Maria Babbage leaves CP for health ministry

Maria Babbage

CP veteran Maria Babbage is leaving the news service to become director of communications for Ontario health minister Dr. Eric Hoskings, the j-Source Twitter feed reports.
Babage joined the Queen's Park CP bureau in 2008 and recently moved to the news services' national desk.

Good CJFE article on the right to take photographs

Excerpt:
"In both Canada and the U.S., there is little or no basis for preventing anyone – journalist or ordinary citizen – from taking photos in a public place. Authorities might be justified in asking a photographer who was obstructing emergency workers or security personnel to get out of the way, says Peter Jacobsen, partner at Bersenas Jacobsen Chouest Thomson Blackburn LLP in Toronto and member of the board of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), and if that photographer refused to move he or she might be arrested. The publication of certain images might prejudice an investigation or trial, and an officer at the scene might warn a photographer of that, but the issue would be publication, not the taking of the photo.
“'Generally speaking,' Jacobsen says, 'when you’re on public property you can take any pictures you want.'”

https://cjfe.org/resources/features/can-you-take-picture-look-your-right-photograph-canada

Mike Duffy Senate expenses trial set for 41 days starting in April

Suspended Senator Mike Duffy's fraud, bribery and breach of trust case will begin on April 7 and last for 41 days through June, lawyers agreed in court today.  
These dates mean it's likely any damaging information for the Harper government will emerge before the next federal election, expected in fall 2015, according to fixed election date legislation.
Duffy was not in court again Tuesday. But his lawyer, Donald Bayne, met briefly with reporters outside after his appearance.
"We trust that the evidence will show Senator Duffy is innocent of these charges," Bayne said. (CBC)
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The Tyee Names Jane Armstrong Editor-in-Chief

Jane Armstrong, a veteran of the Globe and Mail the Toronto Star, has been named editor-in-chief of The Tyee, an Internet newspaper based in B.C.
In 2010, Armstrong joined Open File, a multi-city experimental publication that crashed in debt after several months of operation. Open File invited readers to suggest story ideas to be pursued by reporters. The experience whetted Armstrong's appetite for Internet journalism. This year she completed a master's degree in digital enterprise at the School of Journalism at King's College in Halifax.
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George Radwanski dead at 67

George Radwanski, a former high-profile journalist whose term as a defender of privacy rights ended in controversy, died of a heart attack on Thursday. He was 67.
Globe obit

Mistaking Chinese leader’s name for Roman numeral costs news anchor her job in India

A news anchor for India’s state TV channel has been fired after she referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as “Eleven” Jingping — apparently mistaking his name for a Roman numeral, a top official at the station said Friday. Xi left for China on Friday after a three-day visit to India, where he signed more than a dozen agreements to push trade and investment between the two Asian giants. The anchor for the Doordarshan news channel made the gaffe on Wednesday night while she read a late night news bulletin. She was dismissed after the blunder was discovered, the TV station official said.

Netflix dominates prime-time data usage in Canada, tripled in 3 years: report

When Canadians jump on the Internet during prime-time evening hours it's increasingly because they want to stream something on Netflix, suggests Waterloo, Ont.-based networking company Sandvine.
An analysis of downloading traffic during evenings in Canada found that 30 to 40 per cent of the data consumed was usually linked to Netflix streams, which was higher than any other Internet activity.
On a typical evening, YouTube viewing, web browsing, Facebook usage and accessing content via BitTorrent were the other top ways Canadians chewed through megabytes and gigabytes.
More from CP

Tyson heaps abuse on CP24's Nathan Downer

Boxer Mike Tyson launched into an abusive attack on CP24 host Nathan Downer of CP24 Wednesday afternoon (September 10, 2014). Downer was hosting as Tyson (top inset) and a handler type arrived at the station to talk about the boxer's one-man show "The Undisputed Truth" at the Air Canada Centre. The normally mild-mannered Downer started off by asking Tyson whether his endorsement of Mayor Ford yesterday might not actually hurt Ford since Tyson is a convicted rapist. “Some of your critics would say, ‘There’s a race for mayor. We know you’re a convicted rapist. This could hurt his (Ford's) campaign.’ What would you say to that?” “It’s so interesting, you come off like a nice guy,” Tyson responded, “but that was really a piece of s—, that comment. F— you.” From there on Tyson unloaded epithets of the "piece of s---" kind on Downer.  When Downer attempted to deflect the insults, he just got more. The same "piece of..." slur came when Downer asked Tyson whether it was more difficult being in a fight match or performing. Tyson told the CP24 host that the worst was being there with him. Comments on YouTube accompanying the video below reveal a range of reaction to the tirade. Some feel Downer's question was badly put, although there aren't too many ways to call a person a rapist. The notorious boxer visited Mayor Ford yesterday at City Hall to declare him the best mayor the city has ever had. The occasion prompted a series of news stories linkable on Google in which the boxer's criminal record was mentioned. Tyson has been convicted of rape and is said to have bitten off an opponent’s ear during a fight, Video may be offensive to some. 

