Pairs skating: the CBC and the National Post
By Frank Moher
Hmm. What is this doing on the website of our public broadcaster?
Vancouver protestors fall silent.
The article I have linked to on the CBC site is a product of its agreement with The National Post to jointly cover the Olympics. It appeared in the Post first, and from there was syndicated to the website [...]
Fixing Canadian TV the NHL way
By Frank Moher
I didn’t think I had a home team in the TV broadcasters vs. TV distributors battle that has been thrust at us in recent months. Seemed like one set of mega-rich corporations pounding on another to see who’ll get to remain the fattest longest.
The nut of the dispute, in case your TV is [...]
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 have to [...]
Why is Canadian cable TV so bad?
By Frank Moher
One of the mixed pleasures of a writer’s vocation is afternoon television. With the advent of notebook computers, one can sit on the couch and do all manner of quotidian things — like writing blog posts — while CNN and NewsNet and A&E; dance across the flatscreen.
Of particularly morbid interest of late is [...]
Mallick vs. Palin. Or is that Feylin?
By Frank Moher
It’s hard not to sympathize with the Yanks who are upset with Heather Mallick. The former Globe and Mailer, now writing for cbc.ca, is so resolutely humourless, even when she’s trying to be funny, and so intransigently snooty (she wears white pearls in her website photo, for cripe’s sake), that I too feel, [...]
Part II: “We do not talk about things that we do not have enough experts to tell us about”
By Frank Moher
In my post of a few days ago, I asked some questions of CBC and Maclean’s pundit Andrew Coyne, about his answers to a 9/11 Truther after a television taping. I said I’d e-mail him a link to the article (did) and advertise it on a few sites, including his own (did). I [...]
“We do not talk about things that we do not have enough experts to tell us about”
By Frank Moher
While researching my next-to-last post (and did you realize that “blogging” and “research” are not necessarily mutually exclusive?), I came across the following video:
In it, a very earnest and nervous woman confronts Alan Gregg, Chantal Hébert, and Andrew Coyne after a taping of the CBC political panel “At Issue,” with a [...]
The issue with “At Issue”
By Frank Moher
Calgary Herald columnist Don Martin offered an unfortunate comment during last night’s broadcast of “At Issue,” The National’s equally unfortunate political affairs panel. Discussing the Conservatives’ plunging poll numbers, Martin derided the “line of pale male faces, with one exception” on their parliamentary front bench. He was sharing the screen at the time [...]
Big media stands down
By Frank Moher
The star journalists of 2007 didn’t work for The New York Times or The Washington Post or The Globe and Mail. They didn’t work for 60 Minutes or “W-5″ or “The Fifth Estate.” The real star journalists of 2007 were the dogged, artless, perseverant investigators and writers, mostly amateur, who continued to [...]
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 not [...]