Behind the Headlines

Gazette jobs moved to Winnipeg

2008-04-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

Montreal's The Gazette has announced that it is dismissing 46 employees in reader sales and service, and transferring their work to Reach Canada in Winnipeg. The 46 are represented by the Montreal Newspaper Guild (MNG), which is filing a grievance because they believe it is a violation of their contract, which gives the union jurisdiction over the work.

If successful, MNG says management will eliminate a largely bilingual workforce and will directly affect service to readers, saying that over years of service, they have established a strong relationship with the newspaper's almost 1,000,000 subscribers.

This news comes after an October announcement that parent company, CanWest Global Communications Corp. would be cutting 200 jobs at their TV stations.

CAJ award finalists announced

2008-04-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Finalists for the 2007 Canadian Association of Journalists awards for outstanding investigative journalism have been announced.

On Wednesday, April 16, the CAJ announced the candidates in 10 categories for the $1,000 cash prizes. The winner of each category will be announced on May 24 at the CAJ Awards Banquet in Edmonton.

The awards include the Don McGillivray Award for the best 'overall' investigative report for 2007 as well as categories for photojournalism, computer-assisted reporting and student journalism. No finalists were declared in the “regional television” category.

The finalists in the OPEN NEWSPAPER/WIRE SERVICE (circulation (greater than 25,000) category are:

Dene Moore, Alison Auld, Dick Meissner, Steve Mertl, Stephanie Levitz
Missing Lives
The Canadian Press

Greg McArthur
Brian Mulroney: The Payments and the Tax Man
Globe and Mail

Gary Dimmock and Greg McArthur
The Secret Agent Who Conned the Mounties
The Ottawa Citizen and the Globe and Mail

Kevin Donovan, David Bruser, Andrew Bailey
Give and Take
The Toronto Star

Dale Brazao, Robert Cribb, Andrew Bailey
Dirty Little Secrets
The Toronto Star

The finalists in COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER:

Brian Whitwham
Firestarter
Guelph Mercury

Gordon Hoekstra
Clearing the Air
Prince George Citizen

Stacy O'Brien
Desperate Times
Lethbridge Herald

Heather Rivers and Elliot Ferguson
Poverty in Prosperity's Shadow
Woodstock Sentinel-Review

Tina Comeau, Carla Allen, Michael Gorman, Eric Bourque, Fred Hatfield
After the Crash
Yarmouth Vanguard

The finalists in OPEN TELEVISION (greater than 5 minutes):

Neil Docherty
Darfur: On Our Watch
CBC

David Ridgen
Mississippi Cold Case
CBC

Linden MacIntyre, Harvey Cashore, Timothy Sawa
Brian Mulroney: The Unauthorized Chapter
CBC News - the fifth estate

Brett Mitchell, Victor Malarek, Patti-Ann Finlay
Off the Rails
CTV W-FIVE

Jeff Silverstein, Robert Osborne, Alan Fryer
Murders in Mexico
CTV W-FIVE

The finalists in OPEN TELEVISION (Less than 5 minutes):

Paul Hunter
Lost Canadians
CBC News-The National

Vera-Lynn Kubinec and Alex Freedman
Lemon Cars
CBC News

Graham Richardson
Prison Suicide
CTV

Ioanna Roumeliotis and Melanie Glanz
Skin Deep
CBC News - The National

Timothy Sawa, Katherine Wilson, Jo Lynn Sheane
Mercury in Canned Tuna
CBC News Manitoba

The finalists in OPEN RADIO NEWS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Conway Fraser and Megan Thomas
Dining in the Dark
CBC Radio

Kim Kierans and Dick Miller
Rising From the Ashes
CBC Radio

Maureen Matthews and Dave Redel
Memegwesiwag
CBC Radio

Susanne Reber, Karen Pauls, Gary Symons
So You Think You're Canadian
CBC Radio

Gino Harel
a qui confiez-vous vos yeux?
Radio-Canada

The finalists in CAJ/CCNMatthews COMPUTER-ASSISTED REPORTING (CAR):

Jim Bronskill and Sue Bailey
Cooperate With Us and You Will Not Be Stunned
The Canadian Press

Kevin Donovan, David Bruser, Andrew Bailey
Give and Take
The Toronto Star

Dale Brazao, Robert Cribb, Andrew Bailey
Dirty Little Secrets
The Toronto Star

Glen McGregor
Rapid Fire
The Ottawa Citizen

Glen McGregor
The Hornet's Sting
The Ottawa Citizen

The finalists in the PHOTOJOURNALISM category are:

Ryan Jackson
Photo Portfolio
The Edmonton Journal

John Lucas
Photo Portfolio
The Edmonton Journal

Paul Daly
Photo Essay
The Independent- St. John's

Darryl Dyck
Photo Portfolio
The Edmonton Sun

The finalists in MAGAZINE:

Jeremy Klaszus
Down the River
Alberta Views

Robert Irwin, Don Stoneman, Mary Baxter
Faith in Arlan Galbraith, Ontario's Pigeon King
Better Farming Magazine

