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Not much media behind Postmedia’s paywalls

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By Frank Moher As suddenly as the Berlin Wall fell, paywalls went up today across the Postmedia “content network,” or whatever we call what we used to call “newspaper chains.” Steve Ladurantaye, media reporter for the competing Globe, broke the news to a non-waiting nation by posting the death notice internal memo on his personal website. […]

Mark Leiren-Young hates puppies

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By Mark Leiren-Young I did not write that headline. But if my editor came up with something clever to write above this story — and I’m clearly tempting fate and Frank Moher (my editor) to write something bratty up there — chances are I’ll be the one who gets in trouble for it. After taking […]

An Idle proposal to Canadian journalists: STFU

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By Frank Moher Kevin Newman’s interview with Chief Theresa Spence, aired today on CTV’s “Question Period,” illustrated pretty neatly in its first few minutes all that’s been wrong with mainstream coverage of Spence’s fast, and of Idle No More. Newman began by playing social worker to Spence, citing the Chiefs and elders who’ve told her, “You […]

Of gazebos and Chief Spence

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By David@Sixthestate.net Under the circumstances, it’s actually a little surprising that it took this long. Through a convenient leak to the state broadcaster, presumably from the government, evidence has surfaced that hunger strike chief Theresa Spence’s Attawapiskat First Nation does a terrible job of keeping their books. An internal audit which the government ordered last […]

Jill Wiznoski and the small town journalists

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By Frank Moher J-Source.ca has a melancholy wrap-up story on the case of Jill Wiznoski and the displeased MP  — melancholy because I expect this is the last we’ll hear of a matter that should have received a lot more national press attention than it did. Wiznoski, you will remember, was the reporter fired by […]

The Wente plagiarism question grows

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By Frank Moher This story has been updated below The furor over what appears to be plagiarism in Margaret Wente’s columns for The Globe and Mail continues to grow, helped along by The Globe itself. On Wednesday I reported that the blog Media Culpa had identified numerous instances where Wente appeared to have lifted prose […]

Job stats baffle easily baffled media

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By David@Sixthestate.net As usual, the moment StatsCan’s monthly jobs survey numbers go even slightly squirrelly, the media proves utterly unable to handle it. Last week, Canadians were variously told that the employment rate was unchanged, that the job market was in bad shape, and that the job market was doing unexpectedly well. Incidentally, we were […]

Jan Wong’s Globe and Mail blues

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OUT OF THE BLUE By Jan Wong Self-published by Jan Wong, distributed by Dundurn 264 pages, $21.99, paperback Reviewed by Brian Brennan Jan Wong was a star of The Globe and Mail newsroom, a driven, gutsy, award-winning reporter who observed the Tiananmen Square massacre at first hand, and tested the limits of Canada’s airport security […]

Wildrose Party’s Byfield: The Collected Works

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Update: It took all night, but Link Byfield lost. My take on the results is here: Alberta election’s biggest loser: Stephen Harper. By Frank Moher Alheli Picazo at CalgaryPolitics.com has dug up some of the writings of Wildrose Party candidate and one-time Alberta Report Publisher/Editor Link Byfield, just in case Danielle Smith would like to […]