Supreme Court clarifies "fair comment"

Kirk Makin's article for The Globe.

AP shoots itself in the foot

Seriously. What the bloody fuck are they thinking?

Here's one reaction to what will either be a huge embarrassment in a few months, or the next big battle with the "old guard" over who "owns" what.

Info is free. Journalists are supposed to disseminate info because so few others will. Anything else is just business. Journalism isn't supposed to be just business. It's supposed to be a pillar of society.

Edit (6 PM): Just found this fully AP compliant story at BoingBoing Gadgets.

Citizen journalistists, transparency and trust

Thanks to Gawker for this take on Bill Clinton's "scumbag" moment and the means by which it was achieved.

While I'm all for reporters being upfront about their trade around people they want to quote, Hamsher makes two good points in this excerpt alone:

1. Clinton should have been a bit more aware
2. Journalists should be trustworthy for the benefit of the public (and even those they may make look bad) rather than their access.

Granted, I'm not fighting it out in the Dailies trenches on the American political front, so my view is ultimately ignorant and (let's face it) irrelevant. Still, it would be nice to think I could retain an ethic or two on the battlefield.

How long should online articles be?

Zainab Zakari has penned This article is 1,689 words long for the New York Review of Magazines, reporting on the various theories concerning how long articles should be online. Mentions various studies on attention spans and anecdotal evidence of why 1,000 words is an arbitrary and incorrect benchmark.

"Weisberg chose 1,000 words arbitrarily, but he and Nielsen are echoing the prevailing wisdom that, on the web, shorter is always better. If you don’t keep it short, you’ll lose the reader’s attention—and once a reader is bored, all it takes is one mouse click to kill an article.

Are these assumptions justified? Based on my personal experience, an informal survey of the literature in the field and conversations with various social psychologists and social scientists, I believe they are not."

Mixed feelings about the new Toro mag

Christopher Shulgan has posted his feelings on the online rebirth of Toro with a tale that will make freelancers' cringe and rant.

"I think it was in December 2006 that I finally got frustrated with Finkle and started swearing at him on the telephone over a pair of invoices that were going on three months overdue. I had an excuse -- Christmas was coming up, the invoices totaled around $8,000 and my wife wasn't going to get any presents if those invoices didn't come in.

The thing was, it wasn't Finkle's fault -- he had done his best to get me the money and finally just gave me Bratty's office phone number. I started bugging Bratty with incessant voice-mails explaining the situation, and at the very last minute before Christmas vacation -- I think on the 22nd of December -- I drove out to the west side of Toronto and met Bratty at a Starbuck's near his house, where he handed me the cheque. What got me was Bratty's manner. He tossed off some random comment to the effect of, he hoped I was grateful that he was going out of his way to pay me. This was an invoice that was at least three months overdue. And what gets me to this day, and what is probably the reason for my current venting, is that I didn't call him on that asshole comment."

I attended the relaunch party last night. It wasn't "happening" as of the time I left. It certainly wasn't a magazine or a journalists' gathering. I wonder if it's because of what Shulgan describes in his post?

Do you know what's on and off the record?

Great post today at The Spectator (T.O. Life's media blog) about Tucker Carlson's recent spat with Gerri Peev from The Scotsman about what constitutes on and off the record.

The Spec does a good job laying out the issue, so just read Mr. Bell's post and check out the brief YouTube clip.

It has never occurred to me in my short career that what Carlson suggests could be a feasible way to work. It's seems stupid. I personally would never write a word if all someone had to so was say "...but that's OTR" to get me to put my pen down.

Though it's not really surprising that Carlson's attitude exists. I have to explain OTR to my interview subjects all the time. I don't always run what they try to erase from the record, but I consider it fair game. Many don't get that you can't just un-tell a reporter something. We aren't paid to keep people's filthy secrets.

Journalism: Happy vs. Angry. GO!

Gawker found these:

Happy Journalist.

Angry Journalist.

At press time, the Angry was winning in terms of post count.

