Simon Bredin was the Spring 2015 chief copy editor of the RRJ. Wikileaks: sound and fury, signifying nothing
The Wikileaks Twitter feed is one of the saddest corners of the internet. In the past week, the person behind the tweets has pulled out all the stops trying to discredit The Fifth Estate, a new movie about the whistleblowing website. These steps have included posting a pointless, amateurish graph; tweeting an email in which […]
Anonymous sources overused, say senior government officials
Every time Statistics Canada reports a dip in the unemployment rate, it’s tempting to think that the recently unemployed have been hired on as senior government officials. Senior government officials are the chatty Cathys of journalism: they always talk. In the past week, they have told The Canadian Press that today’s throne speech “will reference […]
Ontario Press Council scorecard
As you’ve no doubt seen by now, the Ontario Press Council (OPC) has ruled that the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail did not violate journalistic standards in reporting on the recent drug scandals involving the Ford brothers (though the council did say the Globe’s investigation into Doug Ford’s past came close to crossing […]
He said, she said: this week in journalism
The Los Angeles Times says it no longer prints letters to the editor that say global warming isn’t real; Ezra Levant says that’s cowardly. Khurrum Awan says Ezra Levant should pay for implying that Awan is an anti-Semite; Ezra says he needs your help / money to defend freedom. The Toronto Star thinks it’s okay […]
Nailing the Nobel prediction, for once
Alice Munro’s winning of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature has sparked the kind of nationalist chest-thumping that Canadian journalists usually reserve for gold medals or war anniversaries. The flag-waving didn’t start on Thursday though; it was preceded by a week of patriotic guesswork—maybe this would be our year, with a victory for Munro or […]
Is this thing on?
The NHL didn’t make it two weeks before the first ginned-up controversy of the 2013-14 season. Earlier this week, San Jose Sharks rookie, Tomas Hertl, scored four goals against the New York Rangers; one was a show-offy, between-the-legs move. Two days later, TSN’s Farhan Lalji asked Sharks alternate captain, Patrick Marleau, if Hertl’s performance fit […]
Don’t vote then tweet
There are a lot of things us journalists (or anyone else, for that matter) can’t do on election day in Canada. We can’t broadcast the returns from any district until polls have closed in all districts (CBC accidentally flouted that one in 2011, after several people said they would intentionally do so). We can’t release […]
When is a premium site not a premium site?
The Dallas Morning News – America’s 12th-biggest paper – woke up last week and realized, like Basil coming back to the hotel, that its wall was all wrong. After more than two years, The News announced that it was taking down its “hard” paywall, and replacing it with two versions of its site: a standard, free one, […]
Area man resurrects blog
Don’t throw us on the cart of dead people just yet—the RRJ blog is, in fact, alive and well. The 2013-14 masthead of the Review has found its sea legs, so starting next week, this space will get regular updates with posts about what’s going on in Canadian journalism. If there’s something you’d like to see us […]
Appreciating Amanda
CBC TV's high-performing asset on the business beat, Amanda Lang
The minute they cut to commercial Amanda Lang exclaims, “You’re a grouchy man.” Her bright-pink-painted lips break into a wide smile directed across the glass desk in a CBC studio at her co-host, Kevin O’Leary. Earlier, during a Lang & O’Leary Exchange segment called “The Big 5,” about current high-profile business stories, the pair […]
