Ronan O'Beirne

The silence over Mohamed Fahmy

The silence over Mohamed Fahmy

Mohamed Fahmy is a Canadian citizen, working in Egypt as Al-Jazeera’s acting bureau chief. Before working for the Qatari broadcaster, he was with CNN. He is, then, kind of a big deal, and the kind of journalist of which the country ought to be proud. Fahmy is currently holed up in Cairo’s Tora prison, which […]

 Graeme Bayliss

Globe and Mail cuts horoscopes, entering an Age of Aquarius, or something

Globe and Mail cuts horoscopes, entering an Age of Aquarius, or something

This week, Venus formed an aspect with Mars, and The Globe and Mail announced that it will no longer run horoscopes in its print edition (except on Saturdays). We’re not sure whether those two events are related, or even what the first means, but it’s good news nonetheless. The first newspaper horoscope appeared in a […]

 Ronan O'Beirne

Going to Sochi? Leave your phone at home: advice for reporting in Putin’s Russia

Going to Sochi? Leave your phone at home: advice for reporting in Putin’s Russia

With journalists set to descend on Sochi for the Winter Olympics, privacy experts are raising red flags about Russia’s omniscient security apparatus. As The Guardianfirst reported in October, Russia is “modernizing” its SORM system, which the country’s security agency, the FSB, uses to monitor phone and Internet communications. (The agency does not need judicial approval […]

 Shannon Clarke

Review: Times plagiarist neither damned nor redeemed by new doc

Review: Times plagiarist neither damned nor redeemed by new doc

  “Why did you do it?” It’s a fitting opening to a documentary about a plagiarist, considering it’s usually the first question asked of people like Jayson Blair—who, as a reporter for The New York Times, plagiarized or fabricated more than 30 articles. The scandal, known as the “Blair Affair,” is the subject of Samantha […]

 Yusur Al Bahrani

Friday Funny: someone built a website to prove that clickbait headlines are ruining journalism. You won’t believe what happened next.

Friday Funny: someone built a website to prove that clickbait headlines are ruining journalism. You won’t believe what happened next.

If anybody needs us, we’ll be in the corner, laughing to fight back the tears. Bless you, Headlines Against Humanity. Thanks for the hours of mildly depressing entertainment. Remember to follow the Review and its masthead on Twitter. Email the blog editor here.  

 Ronan O'Beirne

Kamloops—pop. 85,000—loses its only daily paper

Kamloops—pop. 85,000—loses its only daily paper

The decline and fall of local newspapers continued earlier this week as Glacier Media Inc. announced that it is closing The Kamloops Daily News after 80 years in print. While the last year has seen the death of several free large-market dailies and small-market community papers, John Hinds of Newspapers Canada* told The Vancouver Sun […]

 Ronan O'Beirne

Friday Funny: the tastiest headline of 2013

Just like how movie studios release their Oscar bait in December, it seems the last few weeks of the year have yielded a disproportionate amount of funny corrections, headlines or tweets. Craig Silverman’s year-end round-up is as good as always, but he may have published it too early. He missed, among other things, this correction […]

 Luc Rinaldi

Conrad Black vs. Rob Ford: no surprises

Conrad Black vs. Rob Ford: no surprises

Around 8:58 Monday night, thousands of Torontonians discovered whether Vision TV is included in their cable packages. That was probably the only new thing they learned that hour. In a 15-minute interview with media baron Conrad Black on The Zoomer, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford boasted about saving taxpayers’ money (again), crowned himself the best mayor […]

 Ronan O'Beirne

To Snow Fall or not to Snow Fall: the ongoing debate over ‘the future of journalism

To Snow Fall or not to Snow Fall: the ongoing debate over ‘the future of journalism

A conversation on Twitter (Dec. 15, 2013) about use of the technique often called parallax scrolling, which got lots of journalism people excited a year ago when The New York Times published a story titled “Snow Fall.”

 Marissa Dederer

Smartphones haven’t changed the rules of photojournalism

In 2012, American photojournalist Ben Lowy made history. His photograph of waves from Hurricane Sandy breaking in New York City made the cover of Time magazine; it was taken with an iPhone. Lowy has taken his iPhone to other locales as well: he documented the Libyan conflict and also captured images in Kabul, Afghanistan for […]