Richard Stursberg fired. Those words aren't in the official CBC release (see italics below), but they might as well be. Reports are that he was escorted out of the building today. I can't think of a more significant development at the CBC in years. "Hubert T. Lacroix, president and CEO of CBC/Radio Canada, announced today the departure of Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president, English services, from CBC/Radio-Canada effective today." Stursberg has been the head of English-language...

The news industry is at once shrinking yet expanding...but in the expansion, there's a catch. The expansion is in online news...where everything is about speed, hits and the need to constantly update -- not necessarily inform. This piece in the New York Times is an excellent warning about the effect this is having on media workers -- early burnout. Reporters are being measured by simple output -- which is assessed by "most viewed" lists on home pages. Pay is based on how many readers...

Amy Miller, one of the arrested independent journalists at the G20 summit last month (see previous blog post), tells me that all the journalists and others she knows who recorded police arrests/abuse/beatings etc. had their cameras wiped or "gone missing" while they were in the detention centre. That video would obviously be useful for the public record about those fateful two days. It may be evidence for someone's defence. It could be damning evidence about the actions of the police. Or it...

It's comforting to know that groups far and wide are coming to the support of the media who were roughed up and/or arrested during the G20 weekend. The latest is a release issued in Vienna from the International Press Insitute, a global network of media executives, editors and journalists. The IPI Press Freedom Manager says journalists "have a right to cover such events, including any protests that accompany them, without interference or harassment from police". We at the Canadian Media Guild...

Now that we are hearing more from those who were arrested or detained over the G20 weekend, it's becoming apparent that police were particularly irritated by people in their 20s documenting the protests in one way or another for alternative media publications. Lawyer Julian Falconer announced yesterday he is taking on the cases of four such journalists, and the stories they tell are horrible. Amy Miller was covering the demonstrations for the independent monthly Dominion when she says she was...

On the day after a weekend of mayhem, it's important to focus on those who’ve been detained, arrested or imprisoned this weekend at the G20 summit just for doing their jobs: the journalists who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or looked the wrong way. The hundreds of citizens, onlookers, and even joggers who were detained, arrested or imprisoned should be angry and have their stories told too. But for the sake of solid information about these events, we should really be concerned...

I see that Quebecor/aka Sun newspaper chain isn't toning down its slanted "reporting" about CBC just because it's trying to get a license to compete with it in 24/7 news. Check out this "news" story from Althia Raj , the Sun reporter who seems to be assigned the job of taking the Quebecor party line in these must-do anti-CBC pieces. She writes: "CBC received almost 900 complaints from 2007 to 2010". What Raj means is that 900 Access to Information requests were filed about the CBC in those...

It's good to see real questions being asked about Quebecor's new "straight talk" all-news channel. Forget whether we need another right-wing voice or not. Forget whether it's appropriate that the former communications director to Stephen Harper is the guy in charge. People are rightly asking whether Pierre-Karl Peladeau is banking on a special deal from the CRTC that would allow him to convert his unsuccessful over-the-air channel in Toronto to a lucrative three-year "category one" specialty...