Alex Roslin
The 1,000- Mile Diet
Canadian Geographic

Alex Roslin
Are BC's Bee Colonies the Latest to Die Off?
The Georgia Straight

Terry Gould
Fall of a Super Cop
Maclean's Magazine

The finalists in the FAITH AND SPIRITUALITY category are:

Star Weiss and Jo-Ann Roberts
Healing the Heart
CBC Radio One

Maureen Matthews and Dave Redel
Memegwesiwag
CBC Radio One

Jeff Heinrich
Reasonable Accomodation in Quebec
The Gazette

The finalists for the CAJ/CNW Student Award of Excellence:

Sarah Boothroyd
Seeing the Light
Carleton University

Sarah Boothroyd
Sex and Politics Go Postal
Carleton University

Mary Gazze
Canada: Destination for Infertile Couples
Carleton University

David Hutton
Taking Back Pleasant Hill
Carleton University

Searching for the (functional) truth

2008-04-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

The first element of journalism is that a journalist's first obligation is to the truth. That being said, journalistic truth according to Kovach and Rosenstiel in their book appropriately entitled The Elements of Journalism is different than many philosophers have been trying to come up with for centuries.

The truth that journalists look for "exists in a social context" rather than a semantic truth that they say is favoured by post-modernists. The type of truth they are looking for in journalism is a FUNCTIONAL TRUTH. This ties into a concept that they call the Awareness Instinct from the very beginning of the Elements of Journalism. This is a concept that humans from the time they began to exist have relied on information beyond their immediate perception to survive. While philosophers may argue about the existence of an absolute truth, or what can be known, functional truth distinguishes itself because it is true to news values that have been essential to human survival for ages.

Kovach and Rosensteil cite Jack Fuller's two tests of philosophic truth: correspondence and coherence. For the journalist, this means "getting the facts strait and making sense of the facts." What is important is accurate reporting that means something to the audience (ie. the local angle).

Kovach and Rosensteil have some positive things to say about technology and media. The proliferation of news outlets and the abundance of stories creates a "conversation" between different stories by different authors at different times (pg. 44). When the story breaks, there may not be lots of perspective, but as writers find different angles and more information, it becomes something bigger than the sum of its parts.

They also see some unsavoury trends in what they call a "Mixed Media Culture," where the fragmented media outlets allow "a journalism of affirmation, whose appeal is not in verifying the facts skeptically but in affirming the preconceptions of the audience." We see this clearly in talk radio programs like Don Imus where right-wing shock jocks do not challenge their listeners' beliefs and tell them what they want to hear. Left-wing publications are equally biased - pandering to their audience but not having enough respect for them to tell them what they are not expecting to hear. This is NOT news.

The other problem that Kovach and Rosensteil find is that there is too much information and too little time for the average person to sift through. Technology gives us news aggregating websites for instance. Again, the problem with this is that there are so many media outlets, this leads to greater and greater specificity of information but does not give the reader the well rounded news that satisfies his/her Awareness Instinct and thus is unhelpful in his/her life.

Several articles from the Economist try to peg new media as a hammer that will strike down the old established media and change the environment for everyone. For the most part, I see no life altering changes coming from new media technology. "It's the links, stupid" describes the information economy of "personal online journals" called blogs. These internet diaries are accessible by anyone, but generally narrowcast to an average following of seven people. I see this as an extension of personal interaction, considering these bloggers generally know one another. It seems like an easy way for a group of friends to always stay connected. I doesn't seem like a news service to me.

In "Among the audience," the author summarizes over five hundred years of media innovation. My conclusion - societies adapt to the new technologies until something new comes along. The message remains roughly the same, and I think it hinges again on what Kovach and Rosensteil call the Awareness Instinct. Media that are able to satisfy this audience demand are bound to succeed and others do not. There is a danger when people lose sight of this reality and think that the medium is more important than the message. McLuhan was criticized for being a technological determinist, someone who sees technologies themselves as having a life of their own. Media theorists now tend to think of technology and society as being two halves to the whole problem of understanding media.

I hope that journalists do not get carried away by the breakneck speed of technological innovation, because at it's very simplest, we're looking for truth...and that's hard enough.

Newspaper industry growing west

2008-04-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

Statistics Canada released a report this week that may have editors, reporters and publishers breathing a sigh of relief. Canada's newspaper publishing industry posted "modest growth and stable profits" for 2006.

With nationwide revenue gains of 2.6 per cent over the previous year, much of it is fuelled by the Western provinces with Alberta having the highest growth rates. Analysts have attributed the growth in publishing in those provinces as a direct result of more overall economic growth in the West.

The study showed that Ontario has been plagued with decreasing profit margins from 10 per cent 7.4 per cent, compared to the West's 18.2 per cent. Quebec and the Atlantic provinces fell in between with 13.5 and 12.3 per cent respectively.

While it is the lowest rate of growth in the past three years, Canada avoided the contraction in the US industry where newspaper publishing revenues declined 1.7 per cent.

