On blogging and journalism

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Stephen Pate

Peter Rukavina is not a journalist but other bloggers are

Photo credit: Paulino Figueirido

Randy MacDonald weighs into the discussion on “bloggers and journalism” referring to the controversy about NJN Network’s expulsion from the PEI Legislature.

Bloggers may or may not be journalists but then journalists aren’t journalists either. Reprinting press releases on a regular basis is called public relations.

MacDonald finds Rukavina’s admission that Ruk is not a journalist more of a personal admission than a state of the craft. In I am not a journalist, Rukavina makes the interesting although unconvincing statement

“The words I write in this space I write for myself alone, without consideration for their consumption. I write about things that happen to me, things that interest me, things that happen in my neighborhood and things that happen in the world.”

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How to buy or sell anything for free on Kijiji

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Stephen Pate

Kijiji takes over from newspaper want ads and eBay

You can sell or buy almost anything including a house on Kijiji.com without paying a cent for the ad or commission. The hard part is getting organized and started. The fun is meeting buyers and banking the cash.

Ads on Kijiji are free. While you can pay Kijiji to keep your ad on the front page, mark it urgent or a top ad, it isn’t necessary to get a sale.

Newspaper want ads used to be the only way to advertise things locally. For cars, rooms to rent, things for sale and real estate the newspapers had the market sewn up. At $30 a day for the smallest ad, it could get expensive fairly quickly. Continue reading →

Media taking cues from bloggers

Posted on March 6, 2010 by Stephen Pate

TV networks and newspapers learn new tricks from bloggers but they won’t give bloggers credit

I get a chuckle out of mainstream media and their bleating “You’ve just a blogger. Baaa! Baaa! Baaa!”

Last night on CTV national news they were posting the LiveLeak shots of the newsroom fight. We put that up on VodPod Thursday night. In January the “big” networks started carrying the amateur Challenger video about 6 days after we posted it on LiveLeak. Myth of the professional journalist is dispelled again by Challenger video.

Bloggers like NJN Network broke the LiveLeaked Neda Agha Soltan story last year that won the George Polk Journalism Award for Videography.

Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post got caught stealing stories again from bloggers without attribution again. Baaaad newspapers.

The reality is we are all reporting the news – sad, shocking, funny, whimsical and entertaining. We need each other and use each others stories and bag of tricks. Bloggers just want to save a few trees.

Bloggers Now Eligible For Press Passes In NYC

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Byline

Great for the Big Apple but will it float in Little Pond

Online Media Daily In a nod to the growing influence of online journalists, New York City said Tuesday that bloggers and others who publish on the Web will now be eligible for press credentials.

The move comes as a result of a lawsuit filed in 2008 by three Web journalists who were denied press passes. In New York, journalists with press passes are typically allowed to cross police barricades at public events.

Under the new proposed policy, the New York Police Department would be able to issue press passes good for two years to any journalist who has personally attended and reported on at least six qualified events in the city in the preceding two years, regardless of whether the reports were published online, in print newspapers, magazines, books or other media. Events that will qualify include city-sponsored activity — like a press conference or parade — as well as emergencies where the city has set up do-not-cross lines. The proposal also allows inexperienced journalists to obtain single-use press passes. Continue reading →

Newspaper delivers virus to its readers

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Byline

Minneapolis Star Tribune infecting web readers with a computer virus

File under – more signs newspapers are going out of business

From CityPages - Read the Strib online at your own risk–it is delivering malware to some users.

Reports of the problem surfaced this morning. Here’s one email that was making the rounds among government employees:

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CBC skimming $10,000 from Easter Seals telethon

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Stephen Pate

It’s not charity at CBC with Easter Seals telethon

Bruce Rainnie Easter Seals Telethon with Anthony Comeau

CBC are charging Easter Seals about $10,000 and not donating their services to the telethon. Yes they charge money to Easter Seals to make a profit for the local CBC station. Some of your donations go into the $1 billion in tax dollars CBC already gets.

The Easter Seals Telethon promotion just got started. We will have to endure three months of the local celebrities at CBC fawning over a child with a disability as if they love the little fellow.

In truth CBC is on the quest for viewer ratings and public relations. Behind the scenes at CBC there are cynical people who display disability bigotry more than compassion.

