Monthly Archives: May 2015

CWA Canada forges coalition to take on TPP

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Source: cwa-scacanada.ca

CWA Canada is moving aggressively to open up a second front in North America in an all-out battle to stop the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership from being adopted in this country.

The union has hired former CBC foreign correspondent Bill Gillespie to help co-ordinate a campaign that will see the Trade Justice Network — a coalition of progressive groups concerned about fair trade — to combat the TPP, the largest economic treaty in history.

CWA Canada President Martin O’Hanlon said the whole process surrounding the TPP negotiation is “deeply disturbing.”

“Most Canadians have no idea that this deal is being negotiated in secret under the guidance of multinational corporations with no input from labour leaders, environmental experts or even MPs,” O’Hanlon said.

“It’s frightening that this can happen in a democracy.”

One of the most troubling things about the TPP, O’Hanlon said, is the fact that multinational corporations would have the power to override Canadian sovereignty by suing governments under secret tribunals and nullify labour, environmental and other laws.

He also noted that the deal will result in the loss of thousands of Canadian jobs as manufacturers and others move work to low-wage countries like Vietnam.

“The issue here isn’t free trade,” O’Hanlon said. “We support free trade. But it must be a level playing field. How can you have a fair trade deal with countries like Vietnam that pay workers 65 cents an hour and have no real health, safety, labour or environmental regulations?”

“That should be common sense, even for conservatives.”

DOWNLOAD|  The TPP and Canada: Factsheet

CWA Canada is being supported in the campaign by its international partner, the 500,000-strong Communications Workers of America, which has been spearheading opposition to the TPP in the United States. (See StopTheTPP.org)

The mainstream media has been paying scant attention to the TPP, which has been likened to “NAFTA on steroids,” said Gillespie.

As the largest media union in North America, he said, “our objective is to help journalists cover the story. Newsrooms are understaffed and overworked” so we need to supply basic information and contacts. WikiLeaks has been the only source of information so far.

“As professional journalists, we are concerned that the TPP is virtually unknown to the public” even though Canada joined the talks in 2012, said Gillespie. “No one knows anything about it. (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper has said zero about it.

“No politician will actually say what’s in it. Details won’t be known until it comes up for a vote” and even when that might happen is uncertain.

Gillespie said materials have already been produced for the anti-TPP campaign, which will roll out in a few weeks. Everything from social media to face-to-face meetings with journalists will be used to educate the public in advance of this fall’s federal election.

This will be a second major campaign for Gillespie, who produced a documentary about so-called right-to-work laws for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union in 2013. Made in the USA: Tim Hudak’s Plan to Cut Your Wages contributed to the downfall of the leader of the Ontario Conservatives.

– See more at: http://www.cwa-scacanada.ca/EN/CWeh/2015/1505_tpp.shtml#sthash.NxwUawyQ.dpuf

The dangers of journalism include getting doxxed. Here’s what you can do about it.

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Source: poynter.org

by Published May 19, 2015 10:58 amUpdated May 19, 2015 11:13 am

This is another in a series of articles by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press covering legal issues that affect journalists. RCFP’s First Look Media Technology Fellow Jenn Henrichsen wrote this article.

 

read entire story here

Threatening journalists over their reporting is not a new concept, but the age of electronic media has brought a new method of intimidation and harassment known as doxxing.

Doxxing – named for docs or documents and also called doxing or d0xing – starts with publishing someone’s personal information in an environment that implies or encourages intimidation. Typically done online, the information then is used by others in a campaign of harassment, threats and pranks.

A Mental-Health Epidemic In The Newsroom

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Source: http: huffingtonpost.com

read entire story here

This is the first installment in our series on mental health in the newsroom. Here are the second, third, fourth and fifth installments.

When Hurricane Katrina swirled onto the Louisiana shore and residents of New Orleans clogged highways to flee, John McCusker stayed behind.

A photographer for The Times-Picayune for more than two decades, McCusker paddled through the city’s muddy waters in a kayak, day after day, documenting the destruction. Like many of the city’s residents, he had lost his home and all of his possessions. His family had relocated to Birmingham, Alabama, five hours away.

Newsonomics: Buying Yelp — and making it the next core of the local news and information business

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The pricetag would be high, but it might be worth it to reassemble one part of the old newspaper bundle — tying together local news and local services.

