The federal broadcast regulator wants Canadians to use a spoecial website to air their views on the availability of local news, information and public affairs programming.
Jane Francisco, an 18-year veteran of the publishing industry, is the new editor-in-chief at Chatelaine magazine, Rogers Media Inc., the magazine's owner has announced.
David Holland, the head of Torstar Corp., is convinced Torstar is headed in the right direction as it broadens its focus beyond the troubled newspaper industry and into the digital world. The company's board of directors gave Holland a vote of confidence last week by confirming his role as president and chief executive. He started in the job as an interim CEO. Holland says the company, once centered on its newspaper operation and named after its cornerstone big city newspaper, the Toronto Star, is now a broadly based media enterprise.
A golden rule for journalists is to report the story, not become it. Unfortunately for Amanda Lindhout, this was not the case. Kidnapped in Somalia, the Canadian journalist endured 15 months of captivity before her release this week. Snatched along with Australian photographer Nigel Brennan in August 2008, the pair says they were beaten, tortured and left alone, often without food.
National Post CEO Paul Godfrey is to oversee the troubled Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has nominated Godfrey, a well-known Progressive Conservative, as chairman of the corporation that has weathered scandals over insider wins and executive expenses in recent years. Godfrey is also the former president of the Toronto Sun and headed the Toronto Blue Jays until he stepped down last year.
Worried about press freedom? Think Iran, where Hamrashri (right) the largest circulation paper has been closed down for publishing (are you ready?) a picture of a Baha'i temple. AP reports the lively social commentary paper ran an ad for tourists who might want to look at the temple. Silly of those editors not to understand that the mullahs get mad when you mention another religion. Makes you ponder what they think of the rest of us. Makes you wonder where the tourists might come from. The Planet Guys
"Morale -- which was low before -- is completely in the toilet now," says an editor who left AP during the recent buyout and still maintains contact with former colleages.Secrecy has been a long-running characteristic of the current management of the newsroom, says the editor, who's been in touch with laid-off staffers.So it's no surprise that e,ployees were left in the dark regarding job cuts. The editor laments the loss of talent -- and lack of faith in management -- at "the most important news organization in the world." Things used to be more open, says the editor, but "AP has become more top-level than ever before" at the expense of hearing valuable staffers' thoughts on improving content and moving the company forward.
VANCOUVER -- RELEASE (edited) -- FP Newspapers Income Fund today announced a distribution of 9.50 cents per unit for the month of November 2009, to unitholders of record on November 30, 2009. The distribution will be paid December 30, 2009. FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership owns the Winnipeg Free Press, the Brandon Sun, and their related businesses, as well as Canstar Community News Limited, the publisher of seven community and special interest newspapers in the Winnipeg region. 
YouTube on Tuesday introduced a new portal, dubbed YouTube Direct, intended to provide news organizations with a more organized way to find and use homemade videos about the day's major news stories. Now, through YouTube Direct, you can submit your video to the news organization of your choice and that station or Web site editor can choose whether to use or decline your footage via a private dashboard. The result? "Citizen stringers," YouTube said. 
The CBC says it has a simple solution to the battle over so-called television tax controversy facing cable and satellite subscribers. The public broadcaster is telling the federal regulator it should force the carriers to offer a skinny service of Canadian stations at a cost lower than current basic service offered by cable firms. CBC president Hubert Lacroix, shown at left, told the CRTC that cable companies are growing rich on the signals they currently retransmit free from the broadcasters. And he presented what he says is proof the system is broken, tabling graphs showing profits for broadcasters have been on a steady downward path since the introduction of cable specialty channels in the early 1980s.
Ted Bissland, a longtime CBC legal reporter, has died. He covered such major stories as the alleged baby murders at The Hospital for Sick Children and the murder of Hannah Buxbaum. He wrote a number of true crime books and co-authored The Modern Canoe, regarded as the definitive work on making a cedar strip canoe.
The Digital Journalist, a 12-year-old online publication aimed at photojournalists, has announced that it is suspending publication. Founded by veteran photographer Dirck Halstead,pictured, the publication also ran workshops to teach still photographers to shoot in video, now the staple of many newspaper web pages.
"Bloomberg has used the cash spraying from its terminal business to hire an astounding number of journalists in recent years, becoming something of a haven in a downsizing industry. Top writers or editors from Fortune, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal land there seemingly weekly. (Six of the company’s 11 executive editors have worked at The Journal.) Bloomberg now has 142 journalists in Washington, 196 in Tokyo and 30 in Paris. It recently opened bureaus in Nigeria, Ghana and Cyprus. It has won numerous journalism awards and, to cite just one example, has offered some of the shrewdest coverage of the financial crisis over the last couple of years," the Times writes.
Eight decades after pioneering the concept of broadcasting, NBC is on the verge of a startling move that illustrates broadcast television's decline. Cable TV operator Comcast Corp. is expected to buy a controlling stake in NBC Universal, perhaps as early as next week, bringing the network of Johnny Carson, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Tom Brokaw under the corporate control of the company that owns the Golf Channel and E! Entertainment Television.
" . . . what's most important in the debate about citizen journalism is that news organizations themselves uphold journalistic standards and verify all information that is gathered before it is published or broadcast.
