Allison Elkin was the Spring 2015 co-chief copy editor of the RRJ. Bewildering
Get this—a post that doesn’t lead with the words “layoff,” “severance,” “grim,” or “death!” (Simple pleasures, for us folks at the Review; just let us have it.) No, today it’s good news! A new online fashion mag has just been launched! Yes, you read that right—growth. The Style Notebook is the new sister site to Torontoist and promises to go […]
Newsroulette
Journos often complain that online news websites don’t provide the same surprise factor as their print counterparts. Well no longer! The Guardian and The New York Times have both developed Stumbleupon-like apps that randomly brings up an article published within the last 24 hours. Serendipity, indeed; it’s almost as fun as clicking on Wikipedia’s “Random article” link, though not quite as addicting as looking […]
Post 17
In between fighting an expensive divorce battle with his wife, being punched in the face by his constituent and making wildly inappropriate comments about Barack Obama, Silvio Berlusconi has found time to slash the $2.8-million his government gives to Canada’s only Italian daily newspaper by half. The Globe and Mail reported today that Corriere Canadese, the 55-year-old paper […]
”This is also one of the most chauvinistic things I’ve read in any magazine article in this century.”
Yesterday, Exclaim! magazine published a letter to the editor on its Facebook fan page. It was in response to Keith Carman’s concert review of the punk band Vivian Girls‘ performance during last week’s Canadian Music Week festival. Titled “Angry-ish Ravings from a Feminist Cunt” — the reader’s word choice, by the way — it has now sparked a debate on […]
RRJ on the road: Off to Cuba
Today, I’m off to Cuba. Not for the sun or sea or rum, but to investigate an issue very close to the hearts and minds of the Cuban people: baseball. However, reporting on such a nationalistic issue in a country where press freedoms, according to Reporters Without Borders, is “”disastrous,”” will be a challenge. Without […]
Sticks and stones
Senator Mike Duffy threw down some tough words for Canadian journalism schools this week. Duffy gave a speech to Conservative party members Monday in Amherst, saying that journalism programs these days train their students with a leftist bias. “When I went to the school of hard knocks, we were told to be fair and balanced,” said Duffy. […]
The future of publishing
Just about the most clever, and inspirational, video I’ve seen on the future of publishing: The mirror here revealing the disconnect between publishers and their readers hits too close to the bone when I think of the relationship between journalists and their audience. It seems that, in striving to reach out to the lowest common […]
The state of the news media is, well, not that great
Down in Washington, the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its annual report on “The State of the News Media.” For those really interested in digesting the 180,000-word report, it’s probably best just to visit it here. Otherwise, here’s a brief breakdown. Surprising News The authors found that over 80 percent of links on “new” […]
Journalism 101
Roy MacGregor of The Globe and Mail published an excellent article in today’s paper. “It is time to rethink Journalism 101,” the article begins. “When newspapers start confusing ‘hits’ with ‘circulation,’ there is an undeniable danger to journalism.” Journalism today, saturated with tweets and blogs and hastily construed online stories, is no longer governed by the content […]
