|
Wells and Coyne to debate Afghan mission
|
|
November 5, 2009 - Posted by Regan Ray
|
|
Maclean's
national editor Andrew Coyne, senior columnist Paul Wells and Canada's
first resident ambassador to Afghanistan Chris Alexander are gathering
in Halifax on Nov. 10 for a round table discussion on Afghanistan. Former soldier and editor and publisher of...
More»
|
|
Too much weight given to "media weight"?
|
|
November 20, 2008 - Posted by Heather McCall
|
 A study of federal election results found a strong correlation between each party's percentage of the vote and its level of news coverage. But Frédérick Bastien challenges the methodology and questions Radio-Canada’s willingness to accept the findings at face value.
More»
|
|
Behind the scenes at CTV: the Dion interview
|
|
October 24, 2008 - Posted by Regan Ray
|
 A run-of-the-mill CTV Atlantic interview with Liberal leader Stéphane Dion turned into a national debate about journalistic practice. Susan Newhook goes behind the scenes to find out how the decision to air the false starts was made.
More» Comments (20) »
|
|
Holding mobs to account
|
|
October 21, 2008 - Posted by Deborah Jones
|
The online magazine Tyee takes a look at the impact of "citizen journalism" on the U.S. election, and specifically its role in revealing the mob mentality at the Republican rallies. The links to videos are worth a look.
An excerpt of the piece by Ben Shingler:
"It's been especially evident during the current U.S. election that the Internet's become the champion of the politically outrageous, ignorant and scary. In traditional forms of media, voices on the margins are generally excluded from public debate, but the Internet has changed that. It's shed light on disturbing corners of society that normally go unseen by the viewing public."
Comments»
|
|
Schoolyard bully politics
|
|
October 20, 2008 - Posted by Deborah Jones
|
"A confluence of factors has helped turn our election races into schoolyard tussles," said Adam Radwanski in a Globe and Mail column. But he aimed his strongest criticism on the media, and especially online forms of media.
"The anything-goes nature of online debate — on blogs and even on parties' official websites — has spilled over into mainstream discourse much the way talk radio infected it south of the border. The media's obsession with "war rooms" has left their occupants trying to outdo one another with gratuitous attacks. And the clutter of five parties competing in a 24-hour news cycle has left them making increasingly shrill noises in the hope of being heard."
I find myself agreeing with him -- and thinking it's a good argument for more, and more professional, journalism. But then, such criticism is like shooting ducks at an arcade.
The Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson also aimed his guns at online media, in a Q&A session online. (Hat tip to Bill Doskoch) Simpson said of the Internet's "nigh inexhaustible" demand for material, alongside the decent work "drivel abounds, bloggers proliferate, instant "analyses" are offered, and the time for reflection is reduced literally to zero."
Comments»
|
|
Bias
|
|
October 19, 2008 - Posted by Deborah Jones
|
Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor of the New York Times, shares some thoughts about bias -- real or imagined.
An excerpt:
"Throughout this election season, most of the thousands of messages I have received about Times news coverage have alleged bias — bias in headlines, photo selections, word choices, what the newspaper chooses to write about and what it ignores, what it puts on Page 1 and what it puts inside. Most of the complaints, but by no means all of them, have come from the right. Nobody acknowledges the possibility that, because of their own biases, they could be reading more, or less, than was intended into an article, a headline or a picture. Many go a step beyond alleging mere bias to accuse The Times of operating from a conscious agenda to help one candidate and destroy the other."
Hoyt also notes: "There is an entire body of scholarship devoted to what social scientists call the “hostile media” syndrome."
Who knew?
Comments»
|
|
Who will dare challenge the election results blackout?
|
|
October 14, 2008 - Posted by Janice Neil
|
In an election campaign with Twittering, Blogging, and Facebook mainstreeting this instant information world is suddenly going dark tonight. Elections Canada and the Supreme Court of Canada seem to think most Canadians are content with learning about poll results the way we did in an era of cathode ray tubes and the wireless (radio). Who Dares to challenge Elections Canada?
More»
|
|
Election night, on deadline
|
|
October 14, 2008 - Posted by Laura Stone
|
Students taking an introductory reporting course at the University of King's College in Halifax will be reporting the election live-to-deadline tonight.
Check out their website, which also includes riding-by-riding coverage and results from the 2006 election.
Link»
|
|
Election Act gates set to fall
|
|
October 14, 2008 - Posted by Patricia Elliott
|
Election Act:
329. No person shall transmit the
result or purported result of the vote in an electoral district to the
public in another electoral district before the close of all of the
polling stations in that other electoral district.
In an election where strategic voting sits front and
centre, it seems like the Election Act gates are about to fall with a
resounding thud across the land today. Elections Canada has already softened the blow with changes to polling times, there are still gaps in the timing of poll closures.
More»
|
|
So, how’d we do this time?
|
|
October 14, 2008 - Posted by Regan Ray
|
 J-Source editor-in-chief Ivor Shapiro leads off the discussion on Canadian journalists' performance in Campaign '08. He found innovation on the web and a whole lot of opinion writing, but enterprise reporting, platform analysis and ground-shifting user involvement remained in short supply.
More» Comments (3) »
|
|
by J-Source Staff
A section devoted to political reporting, including recent posts from the J-Source team's look at coverage of this year's federal election.
|