Discuss?

Metro story sounds like op-ed

During my morning commute, I came across the following in the Metro under the headline "Posters point to passengers." (Emphasis mine)

It's all our fault. According to a new TTC advertising campaign, the causes of subway delays have nothing to do with a lack of investment or poor TTC planning or anything like that. Oh, no.

A poster spotted on the subway yesterday said the top five reasons for subway delays are: blocking doors, holding doors, people getting hurt from not "minding the gap" between platforms and subway cars, pieces of litter that catch fire on the tracks (when's the last time you saw that?) and, finally, passenger illness.

It all makes sense; you shouldn't get sick on the subway because you're only going to slow people down. Instead, folks should be considerate and throw up – or have heart palpitations over the latest fare increase – once they're safely outside the station.

As for the people blocking or holding doors, it appears that has nothing to do with overcrowded trains. No, according to the TTC, it's all our fault.

Just to get my two cents out of the way, there's no way I'd mistake this for hard news and wouldn't think the paper was making a broad opinion claim. I do not, however, speak for anyone but myself. I think (and will find out for sure) that the Star has guidelines for marking op-ed as being clearly that. Regardless, they have not done that here.

There is no byline because it's in the Metro's news section, and it's sourced from Torstar News Services. It is not presented as a column and looks in no way different from any other news story on the page.

I found it on The Toronto Star's website here under the label Notebook (which I've never seen before) along with two other stories. At the bottom of the third story is what I presume to be the byline for all three -- "With files from Paul Moloney and Jim Byers."

Is this a reporters' blog for Star writers? Can anyone shed some light on this?

Open letter to C-SPAN's Brian Lamb

C-SPAN issued a take-down notice to Nancy Pelosi (see details in this BoingBoing posting), and Carl Malamud has something to say about that.

He takes C-SPAN to task on its dubious use of the term "non-profit" and its perceived failure to acknowledge its place in the American media business landscape. Basically, they got upset at Nancy Pelosi for using their "copyrighted" material.

Lots of angles on this one. Is C-SPAN obligated or allowed to protect its assets in this way? Does being non-profit mean we must value its product differently? How would this situation work in Canada?

On a personal note, I respect Malamud's conviction on this issue. He was so sure that using C-SPAN video should fall under fair use, he bought some of their taped material, "ripped more than one minute of video from the disc, and used it for the creation of a news and satirical commentary of compelling public interest and then posted the resulting work at the Internet Archive. I did not ask C-SPAN for a license and I assert fair use of this material."

So he did what he thought was right and was unafraid to tell the big boys about it.

You can find his work here at archive.org. Gotta respect a man who puts his money where his mouth is.

Edit: A related story about C-SPAN freeing up its footage.

Advancing its longstanding mission of bringing government closer to the people, C-SPAN announced today two major initiatives designed to greatly expand citizen access to its online video of federal government activities, such as congressional hearings, agency briefings, and White House events. These actions are intended to meet the growing demand for video about the federal government and Congress, in an age of explosive growth of video file sharers, bloggers, and online 'citizen journalists.' The policy change is effective immediately.

· C-SPAN is introducing a liberalized copyright policy for current, future, and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency-- about half of all programming offered on the C-SPAN television networks--which will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution.

· In addition, C-SPAN also announced plans to significantly build out its capitolhearings.org website as a one-stop resource for Congressionally-produced webcasts of House and Senate committee and subcommittee hearings.

Do You Have A Facebook?

This is only tangentially related to news media, but it's important enough that I want to remember it later.

Nicole Cohen (current editor of Shameless Magazine and all around cool friend of mine) wrote an intriguing post on Shameless' blog.

It concerns Facebook and our willing participation in new advertising schemes.

More chilling, however, is her link to this presentation on the connection betweenFacebook and the U.S. government... which could mean nothing, but could mean a lot. I haven't unpacked it all in my brain yet.

Paul Wells' "Inkless Wells"

Here's a link to Maclean's columnist Paul Wells' popular blog.