EastLink doesn’t charge for its’ community coverage. Who would? Did the networks around the world take a cut of your donations to Haiti relief?

Each year CBC negotiates a bigger and bigger slice of the pie from Easter Seals donations. Even worse, they hard ball Rotary in negotiations and have threatened in the past to stop the Telethon unless paid.

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Canada Needs Sustainable Free Media

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Byline

Can an independent media thrive in Canada?

By Nick Fillmore

Canadians might be surprised to discover the difference between the content of independent media and the news and opinion carried and broadcast by corporate-owned media. By “independent media” I mean any news media — including newspapers, TV and radio news and Internet-based news — that are independent of government, not heavily dependent on income from advertising and that do not have a corporate or right-wing bias.

Imagine Canada having national and city newspapers and TV news programs and news websites that report fairly on all groups in society, protect the rights of consumers, and cover business in a way that assesses the benefits for all people, not just business owners and investors. The result would be a journalism that contributes to the creation of a more equitable and just society.

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Record store gets fined for bootleg CD but industry won’t pay artists

Posted on December 19, 2009 by Stephen Pate

Clean up your own act CRIA before you send in the RCMP

Legend Records, Wellington St. Ottawa, 1 million LPs and CDs

Updated December 19th, 2009 to correct Ottawa Citizen coverage.

The big headline in the Ottawa Citizen is Record story owner pleads guilty to Copyright Act charge over bootleg CDs

300 words of coverage. However, not one word linking us back to the real criminals in this 20 year feud with downloading and the “bootleg CD”. Even a Google search didn’t turn up the story from December 8th in in the Ottawa Citizen about the $6 billion the CRIA owes musicians for CDs on which they “forgot” to pay royalties.

Record store owner pleads guilty

The RCMP charged into Legend Records on Wellington Street in Ottawa and confiscated 500 CDs in an “April raid.” Apparently they returned 200, finding 294 were illegally copied. The raid was instigated by the Canadian Recording Industry Association or CRIA which fights piracy and makes sure royalties on music are paid to the artists.

Before going to court, most of those CDs were found to be a local indie rock group that store owner David Nolan produced or funded.

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Writer who reports snow conditions gets fired

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Stephen Pate

Vail Resorts didn’t like the snow reports so the reporter is fired – try talking to God instead

Bob Berwyn - what color is the snow "white" and lots of it

Even the weather reports are fudged at the newspapers these days in a valiant attempt to survive the end.

A journalist at Summit Daily News in Vail Colorado was fired when his story didn’t tell the snow reports the “right” way. Journalist Fired After Critical Report Published

“Bob Berwyn has more than a decade of reporting the news in Colorado’s high country. He was terminated at the Daily News five days after the column was published.

“I think it’s worrisome, it’s worrisome for the community to think that, if it’s the case, if it’s really true, that advertisers might be dictating who works for the paper and what type of content is in the paper,” Berwyn told CBS4.”

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Who gives a rats ass that Woods is top athlete of the decade

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Stephen Pate

Newspapers and AP demonstrate yet again they are dinosaurs

Mr I'm Checking Outta Here

Woods voted top athlete of the decade reads the big headline. Where are those people at AP coming from – Star Trek 1969?

So the guy was the biggest thing in the past. He just self-destructed on the Internet and in the media in two weeks.

Yesterday’s fish wrap is what newspapers delivery.

Who cares what they think? They are so out of touch.

The best music of 2009, the last decade, the last century. It’s like a contest between the dead and walking dead to report what never was.

Dylan was dissing reporters when he said “You know something is happening but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones.”

How about living in the here and now.

I’d better check Saturday’s Guardian too see what old music I’m supposed to like.

Networks and newspapers will not filter the news you see

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Stephen Pate

Newspapers are bad for your health

Nick Fillmore

By Nick Fillmore, www.rabble.ca

Traditional for-profit media, including our daily newspapers, radio and TV news, filter out all kinds of information they don’t want us to get our hands on. This filtering process includes many kinds of stories, including reports that would offend advertisers but, if carried, would alert the public to things such as improper corporate behaviour.

Corporate-owned media also slant the content of stories so that, for instance, some stories paint a negative picture of organized labour, protest groups or some environmental organizations.

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