By  @kdoctor May 21, 2015, 7:31 a.m.

 

Source: niemanlab.org

read entire story here

Yelp’s for sale, and the news has generated the usual, now-tiresome lists of potential buyers: Google, Amazon, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook. It’s like all the money in the business world slid off one end of the table and sluiced down to Silicon Valley. Forget the old spend-a-week-without-the-Internet experiments; is it possible to spend a week without talking about one of those companies?

Speculation has it that the asking price of $3.5 billion might be too rich for any of those players, or anyone else. Yelp’s audience is still growing — up 7.5 percent year-over-year to 142.5 million in the first quarter — but its revenue and audience growth is slowing. Total revenue will come in at about $580 million this year. It’s lost 40 percent of its market cap in less than a year, as investors have decided it’s lost its growth mojo.

Shoptalk: Don’t “Fold” Too Early on Print

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Source: editorandpublisher.com

by: Tom Ratkovich

I’m a fitness enthusiast and a poker player. While I’m better at the former than the latter, I’m always looking to improve my game. Before stepping onto the elliptical machine for some cardio recently, I downloaded a favorite poker podcast. The subject: folding your cards too early can be a mistake and cost you money.

The message was essentially this: fear and failure to commit can lead to a loss of opportunity as circumstances evolve.

Or something like that.

As an owner of and a supplier to newsmedia companies, I related this lesson to the legacy newspaper—specifically, to the traditional print product.

I question whether many of us are “folding too early” on our print business. Are we relinquishing opportunity for audience and revenue growth by moving too far too fast away from print?

Many prognosticators suggest that the opposite is true—that if we fail to move away from print ASAP, our business is a risk. I’m not so sure.

Let me be clear—I am NOT a print apologist. While I believe the future of the newsmedia is bright, I am “platform agnostic.” I don’t believe we must decree how audiences consume our content. Thus, I have been critical of an uncompromising “digital first” mandate for the legacy newsmedia company. Instead, we must think CUSTOMER FIRST—and be relevant in content, in timing and in channel.

To get to the point, here are four reasons for integrating print as an essential component of a diverse, multi-platform strategy:

Print audiences are vital sources of data and revenue—data that enables relevance, and revenue that funds other strategic initiatives.
Print audiences are a source of customers for other offline and online products.
The ability to offer advertising solutions that can be integrated and optimized across multiple platforms offers a compelling proposition to advertisers vis-à-vis single channel providers.
Print advertising works.

Regarding this last point, I am an admirer of Alan Mutter (newsosaur.blogspot.com; Editor’s note: Alan also writes a monthly column in E&P). I don’t always agree with him, but he makes me think. Alan recently referenced a study by eMarketer citing an interesting statistic: the amount of ad dollars by medium divided by the amount of time spent with each. The result: In 2014, advertisers spent $.83 per minute to reach print readers—and only $.07 per minute to reach mobile users. Alan argues that “markets abhor this sort of inefficiency”—and that further migration of ad dollars from print to mobile is imminent.

I agree that the downward trend in print spending is likely to continue—but I certainly disagree with the characterization of the print/mobile dichotomy as “inefficient.” The fact is that for today at least, print works. There are advertisers willing to tolerate the higher investment associated with print because the ROI is superior to what they would get elsewhere. As Alan implies, the markets are rationale, and people will spend their money where the return is highest.

The situation will continue to evolve. Mobile advertising—particularly location-based applications—will become more sophisticated and, ultimately, more effective. But for today—and for the near future—print produces a superior result for many advertisers. Perhaps most importantly, an integrated communications portfolio that includes a variety of print, digital, mobile and other multichannel solutions for advertisers offers a competitive positioning that is unique in the media.

In conclusion, putting any platform first—whether print, digital or other—is, IMHO, misguided unless the business is built ground-up for that specific platform. Such a proviso is not the case for the legacy newspaper company. Instead, a thoughtful, progressive transformation to an agile, platform agnostic media enterprise that delivers relevance and value to consumers, and optimized, multichannel solutions to the merchant community, is the path to a sustainable future.

Tom Ratkovich is the managing partner of LEAP Media Solutions and can be reached at tom.ratkovich@leapmediasolutions.com.

– See more at: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Shoptalk–Don-t–Fold–Too-Early-on-Print#sthash.KdKjzmyK.dpuf