John King will anchor an ambitious new 7 p.m. hour of political news for CNN beginning early next year, the network announced. The news came a day after Lou Dobbs abruptly told viewers that he was quitting his CNN anchor job immediately. Until King begins his new assignment, a rotating cast of anchors will fill in at 7 p.m. on an interim program called “CNN Tonight.” King is currently the anchor of “State of the Union,” CNN’s Sunday political news show.
Toronto Sun Editor-In-Chief Lou Clancy has left behind 45 successful years in the newspaper business. Clancy decided to retire and Friday marked his final day at the Sun after two years on the job. "He's had a ball," says Rhonda, his wife of 40 years. "This is his timing and this is good timing." Clancy leaves a newsroom that -- under his leadership -- put Toronto's stories on the front page, focusing on filling the Sun with competitive, hard-hitting local news.
Multiple sources have told AllYourTV.com, Dobbs has been quietly testing the waters for a presidential run in 2012, the Examiner reports. According to these sources, Dobbs has increasingly been feeling the pressure from CNN head Jonathan Klein. The longtime CNN anchor has increasingly become a controversial flashpoint for the network, as he argues against illegal immigration and for the idea that Barack Obama might not be a legitimate citizen of the United States. His increasingly angry conservative/independent leanings stand out in stark contrast to the cable news network's more centrist approach.
CNN's Lou Dobbs stepped down from his controversial role as an advocacy anchor at the network at the end of his show Wednesday night after announcing plans to seek a more activist role.
Linden MacIntyre, co-host of CBC's The Fifth Estate, has won the Giller Prize for his book The Bishop's Man, which deals with the sensitive topic of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. The winner of the major literary award, with a $50,000 cash prize, was announced at a gala in Toronto on Tuesday by Jack Rabinovitch, founder of the award.The Bishop's Man is about "a priest who goes into the business idealistically, who realizes that priests also have feet of clay, and it leads him to a personal crisis," MacIntyre said.
A TV news producer accused of blackmailing David Letterman in exchange for keeping quiet about his sexual affairs was only trying to sell the late-night comic a screenplay, a defence lawyer said Tuesday. Robert J. "Joe" Halderman's lawyer asked a judge to toss the attempted first-degree grand larceny case, saying the producer did nothing illegal in slipping Letterman documents alluding to the ``Late Show" host's dalliances and taking a $2 million check from Letterman's lawyer.
Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, said his papers which include the London Times and the Wall Street Journal , would probably cut themselves off from Google once they started to charge online. In an interview with Sky News Australia, Murdoch was asked why, given his attacks on Google for “stealing” the company’s content, News Corp had not decided to remove its websites from Google’s search indices.
It would be hard to find a less promising country in which to start a newspaper than Portugal. Not only are readers defecting to the Internet, as they are elsewhere, but relatively few people ever picked up a paper to begin with. And print advertising has plunged by more than 40 percent this year. Yet while newspapers elsewhere are shutting down or grappling with an uncertain future, Portugal recently got a new one, called i, short for informação, or information. “Everyone was astonished that they went ahead with the launch when they did,” said João Palmeiro, president of the Portuguese Publishers Association.
The PMO is sending out a steady stream of publicity photos in the hope they will be used in newspapers and blogs across the country. But photojournalists believe Harper's handlers are going too far in trying to control his image.
Scotia Capital analyst Paul Steep downgraded Torstar's stock to “underperform” from “sector perform” and lowered his profit forecasts, after the publishing company reported lower-than-expected third-quarter earnings and revenues. The company is showing stronger-than-expected growth in its Harlequin romance-book-publishing division (evidence, perhaps, of just how popular escapism becomes during recessions), but its bread-and-butter newspaper publishing business is in quicksand.
RELEASE -- A Nielsen analysis of a media use study conducted by the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) found that 77% of adults are reached by broadcast radio on a daily basis, second only to television at 95%. This study, in which consumers were physically observed consuming media throughout the day, found that Web/Internet (excluding email) reached 64%, newspaper 35%, and magazines 27%.
What would Joseph E. Atkinson (left) think? Proud product of his ambition might farm out work in both copy editing and pagination work. House story quotes publisher regarding this and planned buyouts. "We must find the best way to operate our business at the lowest possible cost, including contracting out non core functions where there is a sound business case to do so," John Cruickshank wrote in the memo. "This will involve what is likely to be the biggest restructuring of the Star's workforce in its history."
From the divorce trial: Nantz cried on the stand as he testified about how his wife used to follow him around the country to various sporting events, but gradually lost interest in his career. She could not even be bothered to go to New York City to watch him collect a "Man of the Year" award. Or let him hang the oil painting--of himself--that he received with the award in their house. (He had to put it in storage.) He was even offered the hosting slot on the CBS Early Show, but turned it down because she was against it. He admitted to taking a younger lover, but that it didn't matter much because his marriage was already "dead." Sun-Times
Tribune Co. said it will use some AP material such as sports statistics and stories it considers vital. The Chicago-based company said it is trying to determine whether severing ties with the news cooperative next fall is a viable option. AP
Max Yalden, former Languages Commissioner and former chief of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, concludes that what the media frequently dispense as being in the public interest is really just stuff that interests the public, that sells newspapers. He tells Haroon Siddiqui that he too would have dismissed hate-speech allegations against Maclean's. 