Errata, observations and working notes
from Parliament Hill reporter David Akin
View Article  L.A. Times: Bloggers Are the Sizzle, Not the Steak
The Los Angeles Times quite rightly notes that, just because you publish a blog, you are not a journalist. As I've said many times, readers and viewers decide who journalists are. Bloggers Are the Sizzle, Not the Steak Convention seats do not turn Internet gossips into journalists. By Alex S. ...   more »
View Article  Public Journalism and Blogging Workshop: More details
The folks at the Public Journalism Network who are putting together the five-star, day-long workshop on blogging and participatory journalism have put more details together about the event. The event runs from noon until whenever the bar closes at the Sheraton Centre in downtown Toronto. As I've said before ...   more »
View Article  Kedrosky: McDonald's new drive-thru system
[Paul Kedrosky has this fascinating item up at his blog, Marginal Revolution] "Who would have guessed that when taking drive-thru orders at a McDonald's it's more efficient to send the order not 25ft into the restaurant but 900 miles away to a call-in center which then relays the order via ...   more »
View Article  Canada's Creative Commons licence
The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) says it will re-write the Creative Commons license for use under Canadian copyright law. About their latest project, the CIPPIC folks say: "Once complete, the Canadian Creative Commons licence (CCCL) will enable Canadian digital creators to independently construct and attach ...   more »
View Article  Internet governance project launched
From today's e-mail inbox: Announcing the Launch of the Internet Governance Project We are pleased to announce the launch of the Internet Governance Project (IGP), a multi-university partnership to analyze global Internet policy issues. IGP's research agenda is closely related to the on-going United Nations' review of Internet Governance. ...   more »
View Article  Am I sending you the Ping of Death? How would I know?
I'm looking for help (again) if you can spare a minute. This morning, my home ISP sent me a 'security note'. Apparently another subscriber had complained about port scans that were, apparently, originating from my cable modem. My cable modem is attached to a wireless router, which has up to ...   more »
View Article  Are happy workers better workers? No, they're not, say researchers

Researchers at Rice University say that the long-held assumption that happy employees are more productive employees may not be true. They say there is no evidence that managers who focus on making their employees happy get better financial and operational results. In fact, they say improved financial and operating ...   more »

View Article  TV news worst when it comes to reflecting Canadian cultural diversity, report says
Today, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters released a report prepared by the Task Force for Cultural Diversity on Television. The task force examined the quantity and quality of cultural diversity in Canadian television programming. On the quantity side, a panel of experts looked at a broad variety of programmming and ...   more »
View Article  White mud in Edmonton
Edmonton suffered a freak flood/hailstorm earlier this week. From a report prepared by CTV's online staff: "The heavy rainstorm started Sunday afternoon, dumping 150 millimetres of rain on the city. The storm blew in with little warning, flooding homes and turning roads into lakes. Environment Canada called it "a ...   more »
View Article  After eight years, a dot-com news site turns a profit
Reuters reports that MSNBC.com, the joint venture between Microsoft Corp. and General Electric Co.'s NBC unit will turn a profit for the first time in the quarter which ended June 26. MSNBC.com says it was helped by record revenue of $45-million (US) for the entire year. There are ...   more »
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I receive no fees, considerations, etc. etc. for the posts on this blog nor do I have any plans to accept any. My salary is paid by Canwest Global Communications Corp. I work for that company as the Ottawa-based National Affairs Correspondent for Canwest News Service.
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