Canada's Next PM

2008-01-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

This is an article that I wrote for York University's Excalibur.

Conrad's vocab: goods words for a callipygian

2008-01-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

You know, Conrad Black has gotten a lot of bad press lately...and while it's mostly justified, you would be hard pressed to find a jury that would convict him for poor writing.
Time and time again, his editorials are witty, entertaining, and a joy to read - as long as a dictionary is handy.
Today's editorial:

With trepidation, but not embarrassment, I offer the thought that Mrs. Obama, a formerly disadvantaged alumna of Princeton and Harvard, to judge from her well-strategized appearances on national television in exiguous dresses and trousers, is as callipygian as Jennifer Lopez. (That is my only concession to political correctness for 2008; you look it up if you must.) I saw her on YouTube saying that, "Reform must be from the bottom up." In her well-favoured case, this could be a double-entendre.

So there you have it: you just learned two words - be sure to use them in a politically correct manner!
Let's hope Mr. Black continues to enlighten us from behind bars.

My journeys in blogging

2007-12-11T19:35:00.000-08:00

When I fell in to the world of blogging, I was confused and bewildered, leaving my home planet of print. I breathed the same air, people spoke the same language, but there were some distinct differences.

I did my best to make a home, scrounging enough letters together to make a "blog," without really knowing whether I was building a floor or a ceiling. Soon, I figured out what was going on.

I was able to get a little more creative. I found that I could have a voice and a variety of people would listen. But as it was, I was thinking about the Paper Planet of Print more than my home on the interwebs.

As the seasons changed, and the winter winds blew at the walls of my makeshift web home, I realized that I needed to make my words work if I was ever to survive. I found that using the print journalism skills that I had known, and the opinions that I wanted to express, I could combine them in by blog entries to create something new, interesting, and creative.

People started coming to my blog, making it a home that welcomed guests, and soon even a public house where people can come to agree with my views, or disagree.

I have come to realized that the world of blogging may not have a better system of communication and democracy, but it has a different one, no less important.

While I no longer have to live in the blogging world, I am bound to return, because it is important, as someone who lives by words and ideas, to engage in discussions across dimensions of print and web.

This relocation has had a positive affect, and I am glad that I have integrated myself into the blogging society.

See you around the webs!

A summary of the fall term for those who are not me...

2007-12-11T18:05:00.002-08:00

The story of the Fall term begins with me, David, worried about getting an internship. Dreams of the Star and the Globe danced in my head, until there was an opening at the National Post.
I went for an interview wearing a grey suit jacket and skinny tie, and was greeted by the managing editor wearing a skull t-shirt.
A couple of days later, I got an email that offering a lot of time writing features for the Post - I had no choice but to accept...and crank the Jam in celebration.
And so began my adventures in national reporting...

My first assignment was something the other reporters wanted to cover, but due to early morning...and more likely girlfriends and wives had to turn down. It was the world's biggest water gun fight at a bar downtown.

You can read about it in the National Post, but to summarize, it was basically about the wet t-shirts. The reporter next to me was looking at the photos the next day - asking me if I interviewed one girl or another. Having come home around 2:30am, I could just laugh.

I, of course, had to show my parents and equally conservative family members the article. History will note that that's how I got my start. I'm sure Seymour Hersh had to write about similar things before tackling the lives of presidents and tragedies of wars.

Another exciting story is meeting 80's teen starlet Betsy Russell, who I know from the A-Team, but she was also quick to note that she was in Private School, where she was horseback and topless. I got to interview her, Lyriq Bent, and Luke from Gilmore Girls as part of the press junket for Saw IV.

Now, my first press junket was an interesting experience, but I wasn't looking forward to seeing the first 45 minutes of this particular movie, and discussing it ad nauseum.

To say I am not a horror movie fan would be a gross understatement. Event Horizon ruined horror movies for me when I was 12.

Anyways, I left the Post early on Friday and headed down to the posh metropolitan hotel where there were two unmarked black vans there to take us to an undisclosed theatre.

I chatted with the broadcast-radio-voiced journalists from US outfits like E!, entertainment tonight and AOL. They were really absorbed by their jobs and the fact that they could charge their bar expenditures to the company.

One of them asked me "What's going on in Toronto?"

Sure, ask a guy who works for a Toronto newspaper (in the Toronto section) such a broad question. "You got an hour?"

Anyways, he was joking. He didn't care.

It seemed that these journalists stay at the same hotels as the actors and follow them around on planes, rarely going anywhere to explore a city's culture farther than the hotel or airport bar.

-----------------

Back at Humber College, there was real important news happening. When I finished work on Wednesday the following week, we were covering the provincial election.

We ended up staying there until after 2am, but it was rewarding. I got to help a reporter edit a story about mixed member proportional voting and do some other jobs that night. We were all very tired the next night, Meaghan and I had to go to our internships the next day too. She is featured below.

I could go on and on about the different stories I have covered and the things I have learned, but if there's just one thing to be learned from my experiences, it's that this is what I want to do, and the stress, self-doubt and picky editors are just things I will have to deal with because the life of a reporter is the only one I would want.

