You heard it here for the millionth time
I know you know. It seems like we’ve been straining to hear the death knell of the newspaper for a lifetime. But this past Thursday morning, I think I heard something. Media giant The Nielsen Company announced it would fold the 108-year-old newspaper authority Editor & Publisher magazine. The axe affects both print and online forms. Speculation and writing […]
Balls to Men’s Health
What a rip off. Men’s Health rehashed seven of its cover lines from a 2007 issue and dropped them onto its current cover, adorned by new boy-toy Taylor Lautner. The cover lines are copied verbatim, even positioned in the exact same locations. The colours of the text are changed here and there, you know, just in case readers […]
Don’t be an ingrate
“When you absolutely have to steal snapshots of murder victims from grieving relatives’ homes, leave a buck or two behind.” -Gene Weingarten, at the Washington Post
Stonewall
A cricket field doesn’t seem like an obvious venue for freedom of the press initiatives. Nor does a locker room, unless you’re the Toronto Star. Like the rest of Canada’s newspapers, it’s part of the boycott instituted by the Associated Press against Cricket Australia. According to the Star, the sports league wanted rights to deny photos to certain […]
Taking the ‘free’ out of ‘freelance’
This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that freelance writers, editors and photojournalists currently make up 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide. The statistic is unnerving, but not all that surprising considering how few resources freelancers have to protect themselves. Joel Simon of Slate.com points out that most of the prisoners are online journalists. This highlights the […]
It’s time for candles and Kumbaya
Yesterday, 56 newspapers in 45 countries published the same editorial. Although appearing in 20 different languages, the sentiments of the piece remained the same from India to China to Dubai to Canada’s Toronto Star. The papers aimed to urge the 192 countries represented at the United Nations’ climate treaty talks in Copenhagen to come to an agreement on the […]
Simulations should be used after careful research
No one wants to hear about Tiger Woods anymore, but I have to bring him up. Taiwan’s Apple Daily published a video animation of what happened the night of Woods’s car accident. It was based on information found on the web and from other news sources (part of a new world Noam Cohen of The New York Times calls “Maybe Journalism“). […]
Montreal paper presses on
December 1 has passed and employees of Montreal’s La Presse can finally relax. Last Thursday, the 125-year-old daily finally reached an agreement with its 700 workers, who are represented by several different unions. The bulk of employees (93 percent) approved the five-year concession-laden package, valued at $13 million. They agreed to boost their current 32-hour, four-day week […]
Friday Funny: Frosty the inappropriate snowman
What do you get when you take one of the most beloved Christmas characters and mix it with Barney from How I Met Your Mother? Frosty with a porn collection, apparently. In a promo for the holiday classic airing on December 18, CBS has mashed up scenes from Frosty the Snowman and dubbed over them with lewd soundbites by Barney Stinson, […]
Sports Illustrated—coming to a tablet near you
Time Inc. has released information on its new tablet software in some videos demonstrating its use with Sports Illustrated. The program is being developed in tandem with Wonderfactory, and works in Adobe AIR—suggesting cross-platform compatibility. That means readers will probably be able to use this on any tablet computer, like a Thinkpad X Series, an HP Touchsmart desktop computer […]
