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By Norm Farrell, on May 14, 2013, at 2:45 pm An article I published almost three years ago is timely on this election day. Voters have an opportunity to change direction. If we do not, the plundering of British Columbia will accelerate. Gordon Campbell began with a set of principles and slid into corruption. Christy Clark started without principle.
Earlier in Northern Insights, the article Indeed, Power does corrupt contains words of Paul Graham that are a diagnosis and could be the prescription for reform in British Columbia.
“The problem here is not wealth, but corruption. . . We don’t need to prevent people from being rich if we can prevent wealth (Read more…)
By Obert Madondo, on April 16, 2013, at 2:16 pm By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: On Monday, three reporters from nonprofit online news site InsideClimate were honored with a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Canada’s tar sands and rupturing oil pipelines. Elizabeth McGowan, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer were honored for their reporting on “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard [...]
The post InsideClimate wins Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Canada’s tar sands appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
By Norman Farrell, on April 9, 2013, at 3:20 pm Update April 9:
I heard that CKNW’s Bill Good responded on his April 5 morning show to selected critics, people he declined to identify other than through reference to hated bloggers. For a number of days, I tried to listen to the station’s audio vault but the file for 8am to 9am was not available. Today, it was there and I listened. Mr. Good rants a bit, claiming again that blogs distribute “CRAP!”
He fails entirely to address the issues printed at this blog or Alex Tsakumis’ blog. Perhaps because he cannot answer specific questions. Good repeats the tired
. . . → Read More: Northern Insight: No free lunches… ever
By Admin CP, on April 8, 2013, at 3:37 am By: Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom | Press Release: OTTAWA, April 2, 2013 – On May 3, 2013, editors, writers, politicians and policymakers from across Canada will celebrate freedom of expression and its champions during a luncheon at the Ottawa Convention Centre. The lunch and awards ceremony mark UNESCO-designated World Press Freedom Day and will [...]
The post World Press Freedom Day celebration to highlight free expression in tough times appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis.
By Obert Madondo, on April 6, 2013, at 3:22 pm Surely this progressive step by the AP should enlighten Canada’s mainstream media, the Canadian Border Services Agency and immigrant-bashing Conservative politicians such as Jason Kenney. It should make them “see” that recent non-European immigrants are as human as European immigrants and their immigrant ancestors? By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: The Associated [...]
The post Associated Press Ditches “Illegal Immigrant”. And A Lesson For Jason Kenney appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis.
By Norman Farrell, on April 1, 2013, at 5:54 am A garrulous right-winger, Alise Mills has appeared on CKNW, CTV, Sun News Network and CBC. Because she is pervasive, it’s worth learning a little about her. In the preceding article, you can hear Mills discussing blogs that she calls “absolute garbage” but I offer information about her that is a good deal more specific.
In August 2012, the national network described Mills as a “Conservative political analyst” when she said on camera that British Columbia’s free enterprise coalition was ending. Mills predicted the B.C. Liberals would lose the coming election and probably cease to exist. Talking after Kevin
. . . → Read More: Northern Insight: Pundit, partisan, or?
By mark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys, on March 21, 2013, at 4:11 pm Is anyone else mildly freaked out by how many news stories they learn of first on Twitter? Or is it just us Twits? Alltop is breaking funny. Noise to Signal Cartoon
By Orangutan, on March 6, 2013, at 7:05 pm (video - 5 mars 2013, Montréal. Ostie d’grosse manif de soir contre la hausse éternelle from Mario Jean on Vimeo.)
Tuesday, March 5, 2013, marked the rebirth of Montreal nocturnal protests against the commodification of university education. Below are a few of the sensationalist headlines (linked) that appeared in some of the city’s mainstream news outlets the next day. These headlines demonize the protesters as violent criminals and sadly continue a shabby tradition of “news” coverage from last year’s Maple Spring.
English-language MediaFree tuition protest ends with smashed windows, arrests (CTV Montreal)62 detained as protests resume (The
. . . → Read More: From Orangutan: Mainstream headlines demonize Quebec student protesters (again!)
By Daniel, on February 24, 2013, at 11:17 am Viscount Monckton is on another one of his highly lucrative climate denial evangelism tours of Australia. I caught this great piece from a Tasmanian newspaper called “The Mercury”, Monckton’s Hot Air:
At a public lecture in Hobart this week, he said there had been no global warming for at least 16 years.
“The climate models were wrong and the world is not going to end,” he said.
Tony Press, former director of the Antarctic Division and now CEO of the University of Tasmania’s Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre, said Lord Monckton’s interpretation was unscientific.