I leave you with a photo of one of my stories laid out in InDesign - one of my favourite sights.

Oh God! They're everywhere

2007-12-06T12:46:00.001-08:00

A new study conducted by Samsung shows that Canadians are not just couch potatoes, but we're embracing televisions into all parts of our lives.
Of all Canadians:
98% - at least one working television in their home
Over 80% - own one to three TVs
16% of kids bedrooms have TVs- Children, who have no doubt seen Dora the Explorer, can easily find la televisión in their room.
16% of home offices have TVs, meaning that your accountant's attention is split between your returns and MASH reruns.
9% of kitchens have TVs - TV dinners all around!

34% per cent of Canadians say they watch 8-14 hours/week, while less than one in ten Canadians admit to watching more than 29 hours a week

This study paints a picture of how Canadians choose to be taken in by the idiot box.

B.C:
----
West coasters are most likely to be couch potatoes with 15 per cent of respondents watching more than 29 hours a week (more than twice the national average.)

Alberta:
--------
Hold onto your 10-gallon hat, cowboy, Albertans are most likely to watch reality programming (11%.)

Ontario:
--------
Ontarians are most likely to watch the least amount of television in the country, with 34% watching less than seven hours/week.

Quebec:
-------
Québécois are most likely in the country to have a television in their kitchen (15%.)
18% cite soap operas as their preferred type of program; double the national average of
nine per cent.

Links to National Post Stories

2007-11-27T19:18:00.001-08:00

With the launch of the new National Post website, some of my articles are available online.

Design off the rails

Who Invited the Klingons?!

'Let the man go pee!'

The new website makes the National Post's online edition able to compete with the Star and the Globe. I'm probably not the only one who's got a new start page.

Diplomacy - a game for politicians, not journalists

2007-11-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

In the National Post, David Matas' writes about his reporting of human rights violations in China in the piece Covering up slaughter, with a little help from the CBC. He makes the case that Canada's national broadcaster has weakened in the face of international interests.
Matas with co-author David Kilgour wrote a report that proves that thousands of Falun Gong members were killed in China for their organs since 2000. Their findings are published online and independently verified.
When the CBC was set to air their documentary about Falun Gong members in China, they pulled it last minute to make corrections, although the official reason was that a documentary about Palestine seemed more timely.
The reworking of the documentary basically introduced a shadow of doubt to the claims of human rights abuses influenced by Chinese government propaganda.
Matas concludes what I have begun to believe: that the CBC, although a champion of journalism for many decades, is starting to bend to the strain of national interest.
It is frightening enough to see a nation like China control the peoples' media, but to see a "free" country like Canada succumbing to China's limits on freedom of speech shows that if we do not fight for our right to free speech, it will be lost.
The CBC with its massive resources has a great potential, but it also is in danger of being persuaded into political correctness, it being a political extension of the government.

What's the deal with internet reviewers?

2007-11-23T08:19:00.000-08:00

On his search for media truths, Dave stumbles upon ubiquitous connectivity, pervasive proximity and a dozen other things that a media studies prof will throw at you as you're scribbling away
In writing a story about online communities, I sought out the help of a media studies expert. I phoned up Mark Federman, former chief strategist of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, armed with two or three questions with somewhat academic angles to show that I have a grounding in McLuhan and Innis. What resulted was a half-hour lecture including words that I had never heard before and words that he made up - it was both incredible and daunting.
This theory of the internet as a medium made sense to me.
There are two major effects: ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity.
Ubiquitous connectivity means that no matter where you are physically located, you are always connected. Despite even most social and economic
divides, one is in a telecommunications network.
An example of this is that when something happens on Bloor St., someone immediately uploads the picture, connecting those who are not there to those who are there, thus making the event simultaneously here and there.
Pervasive proximity means that we are always next to one another. It's what McLuhan called the Global Village. When politicians like Hilary Clinton talk about the Global Village, they paint a happy picture - as though we're all holding hands across nations. McLuhan didn't mean this at all. He envisioned a Global Village that had that potential, but he also theorized that it would create dissent, controversy, and just about everything else that is caused when different people are put next to one another.
McLuhan saw that when you put people in pervasive proximity, there is the greatest potential for human conflict.
So why do we choose to participate in this global network?
Federman theorizes that we all have a natural inclination to share our human experiences.
We feel compelled to tell others about our experiences, how we reacted to movies or books, share our lives. We collectively believe that we will benefit ourselves and others by sharing knowledge.
Specifically for books, another reason for our sharing is our preoccupation with status and celebrity. Some people read the internet just like other mediums like TV and radio, where the actual correspondents like Anderson Cooper or Howard Stern who become pop culture icons. They believe that they too can obtain that status with a clever turn of phrase or insightful point of view...or lacking that, sheer number of reviews so that people on Amazon.com cannot help but read your opinion.
Although Federman's point of view makes sense, I am still left wondering why I am writing and what my place is within the Global Village.

