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Hamilton reporter fights the police

I mean, it's no cracked-out beatdown, but he's fighting for his profession. They're a tough bunch in Hamilton. You know, except for their football team....


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Edited by author 12-19-2005 12:00 PM
Guess what? Controversy sells books, sells out?

The author of a forthcoming book investigating the intricacies of the CIA, James Risen, who is also a staff reporter for NY Times, has penned a NY Times article disclosing that under the Patriot Act, the National Security Agency has been spying on US citizens (guess what? Your e-mail is not private!) on the eve of the act's possible renewal. Across the States, people have their say. And so far, no one, okay The Right, doesn't seem too thrilled with what The NY Times has done with this information -- information that they apparently withheld for a year (inexplicably). According to a book I'm reading currently, by Steve Coll, called Ghost Wars (awesome, by the way), the CIA 'was created to prevent another Pearl Harbour. But in the aftermath of a catastrophic war against Nazism, Congress also sought to protect the American people from the rise of anything like Hitler's Gestapo, a secret force that combined spying and police methods. The CIA was therefore prohibited from spying on Americans or using intelligence it collected abroad to support directly criminal prosecutions in the American court system.' How times have changed, Lordy Lord. Is The NY Times noble or incorrigible? Have they interfered with justice? You be the judge. P.S. We post frequently from The NY Times and every time we do, I have this sinking feeling. It's not that the articles aren't interesting or pertinent, it's just that I have a hard time respecting an editorial staff that writes the plural of 1970 as 1970's. If they can't even get that right, how are they on substantive issues?

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The non-profit newspaper

An idea that's time has come? Maybe it will draw as many readers as public broadcasting does viewers. Actually, that wouldn't be too bad.

But in fact newspapers, as important to the civic health of our society as public transportation, have a claim on public allegiance that goes beyond financial measure. Does anyone believe that our society is better, our civic virtue enhanced, by the failure of the Washington Star and the New York Herald Tribune and the Chicago Daily News and all the other fine dailies that have perished for purely financial reasons?

To be sure, if advertisers continue to pare their commitment to newspapers, they may become less interesting to read and less useful. But if their professional staffs can be preserved, perhaps even augmented as their companies capitalize better on the Internet, newspapers' freedom and opportunity to report the news, especially the sensitive, prickly news, can only be enhanced, freed of any concern about offending advertisers.

Hell, I run a non-profit blog. And it's working out just fine. You know, except for the food and shelter thing.


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Torstar buys 20% of the Globe

This is just so wrong on so many levels. Am I being naive to assume someone will step in and put a stop to this? I see "requires regulatory approval" and I hope, you know...? But on the bright side, it might mean the Globe could soon start reporting the news. (Thanks, Jonathan) Oh, and this and this.


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A good story

Is hard to find. The saga of Michael Finkel, as told by Paul Maliszewski. Interview follows. Really interesting stuff. And of course, there's a new podcast at Moby too. It feels so exciting and pirate radio like. I wish he would add shortwave static and squeals to it.


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Journalist memoir goes for $1M

Is this guy famous? I don't have TV. My pop culture references stop in late 2001. But regardless, can he have $1M-worth of stories to tell?


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NYT's Pay-per-read ghetto

Maud posts an opinion piece with some neat ideas.

Something fundamental was lost to us when The New York Times decided to divert its columnists into a special pay-per-read ghetto on the wide-open World Wide Web. My reaction has only been reinforced by a media experiment I’ve recently undertaken.


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Newspapers as they were meant to be

Full of bustles. (From Maud)


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The ten biggest stories ignored by the mainstream media in the last year

Only ten?


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Yuh-huh, just like the white people "found" all this "empty" land in the Americas and "found" all this "free labour" in Africa. Bread in the stream, manna from heaven! White folks is sure some kinda lucky!

Do white people loot?
One of the photographers in the "looting" vs. "finding" photo-caption issue (see post below) explains his choice of words.

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