. . . → Read More: Autonomy For All: Solid Monckton Journalism
By matttbastard, on February 23, 2013, at 11:03 am Silly Prince George Citizen, holding a staff writer to account for generously liberating other writers’ work:
To our shock and dismay, multiple incidents of plagiarism were uncovered from work over the last number of months. The staff member plagiarized various online new publications, while writing opinion pieces that appeared in this space. Entire paragraphs were copied and then blended into articles, removing a word here and there, or adding a clause to link certain phrases, but leaving the words of the original writer all or mostly intact, without attribution to the original writer or publication.
As of Tuesday morning, that
. . . → Read More: bastard.logic: Ethics in Exile
By matttbastard, on February 3, 2013, at 9:45 am
This:
Editing by click rate is stupid and unethical. Chasing traffic is an abyss. The hamsterization of journalism is degrading the work environment for news professionals. Expecting reporters to report, write, blog, tweet, shoot video, sift the web, raise their metabolism, and produce more without time and training is guaranteed to fail. Trading in print dollars for digital dimes has been an economic disaster for newsrooms that ran on those dollars. Online advertising will never replace what was lost. The editorial staff is the engine that makes the whole thing go. You cannot cut your way to the future.
. . . → Read More: bastard.logic: Cosign With Jay Rosen
By The Ranting Canadian, on December 6, 2012, at 8:37 pm
Take a look at the Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting (CCIR). It’s a very important non-profit organization that organizes and promotes investigative journalism in Canada and far beyond.
Groups like this — and the reporters who are affiliated with them — are desperately needed in this era of corporate media super-concentration and the lazy, fluffy, dishonest, plagarized, biased and cheap content that is too often thrust upon news readers, viewers and listeners under the guise of journalism.
The CCIR is providing a valuable service and deserves to be acknowledged and supported.
http://canadiancentreinvestigates.org/
By Norman Farrell, on November 24, 2012, at 2:16 am It’s been a while since I complained about CBC pundit Stephen Smart but his 5pm news report today was egregious. He suggested the current Angus Reid poll indicates an important shift that gives new hope to BC Liberals. The claim was misleading and not … . . . → Read More: Northern Insight: "All bets are off"… or not
By Norman Farrell, on November 21, 2012, at 3:13 pm For more than half a century, the Soviet Union’s news agencies were universally recognized as untrustworthy. Strict political controls ensured that content served interests of the nation’s autocrats. In the democratic world, most have been contentedly… . . . → Read More: Northern Insight: Propagandists in the service of the powerful
By Norman Farrell, on November 14, 2012, at 4:18 pm Katie Hyslop has a worthwhile piece in The Tyee about the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation. Teacher Decries Pension Plan’s ‘Unethical’ Investments, The Tyee, Nov. 13/12 “[Paul] Hutcheson started researching the B.C. Teachers’ Pension … . . . → Read More: Northern Insight: Pro-media: watchdogs or lapdogs?
By Mark A. Rayner, on November 14, 2012, at 7:21 am Montreal (The Skwib) — In their yearly survey of how much trust we have in a variety of occupations, Leger Marketing discovered that journalists were more trusted than quite a few other occupations. Nearly 49 percent of Canadians felt that …… . . . → Read More: mark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: The Journalist: More Trustworthy than the Prison Snitch
By Norman Farrell, on October 24, 2012, at 6:34 pm In my childhood long ago, Canadians used ethnic slurs without much thought. My east Vancouver family, not hateful people, disdainfully labelled central and eastern Europe war-victim refugees as DP’s or Bohunks. In those days, a black child was a Pickaninny or a Tar Baby; the parents called Spades, Spearchuckers, Coons, Spooks, Niggers or Porch-Monkeys. The corner store was operated by Chinks, Chinamen or Slant-eyes. Italians were tagged as Wops or Dagos; Mexicans as Wetbacks. Men wearing turbans were Pakis, Towel-Heads or Hindus, all of them. Aboriginal men were Injuns or Redskins; the women Squaws. Light skinned natives were Half-Breeds.
And, of course, there
. . . → Read More: Northern Insight: Platform for hatred
By Norman Farrell, on October 18, 2012, at 5:22 pm http://edocs.lib.sfu.ca/cgi-bin/Cartoons?CartoonID=2239
Yesterday, the Liberal government claimed its diligent examination of TransLink had resulted in $139 million in annual savings. As I noted, the claim was easily determined to be false. Yet that did not stop the media echo chamber from repeating, even amplifying, the delusive assertions.
A news commentator recently referred to the NDP’s “fudge-it” budget in 1996, implying therefore, today’s opposition is unsuited to manage the economy, come 2013. Yet, if one examines fiscal realities of the Harcourt and Clark administrations, their records, while imperfect, were not disastrous.
The fudge-it budget meme was a creation
. . . → Read More: Northern Insight: Media fails to give an honest account
By Oh, on September 28, 2012, at 9:04 pm The Wentegate affair and much of the traditional media’s reaction to it really tell us something about the mainstream media.