TTC accessibility

2007-11-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

The Toronto Transit Commission has become much more than just a way to get from point A to point B, with a transfer at point C. It offers insight into Toronto's past, but though we hope it will take the city into its future, many of us are waiting at the stop, looking back with token in hand, not seeing that we're missing the bus.

For the past several months, riders have been hearing the new voice of transit in Toronto – the disembodied female voices that are heard in some buses and subway cars. Accompanied with LED screens that simultaneously announce the stops on buses, the new system is helpful for those with visual and aural impairments – not to mention those with a poor sense of direction.

While it has its faults (the 191 to Humber College mispronounces " Arboretum Blvd." as "Our-boredom Blvd.," which may in fact be a good nickname,) the automated voice can be much more helpful than a driver whose patience has been worn down from driving the same circuit for eight hours.

Some fear, however, that in making accommodations for all riders, the TTC is losing its heritage in the pursuit of progress as reminders of the past are being taken away.

The way the city's subway looks is just as important as the voices we hear from stop to stop.

Jose Ongpin, a former student of OCAD, wrote a paper on the visual history of the Toronto subway. He recently gave me a tour of what he sees when he rides the rails.

He said that the renovations upon renovations have destroyed whatever consistency the system's fonts and tiles once had, making the 69 stations confusing and unattractive to riders.

He said that all stations must have a consistent, easy to read font like the original stations.

Eglinton station, with its shiny, black and white glass tiles and elegant font is the only station that has dodged extensive renovations since the first line opened in 1954. It stands as a relic of what the subway could have been – modern and elegant, but also practical.

Ongpin and I agree that the look of the subway helps define Toronto and the new stations should have a reverence for the old design.

I think that certain stations like Leslie keep the spirit of elegance of the old TTC with its easy to read font but with fun and creativity – it incorporates thousands of tiles with "Leslie & Shepard" handwritten on them by locals like high school love notes.

Many Torontonians fondly recall the voices of drivers coming over the crackly intercom speakers from the Queen St. streetcar driver singing out "Shaw St." in an operatic baritone, or the subway driver who let his daughter call out the stops.

There are some personal elements that will sadly go to that great big subway stop in the sky (or at least the subway graveyard at Davisville.)

I think that the key to the success of the TTC is merging function with attractiveness and ease of use. Some of the TTC's biggest fans are going to have to let go of some of their romantic ideas in order to make a system we all can use.

Yemen journalist on trial for reporting human rights abuses

2007-11-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

Reporters Without Borders issued this statement about journalist Abdulkarim Al-Khaiwani, who is on trial for documenting human rights abuses executed by Yemen's armed forces. Now his own life is on the line:

Reporters Without Borders today urged the authorities to stop the prosecution of Abdulkarim Al-Khaiwani, a freelance journalist and former editor of the now closed weekly Al-Shoura, on a charge of "publishing information liable to undermine army morale" under article 126 of the criminal code, for which the maximum penalty is death.
"Khaiwani is critical of the government headed by President Ali Abdallah Saleh but that does not make him a rebel," the press freedom organisation said. "We remind the authorities that journalists are, by definition, neutral observers and as such they should not be prosecuted for what they report."
Khaiwani has worked for several publications since his weekly was closed in 2005. He was arrested in June after the publication of photos he had taken showing abuses committed by the army in its attempts to combat a Shiite rebellion in the north. During initial interrogation, he was accused of "terrorist activity" because of his alleged links with the rebels. He was released provisionally after a month on health grounds.
The charges against him were examined by a state security court on 21 October and again on 31 October, when his lawyers challenged the legality of the prosecution and the competence of the state security court to hear the case. The presiding judge ordered an adjournment to allow the court to consider the defence's request. The next hearing is set for 11 November.
Khaiwani told Reporters Without Borders he was the victim of a "political machination" and said the judge who had been in charge of his case had been replaced by judge Mohsen Alwan, who was "known for his hostility towards journalists and for his links to the political and military authorities."
Yemen was ranked 143rd out of 169 countries in the world press freedom index issued last month by Reporters Without Borders.

What to review? Depends on your view

2007-11-06T21:01:00.001-08:00

One of my jobs when I come into the newspaper is to unload books. It's not glamorous, but I do enjoy it.
It's a good way to stretch and get some restlessness out before sitting at a desk for eight hours making phone calls and pondering over words. It's also nice to see what new books are coming in.
I often think about what criteria book reviewers look for in books. It helps that my desk is next to the book editor's.
Last week, after unpacking an unusually large shipment of books (we usually get about two-dozen books per day) I wanted to help the editor out and tell her which books we'd definitely need to review.
I couldn't have been more wrong in my predictions.
I was expecting that the important books by famous people (like Hilary Clinton) and famous authors (like John Grisham) were going to need reviews. The editor, however, shrugged them off.
She said that most of the non-fiction/personal account "important people" books don't usually offer enough for an in-house reviewer to write about - she can get a wire that will do the job.
As for best-sellers, again, a lot of these authors write the same book over and over - the review might as well be written in New York or London.
A lot of news outlets that really take pride in their reviews are concerned about finding that little-known novel that ends up being a gem, or a historian who has discovered an interesting take on a subject written to death.