Oh, and speaking of Media vs. Media, Wells believes The Globe and Mail swiped a story from Maclean's. Eek.

Public backlash to Pickton media coverage, by Tony Burman

In his regular online column, CBC news' EiC lays out his expectations for coverage of the Pickton trial. It will be interesting to see if his predictions pan out.

...But in Canada at least, there seem to be the beginnings of a backlash to too much coverage of the awful details. One commercial B.C. television station covered it extensively on Monday during the daytime, but cut back at the crucial supper-hour in the face of public complaints."

The joy of half-thinking by Richard Handler

A CBC opinion piece that deals, partially, with cultural understanding.

Who but the most scrupulous among us doesn't like the grand, sweeping statement?

Americans are cowboys. Canadians love peace, order and good government. The meek will inherit the earth.

Grand sweeping statements not only swamp op-ed pages and bathe the web. They help start religions and fuel dinner parties — not to mention filling panels on hungry talk shows.

The Why - Because "media lies"

This blog is primarily a brainstorming/discussion place for (and
hopefully the precursor to) a much bigger media project. The idea for
"the project" came from a discussion I had with my girlfriend about an
experience she had at a concert. She blogged the experience, and I'll
offer excerpts of it here:

Something has been
bothering me about the EmilyHaines concert the other night. About midway though the show, Haines was introducing the song "The Maid Needs a Maid" and she said (to paraphrase):

"You don't believe the media reports that say that this is a feminist retelling of 'The Man Needs a Maid,' do you?"

To which one enlightened soul in the audience yelled:

"The media lies."

...

But
I am also tired of hearing that bland, ill-informed, sweeping
misstatement "the media lies." I'm both a member of the "media" (in as
much as there is membership) and the holder of very progressive
political values, and I make apology for neither. And there is nothing
I hate more than hearing progressives make arguments that lack nuance
and intelligence. There are fundamental, systemic imbalances in media
coverage, but surely there is a more refined position on media literacy
than "the media lies."

Part of the issue, I think, is that many
of the people who've cornered me at parties and demanded that media
bias is a solid fact, do not seem to understand the difference between
opinion (columnists and editorials) and news writing.

Also, one
thing I don't quite get about this argument is who exactly is doing the
lying. I've worked for a bunch of different magazines and have friends
throughout the media, and let me break the stunning news here: they're
not that organized. There really is no secret meeting place where
freelance writers or high-ranking editors drink scotch and muse over
the policies they will set for administrations, instead, they usually
work in sweatpants and fret over theminutiae of industry gossip.

I've felt the same way on many occasions. It burns me to hear the ubercynical rants people unleash on that umbrella-concept, all-knowing, ever-slanted entity known as The Media.

But
when I stop to think about it, I'm not surprised such rants exist. News
media, being a product of human beings, is flawed -- sometimesinadvertently
, and sometimes not. Stories are sometimes shortened, cut or buried
when they conflict with media owners' politics. Sometimes deadlines
take precedence over research, and shoddy information gets reported as
truth.

Plus, many of the formats we use to make news palatable
are limiting. Broadcast news is limited by time (half-hour or one-hour
slots minus commercial ads). Print formats need to be readable,
somewhat visual, and accessible to be of any value. Online news sources
are still stigmatized (perhaps accurately) with unreliability and
insecurity.

Being a young journalist, I want to believe that my
field has integrity. I don't want what I report to be dismissed because
my job title sits lower than that of lawyers on the Unspoken List of
Disreputable Professions.

But also, being a young journalist,
I have to know the truth about what I'm doing. Is this attitude based
in fact or slander? Where does The Media fall short in its perceived
goals? Does it lie? Ever?

I've thought about this a lot since
that initial conversation with my girlfriend, and it's culminated here
on this blog. This entry is a but a glance at some of my reasons for
stating The Project, and I hope to record more of them as I go. But for
now, I'll start outlining my plans and methodology. That may illuminate
the matter further.