Margaret Wente, who is documented to be a serial-plagiarist has already gotten defended by a few mainstream journalists (Jesse Brown with Maclean’s, Terence Corcoran and Dan Delmar of the National Post and even a Toronto Star boy Tim Harper). These people, as the superb Sixth Estate points out are defending plagiarism; they are rallying, in one way or another, behind a person who has plagiarised multiple times (without consequence).
The main defence, hopefully, comes out of ignorance. These people (Read more…)
By Norman Farrell, on September 25, 2012, at 1:53 am Reader contributions at mainstream media sites are occasionally unreadable, occasionally delightful. Here’s one of the latter type from the Globe & Mail after Margaret Wente defended herself on charges of plagiarism raised by an independent media critic:
“Margaret, you would have done yourself and the Globe a favour had you simply plagiarized Fareed Zakaria’s contrite apology of a few months ago rather than write a passive aggressive non-apology apology.”
Media Culpa is the website causing discomfort at Toronto’s national newspaper. G&M editors have been reluctant to acknowledge this critic, preferring reference to “an anonymous blogger” as if they have
. . . → Read More: Northern Insight: Journalists slow to criticize colleague
By Obert Madondo, on September 21, 2012, at 10:07 am The Mouse That Roared is a documentary-in-the-making film by Judith Ehrlich, the award-winning director of “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”, which earned a Peabody, and was nominated for an Academy award for best documentary. The film centers around Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir’s efforts fights to make Iceland the free speech capital of the digital world. Jónsdóttir is also an activist, poet, Buddhist and single mom.
By Obert Madondo, on September 15, 2012, at 12:20 pm Julian Assange‘s U.S. attorney, Michael Ratner, claims that the U.S. is getting tougher with Bradley Manning hoping to pressure him to testify against the WikiLeaks founder. He tells The Real News Network: They would want him to testify or roll over against Julian. And it’s not me making that up. The lawyer for Bradley Manning, David Coombs, has said openly in court that they are going after Manning with so much toughness, with wanting a 40-year sentence or whatever he said in court, because they want him to testify against Julian Assange. A remarkable story here in some
. . . → Read More: Canadian Progressive: U.S. pressuring Bradley Manning to implicate Julian Assange (VIDEO)
By David Eaves, on September 12, 2012, at 12:06 pm Last night I discovered that my local newspaper – the Vancouver Sun – was going to require users log in with Facebook to comment. It turns out that this will be true of all Postmedia newspapers.
I’m stunned that a newspaper ownership would make such a move. Even more so that editors and journalists would support it. We should all be disappointed when the fourth estate is unable to recognize it is dis-empowering those who are most marginalized. Especially when there are better alternatives at ones disposal. (For those interested in this I also recommend reading Mathew Ingram’s post, Anonymity
. . . → Read More: eaves.ca: Why Banning Anonymous Comments is Bad for Postmedia and Bad for Society
By Obert Madondo, on September 9, 2012, at 7:58 pm Written by Justin Elliott | ProPublica On a Saturday afternoon last February, journalist Carl Bernstein got up on stage at the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan and delivered a speech questioning the listing of an obscure Iranian group called the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK) on the U.S. government list of officially designated foreign terrorist organizations.The speech, before a crowd an organizer put at 1,500, made Bernstein one of the few journalists who has appeared at events in a years-long campaign by MEK supporters to free the group from the official terrorist label and the legal sanctions that come with it. He
. . . → Read More: Canadian Progressive: Watergate Journalist Carl Bernstein Spoke at Event Supporting Iranian ‘Terrorist’ Group
By Norman Farrell, on August 22, 2012, at 4:48 am Bob Mackin has an interesting piece in The Tyee about a newspaper tycoon and BC Liberal abettor. David Black’s bluster was about about oil refining but the part of Mackin’s story that caught my eye involved one-time Province newspaper publisher Paddy Sherman.
In 1958, Sherman was both a news reporter and an avid mountain man. Apparently, vocation served avocation when he wrote a front page promotion for an unlikely BC ski resort. There was no financing and little substance to the extravagant plan but that didn’t bother The Province newspaper. They gave it maximum splash.
Mackin provides another newspaper’s eventual
. . . → Read More: Northern Insight: In sheep’s clothing
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eaves.ca: Why Banning Anonymous Comments is Bad for Postmedia and Bad for Society
Last night I discovered that my local newspaper – the Vancouver Sun – was going to require users log in with Facebook to comment. It turns out that this will be true of all Postmedia newspapers.
I’m stunned that a newspaper ownership would make such a move. Even more so that editors and journalists would support it. We should all be disappointed when the fourth estate is unable to recognize it is dis-empowering those who are most marginalized. Especially when there are better alternatives at ones disposal. (For those interested in this I also recommend reading Mathew Ingram’s post, Anonymity
. . . → Read More: eaves.ca: Why Banning Anonymous Comments is Bad for Postmedia and Bad for Society