The problem with the myopic reviewer is that their "opinion" of a book (my quotes will make sense later on) carries more weight than the book itself. Oftentimes a newspaper creates a well-respected novel, rather than the novelist.
I have spoken to people in the Canadian publishing industry and the reviewers that are supposed to be impartial in their reviews, and I have found an unhealthy dose of charity on the part of reviewers (though not necessarily at major dailies.)
Are Canadian reviewers helping the industry by inflating their reviews of small Canadian novels with unearned accolades?
I don't think so.
Director of the London School of Economics Sir Howard Davies said recently at the Man Booker awards ceremony that there is something foul in the state of book reviews.
"I think a little more distance, and critical scepticism, is required by our reviewers, together with greater readiness to notice new names." He stopped short of accusing authors of back-scratching, though he said he was well aware that such practices went on, and he called for "more diversity in the sort of people who review novels".
This is certainly a dialogue that is healthy and alive in the field of reviewing. The members of the Man Booker Prize Foundation have been participating in an online discussion of such issues.
Some of the responses have been:

Barry: The literary editor has a part to play as well, although I can understand that such an editor on a daily newspaper is going to tend to write with the mass audience in mind and thus can't really be expected to devote a large amount of space to an author, no matter how good, who will appeal to a small, minority audience.

Barry (cont'd): But that is where specialist literary publications come in: readers looking for emerging talent know, or soon learn, where to look for the right sort of publication (which these days is just as likely to be a blog as, say, the Literary Review). And, yes, maybe there will be such a buzz about a new author that it becomes appropriate for the mainstream press to take a look.

Kate: I think literary editors need to review both the big names and the new authors, but they need to be honest in their reviews. Far too many of them are guilty of just what Sir Howard Davies said they were guilty of: pandering to the masses and the big names and not criticizing a book when criticism is necessary. Hence, the quality of books read, in general, goes way down.

Reviewers like the last one (Kate) seem to be in the camp that values small over big, but there is a danger to rewarding the very small publications because they are very small. It seems that some reviewers overreact to the fact that people flock to the bookstore for the new Margaret Atwood or David Gilmour novel and give them a harder time.
I think that in terms of marketing, Sir Davies' message to reviewers is to be fair when reviewing all material, not only in your treatment of the content, but by selecting a wide range of material.
In the free market economy, knowledge is central to making good decisions, and book editors have a responsibility to give a variety of choices to the public that relies on them.
A reviewer should never be the mouthpiece of a publisher, author, or national industry, no matter how big or how small.

Futurama Movie

2007-11-06T10:33:00.000-08:00

Is it possible for Matt Groening and his cronies to capture the wit of Douglas Adams in a half-hour TV program?
Well they certainly did just that with the classic cartoon series Futurama.
They will have the opportunity to explore a longer narrative format in the new Futurama movie - Bender's Big Score.

Adams was a master of the shorter forms. The jump from novella to novel is more difficult than adding double-spacing, maybe triple spacing, or the (sorority-girl favourite) increase in letting (space between letters) so professors would never know.

I'm excited to see the Futurama movie mainly because it has had the power as a series to remain on Teletoon billboards despite not having any new episodes since 2003. It's truly a classic of our generation.

Typefaces: the personality of words

2007-10-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

The way someone wrote used to help define the type of person they were. One's handwriting gave a certain personality to their written words, the way someone's signature means more than just someone's name.
Now, in an age of print, the fonts have taken on this role.
For instance, newspapers like the National Post have an Art Deco inspired font that shows a reverence to the old days of journalism. It's sans-serif, easy to read font is a classic of modernity that expresses clarity and a forward-thinking perspective, yet still conscious of a past.
The Toronto Star opts for a more classic font with serifs. In my mind, this font seems authoritative and certain. It is also accessible because it seems like an older, more newsy font. This font, similar to those used in books seems like the font of facts.
Beyond newspapers, fonts are all around us in everyday life.
Toronto Subway Regular is a font that the TTC came up with in the 50's that was heavily influenced by the iconic London Undergound font. The font a subway uses is important in defining the space as a uniquely modern public space. The Berlin subway has a similarly modern font as do many around the world.
Fonts help us classify information before we even read the symbols that we interpret as words.

Bad reviews; yet book excerpts: what gives?

2007-10-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

The New York Times calls Canada's national newspaper on their "balanced" reporting. The National Post lambasted left-wing author Naomi Klein's new book Shock Doctrine, but also bought rights to publish excerpts.
Readers expect the Post to take a right-wing stance in their reviews. I haven't yet decided if I think it shows the paper's integrity by allowing readers to read exactly what Klein wrote, but if it just serves to support the editorialists' criticisms.

Return of the TV movie

2007-10-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

Battlestar Galactica fans will be thrilled out of this world when they hear
there's a new TV movie starring their favourite astronauts.

CTV announced this news today in a press release.