Why the James Foley tragedy offers lessons for all freelance journalists

An excellent piece by Colin Freeman, chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph:

"Like many journalists of my generation, my first glimpse of the glamour of life as a foreign correspondent came not through an assignment to Africa or the Middle East, but from a night in front of the telly watching the film Salvador. For those who haven't seen it – and I recommend you do – it stars James Woods as an impossibly cool, witty and degenerate freelancer who covers the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s. . . "
The whole story

Reporters evicted from Rob Ford campaign speech

Four newspaper reporters were welcomed into the swanky University Club of Toronto on Monday evening to hear Rob Ford give a campaign speech to a group called the Society for the Young and Politically Engaged, the Star's Daniel Dale reports.
They were kicked out upon the mayor’s arrival. There had, apparently, been a misunderstanding. Club general manager Nico Barrett told Ford’s campaign in a Friday email that “no media” had been invited, specifying that “there are to be no television or radio reporters invited.”
But the society, a different entity, issued a press release to the print media two hours later.
“There is the possibility the mayor, because he was not properly informed that the media would be present — that he may not speak tonight if there is media present,” Barrett told the reporters after hastily calling them into a hallway.
Ford’s remarks ended up being publicized anyway. Attendees recorded his comments on Twitter as he uttered them. The reporters were from the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Globe and Mail, and National Post.

Ontario wants CRTC to regulate new media like Netflix

Ontario wants digital media providers such as Netflix brought under the regulatory regime that governs traditional TV and says they should contribute to public funds that support homegrown content, the Star's Michael Lewis reports.

The online providers that benefit from delivering programming to Canadians would begin paying into the system once they reach some minimum threshold likely in market penetration, according to the province’s recommendation.

In a submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on the first day of a two-week regulatory hearing, Kevin Finnerty, assistant deputy minister of tourism, culture and sport, said Ontario wants the CRTC to revisit its new media exemption.
The full story

Peter Kent beats throat cancer, urges HPV vaccination for boys

Peter Kent

Conservative MP Peter Kent noticed something different about his throat one day last November when he was shaving.
The former environment minister was in the midst of a four-week stretch before the House of Commons rose for the holiday break, so he waited a few weeks before going to see his doctor back home in his Thornhill, Ont., riding.
What was originally thought to be a cyst turned out to be Stage IV tongue and throat cancer. It was caused by the human papillomavirus​ (HPV), which Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital says 75 per cent of Canadians will get at some point.
Nine months later, Kent has been through surgery, seven weeks of radiation and chemo, and as of right now shows no remaining sign of cancer (there will be several years of follow-up tests before his doctors can be certain he's cancer-free).
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Transformation at Western’s journalism program

Western University’s graduate journalism program — one of the oldest in Canada — has formally acknowledged plans to re-fashion its one-year master’s program to offer a Master of Media in Journalism & Communication degree, Larry Cornies, author and journalism teacher reports in his blog Doon Valley Journal.
The decision to shutter the existing program was made by administrators in the university’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) last December, but has been kept low key, as it sought approvals from various offices within the university for a transformed curriculum. Full-time journalism faculty members have been engaged in the process of building the new credential in the hope that it might save jobs and preserve some form of journalism training at the university.
Over the past 20 years, the journalism program has had a checkered relationship with the university. Senior administrators attempted to close the Graduate School of Journalism, then led by dean Peter Desbarats, who rallied faculty, staff, alumni and the members of the university’s board of governors to save the school. (That campaign is chronicled here.) Although the effort succeeded, the graduate school soon lost its standing as a separate entity and was merged with the much larger Graduate School of Library and Information Studies in 1996-97, under the auspices of what is now the Faculty of Information and Media Studies.

How Newsworld changed Canada’s political culture: The Star's Susan Dalacourt

OTTAWA—Some 25 years ago this summer, CBC launched its all-news cable channel, then called Newsworld, Susan Delacourt writes.
 The network has been marking the anniversary with periodic glimpses of its coverage of large and small events in Canada and abroad.
Many of the current denizens of Ottawa never knew or can barely remember a life before all-news TV.
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(Before there was Newsworld, CTV had Question Period, hosted by the late Bruce Phillips. He and P. Trudeau once abolished private enterprise during a Christmas interview. :)) Well, not really, it was just Pierre's musings but caused quite a stir.)

Le Devoir facing money crunch, layoffs: report

580CFRA

Paul Robertson, president of Shaw Media, passes away at 59

Paul Robertson, Executive Vice President of Shaw Communications and President of Shaw Media, passed away Tuesday after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 59.
Full obit

Peter Stursberg, war correspondent, dead at 101

Peter Stursberg, who died in Vancouver on Sunday, his 101st birthday, was the last living Canadian war correspondent from the Second World War, and probably the last correspondent anywhere in the world who covered that war. Stationed in North Africa, Italy and northwestern Europe, he was one of only a handful of Canadian radio journalists to deliver reports on the conflict from the front lines.
The whole Globe and Mail obit