Rolling Stone guilty of libel in campus rape story

A federal jury on Friday found Rolling Stone magazine liable of defaming a University of Virginia administrator by publishing a story it later retracted about an alleged gang rape at the school, Reuters reports.The decision followed a three-week trial in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, Virginia, where the administrator, Nicole Eramo, sued the magazine, owner Wenner Media and reporter Sabrina Erdely for $7.9 million. The jury returns on Monday to determine damages in the case.
Erdely was found liable of actual malice, a key element in libel law, in six statements in the November 2014 story, "A Rape on Campus." Rolling Stone and Wenner Media were each found liable of actual malice in three statements, according to court documents.
To prove defamation, it must be shown that a media organisation published what it knew to be false, or did so with reckless disregard for the truth.
The magazine had reported that a female student identified only as "Jackie" was raped at a university fraternity in 2012. The story sparked a national debate about sexual assault on U.S. campuses.
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CNN gets big boost in Canada from election coverage

CP reports that CNN has seen ratings soar in Canada in the run up to the presidential election. For the final presidential debate on Oct. 19, CNN saw its share of Canadian viewers climb above the 1.5 million mark in overnight estimates. Broken down into half-hour periods, CNN pulled an estimated 1.2, 1.3, 1.5 and 1.1 million viewers between the hours of 9:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. ET.
That dwarfs the overnight estimates registered by CBC News Network, which drew 428,000, 400,000, 300,000 and 194,000 on the same day and times. Further behind was CTV News Channel, clocking in at 112,000, 117,000, 125,000 and 108,000 estimated viewers.
Only a Major League Baseball playoff game between Toronto and Cleveland on Sportsnet (2.7 million) and an episode of “Survivor” on Global (1.6 million) beat CNN in Canada on that night.
About a year ago, on an average October weeknight, CNN trailed the two Canadian news outlets.
On Oct 27, 2015, CNN drew about 45,000 viewers in Canada, compared to 272,000 for CBC News Network and 64,000 for CTV News Channel.
CNN is also on a roll in the United States. For the first time in 15 years, CNN has beaten Fox News in key metrics (available on fewer cable and satellite packages, Fox News ratings are negligible in Canada) and has topped MSNBC for 28 straight months. It also just enjoyed its most-watched month in 11 years.

Superbowl ruling will cost Bell one-third of advertising revenue writes the Globe's Susan Krashinsky

The Globe and Mail's Susan Krashinsky writes:

"The decision by Canada’s federal broadcast regulator to bring U.S. Super Bowl commercials to all Canadian televisions in February will erase at least one-third of Bell’s advertising revenue for the big game, according to sources. . . .

"Bell has been selling Super Bowl ads under the assumption that its leave to appeal would also include a stay, which would maintain the signal-swapping in 2017. That did not happen, and Bell will now revise its agreements with advertisers, since it is highly unlikely the appeal will move quickly enough to be resolved before February. That means Bell will see a significant drop in the money it makes off big game ads next year."

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Torstar posts profit, ad revenue declines continue

The Globe and Mail's James Bradshaw reports:

"Growing revenue from digital ventures propelled Torstar Corp. to a razor-thin profit in the third quarter, though the downward trend in advertising returns continued unabated.

"The boost to the newspaper publisher’s bottom line came largely from the company’s 56-per-cent stake in VerticalScope, a company that operates hundreds of online forums catering to niche interests, and which drove a 32-per cent increase in revenue for the company’s digital ventures segment.

"Across the company, which publishes newspapers including the Toronto Star and the free Metro dailies, digital revenue was up 17.9 per cent, excluding the impact of closing digital marketing firm Olive Media in 2015. But revenue from print advertising, which remains a much larger source of revenue, fell sharply again, down 16.1 per cent from a year earlier."

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UN offers The Rebel press accreditation for climate conference after environment minister’s intervention

The United Nations has bowed to pressure from Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and three Canadian journalist advocacy groups, offering The Rebel — the right-wing news and opinion platform published by political commentator Ezra Levant — media accreditation at next week’s Conference of the Parties (COP 22) in Morocco, the Financial Post reports.
Earlier this month, the UNFCCC rejected an application by The Rebel to send three journalists to cover the conference, which takes place from November 7 to 18, on the grounds that “advocacy media outlets do not qualify for accreditation.”
In an e-mail sent Monday, a representative of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat informed the media outlet that it could offer two slots to cover COP22.
The UNFCC explicitly cited letters it received from Environment Canada, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CFJE), PEN Canada and the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) as motivation for the reversal of its decision.