"Battlestar is back! The members of the colonial fleet return
in the special standalone two-hour film Battlestar Galactica:
Razor, premiering on SPACE on November 24 at
9pm ET/6pm PT," it reads.

This "TV movie" format has become a well loved staple
of science fiction TV shows.

Star Trek pioneered this format when
their too-big-for-TV characters made
the move to the silver screen
in the first (of many) Star Trek films
in 1979.

Star Trek: the Next Generation, with
its increasingly complex story lines
and multi-episode plots paved the
way for its successor Deep Space Nine
to explore more connected
multi-episodic story lines.

Babylon 5 entered the airwaves
in early 1993 with the made-for-TV
movie The Gathering. With the
success of this format and the
series' complex, novel-like story
lines, four made-for-TV movies
followed including a prequel.

Many of the Babylon 5 movies were
stand-alone adventures, not trapped in
the confines of the inter-episode drama
that usually consumed the series.

This is not unlike the comic book annual.

The annual is often a standalone comic
book issue that is longer than usual
with a self-contained plot.

Science fiction story lines often
encompass us and the tension between
episodes draws us into watching
a series week after week. Perhaps we
need closure from time to time in the
form of a cut-and-dry, beginning-
to-end plot.

Journalism: It's what comes naturally

2007-09-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

I was reading about an anthropologist's perspective on journalism - even in "primitive" societies, the timely, accurate and compelling reporting of events is more than valued...it is considered essential to survival.

It seems that the survival instinct among other things draws people to news - but not just any news: news-worthy news.

In the introduction of The Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel call this "the Awareness Instinct." People then and now are drawn to new information to "live our lives, protect ourselves, bond with each other, identify friends and enemies."

This is a tall order for the meager reporter.

People live through information. As Marshall McLuhan is (too often) quoted: "the medium is the message." What we look like, what we wear, how we speak: it all registers as information.

When we are reporting news, we (as journalists) convey information to our sources in a way that may influence what they tell us or how they tell us.

When I am interviewing athletes, I try to act like we're friends or at least strangers talking about the game at a bar. When speaking to the president of a company, I try to dress formally and speak intelligently (how difficult that is).

The information we give out is often indicative of how we are inside, but it can be manipulated. Public relations staff are trained to manipulate the flow of information - not necessarily deceitfully - but so they can project an image of their employer.

In the ancient society, news would be carried from village to village. Values would be exchanged, identities would be created in the minds of villagers who had never traveled farther than they could see on a clear day. It is in this imagination where people determine what their characteristics are (ie. good farmers, pious, skilled warriors, etc.) and which neighbours are friends and which are enemies.

It all comes from the news.

These ancient people relied and demanded news to add to their life experience, help them experience life, and simply stay alive.

BACK TO BASICS
Before the complexities of conversations or non-spoken communication, there is another story...a very very big story about something very very small that we can be all thankful for.

In the basic understanding of evolutionary process, organisms have adapted techniques of gathering information about their surroundings.

Evolutionary biologists have found that things as complex as an eye began as specialized cells that could sense changes in colour. Organisms that could sense change in colour would be better fit to survive and those who could not became extinct.

As the eye became more and more complex, these organisms had more chance at survival.

Knowing about our surroundings has been essential to our evolution and survival, not just in the primordial biology that has blessed people like me with a couple of eyes, a big nose, a mouth that can taste, ears for holding up my glasses and listening sometimes, and skin that can feel.

People are compelled to know what is not in their immediate surroundings. In ancient cultures, people would travel from village to village and exchange information. It was important to know what was happening in that village for many reasons, from their likeliness to be hostile to what goods they could trade.

Stock investors are a good example of a modern professional that looks to news in order to make their livelihoods. From the morning Financial Times or Financial Post, to dedicated business news channels, to the Nightly Business News, the investor must expand his/her world beyond the trading floor and allow the world into his/her mind to do the job.

News is essential for our survival but the news people consume and share becomes a commodity indicative of themselves and their class as we move from a simple society to one obsessed with class, commodification and specialization.

The way I share information about music, regardless of the information, says to those I talk to that I have a high appreciation for music. If my information was elite enough, knowing this would say that I am in an elite class that makes it difficult for me to share information with someone with a different set of knowledge.

The world of art capitalizes on the audience's construction of meaning. I have many friends that have a much better understanding of visual art and they see art completely different than I do.

An art connoisseur would make connections with surrealism or impressionism that I would never have made because it's not in my knowledge set.

While some art may be special to some people, to others, it may not make enough meaningful connections to move the person to appreciation.

There is specialization of news just as there is specialization of cells.

Some say that information systems evolve, I would go a step further. Biological evolution of information systems mirrors and is tantamount to cell evolution and both fates are undeniably married.

It is through much contemplation that I see journalism as a natural function not just in a social context, but in a biological context.

Form and Expression in Journalism

2007-09-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

It is important to understand that there are different ways in which to express an idea. For some, a novel, a play, or (if you're Chris Ofili) feces on canvas is the best route.

The medium and the message are intertwined. Inseparable.

