The Margaret Wente controversy
It’s been a week since the start of a social media storm over accusations of plagiarism against Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente. The controversy began with a post on the blog Media Culpa on September 18th. In it, Ottawa artist and blogger Carol Wainio drew attention to a 2009 column by Wente that she says […]
Feeling conflicted: tech media’s messy ethics
Michael Arrington started TechCrunch in 2005, and since then he’s been the driving force of the site, successfully building its reputation as a go-to source for tech news. Last fall, AOL acquired TechCrunch, paying between $25 million and $40 million (guesstimates, since AOL never confirmed the amount publicly). Recently, Arrington went back to his venture-capitalist […]
Journalists who hack (and why you should be one)
A basic level of digital literacy is essential to anyone working in media today, but some journalists’ computer skills are advanced enough to qualify them as hackers. Gaining access to access otherwise-obscured truths by working around flimsy firewalls or condensing and analyzing widely scattered data can produce stories of great value to the public. However, […]
Journalistic ethics: What guides you?
The News of the World scandal is on every journalists’ mind (and lips, and in their tweets, too) this week. It’s turned the principles and ethics of the people who make the news into news itself: opinion pieces about journalists’ dastardly deeds and extensive discussions about the media in the U.K. It’s also got a […]
BC Business editor quits after publisher kills story
Matt O’Grady resigned from his editor-in-chief position at BC Business one week ago. It wasn’t one of those resignations that’s code for “got fired.” He really truly quit. According to this Vancouver Sun article, his beef with the magazine’s publisher, Peter Legge, was over a cover story for the June issue that O’Grady felt was […]
Don’t drop rule against false and misleading news
The CRTC must withdraw the proposed weakening of a regulation that bans false and misleading news from the airwaves and call a public hearing on broadcast news, says the Canadian Media Guild. “The Commission appears to be proposing to give (broadcasters) free rein to lie and mislead the Canadian public in the guise of delivering […]
False or misleading news soon ok on TV, radio
The CRTC is proposing to loosen some of the only rules we have related to broadcast news content in Canada. The current rules say that broadcasters cannot air “any false or misleading news.” Period. The change, scheduled to come into effect on September 1 of this year, would limit that prohibition to situations where the false or […]
