizations not […]
The CRTC’s meddling ways
By Frank Moher I like a good government intervention as much as the next failed banker, but the current CRTC meddling with the internet should send chills down the spine of anyone who uses the instrument — like, say, you. The commissioners are looking into the question of whether or not internet service providers should […]
Yesterday’s news
By guest blogger Brian Brennan They’re all doing it now but still I have to wonder: Why are Canada’s daily newspapers encouraging their opinion columnists to simultaneously blog on the papers’ websites? I used to think — like media observers elsewhere — that newspaper blogs were meant to be dumping grounds for material the papers […]
Tasering the news
By Frank Moher I recently advised two former journalism students of mine, one working on an article for Chatelaine, the other on a feature for this magazine, that they couldn’t offer money to an interviewee, even though in both cases the interviewee could really use it. That, I explained, is called “chequebook journalism.” And it’s […]
Maclean’s serves it cold
By Frank Moher Jonathon Gatehouse’s biopsy of the Asper family in Maclean’s does a workmanlike job of pursuing the boss’s business. Leonard Asper is presented as earnest but clearly in over his head in trying to run CanWest Global, thus maximizing any damage the article might do to the company (probably not much). A heaping […]
Retiring his portmanteau
By guest blogger Brian BrennanIn the midst of the hoopla surrounding the Toronto International Film Festival, a private retirement party for veteran CanWest entertainment writer Jamie Portman rates a 300-word mention in the National Post. “Portman scribe of the stars for a half-century,” says the headline. Is this how Portman wants to be remembered? One […]