It is especially frustrating when people criticize the non-fiction of Thomas Wolfe because it doesn't fit the traditional standards of journalism.

The form of creative non-fiction allows the author to tailor his/her prose to address the subject matter. He/she can use the form to dictate the content.

At the advent of photojournalism, magazines like Time and Life used pictures to show extraordinary scenes of safaris in Africa to the barren arctics. There were many denouncers of photography-based journalism, but it was obvious that the reader could connect with this medium for this type of story best.

Aside from form, in some circumstances, it is important for the reader to know that the reporter him/herself is a part of the semantics of story-telling. In fact, it is often dangerous to leave one's self out of the piece.

Thomas Wolfe, for instance, will reveal in the Acid Tests situations where he felt the tension or apathy or unadulterated love that was in the air. He reveals to the reader where he was when a scene takes place. If he wasn't there, he will tell you that he isn't sure what happened, but Joe or Nancy said this or that happened. You have to be human to feel these emotions...and most news editors certainly would not allow this.

The opposite of an embedded journalist is the omnipresent journalist, who is everywhere, yet nowhere. These Bob Woodwards of the world know exactly what everyone is thinking. They know everyone's motives and can even tell what people are saying without being in the room.

Good journalism means recognizing the limits of being human and that the craft of journalism is not limited by it, but can use this in conveying truthful reports. There are a lot of writers that consider Woodward a God and his case for omnipotence can be argued, but for me, I am willing to look at my own biases and interpretations and when needed, this reporter will use "I."

Tools of the trade

2007-09-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

While technology alone cannot make a good journalist, it is worthwhile to consider what tools a journalist should have in order to fully realize his/her story.
When I report to the newsroom, I try to be prepared for every situation my editors can throw at me.
I have two SLR cameras and a pocket-sized point-and-shoot.
The legendary Minolta 7D is my number-one choice for many situations from sports to landscapes with it's auto focus 28-100mm lens.
I have a classic, manual Minolta X-70 that I use for more artistic shots. It can be put on full manual, an option that gives me much more creative control over pictures. The metal body also makes it a great camera for shooting infrared photos.
I think that it is crucial, especially for someone who prefers film cameras, to have a small digital camera. Even if you shoot with a digital SLR, the pocket sized camera is important for capturing shots that are spontaneous. The non-professional equipment may also put the subject at ease.
For recording interviews, I use a Sony MZ-NHF800 that can record virtually lossless audio data. I use a cheap-but-effective microphone from The Source (Radio Shack) that is no longer than two inches long. It has no chord, making this setup less prone to technical problems and it gives me less trouble. If I want higher quality audio, I use my Shure microphone with a windscreen.
Being prepared for any situation involves not only having the equipment but also backup equipment and accessories. I carry at least four rechargeable "AA" batteries with me and a set of lithium-ion batteries for my auto-focus camera. I have a range of films with low and high ISO.
While I do not think that technology makes the story, some technology can make it easier to get the story you want. Being familiar and comfortable with your equipment will allow you to concentrate more on getting the information you need.
It goes without saying, but it should be said that the most important tools for a print journalists are a pen and a notepad.

Centre for Urban Ecology: an outpost for new environmental design

2007-09-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Humber College Centre for Urban Ecology, opening in October, will be a place where visitors can learn environmentally friendly building practices.

"Basically," said Arboretum Director Carole Dobson, "it evolved from a strictly environmental education centre for children into something … [where] we could demonstrate environmentally sustainable technologies in the building."

The new building, located in the arboretum, illustrates the current environmental building standards called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) that are administered through the Canada Green Building Council and recognized internationally.

"We are confident that we will achieve [a LEED gold standard] designation and if we do, we will be the first gold standard building in the GTA," said Dobson.

According to official documents from Enermodal Engineering, the company that designed the building's innovative mechanical and electrical systems, there are 45 features that comply with LEED standards.

The building's unique roof features a "thermal chimney" engineered to keep the building cool in the summer, said Randy Van Straaten, LEED project manager for the building. It works by allowing hot air to rise and escape.

"The thermal chimney is really the defining feature of the building," said Van Straaten. "The taller it is, the more heat it can force out." He said that the final design was a compromise between function and visual appeal.

The building's water system reduces, reuses and recycles, said Van Straaten.

Bathroom fixtures are designed to use the least amount of water possible, including a toilet that has the option of a large or small flush.

The building collects rain water that is stored underground and used to water plants, said Van Straaten. The need for irrigation is lessened because native plants make up most of the landscaping.

Perhaps the most innovative technology is the "Waterloo Biofilter," that cleans all the used water in the building. It consists of a series of chambers where the water collects and bacteria start breaking down toxins. It is then pumped into the biofilter chamber, where it is sprayed over a biofilter, consisting of synthetic foam where microbes live. The living organisms "degrade and oxidize organic pollutants, coliform bacteria, and other contaminants," said Enermodal documents. The clean (but not drinkable) water is released back into the environment.

"As one of the first LEED certified buildings in Toronto," said Van Straaten, "it is important because it shows people how they can build more sustainable structures."