Media Mix

To publish or not to publish, that is the question

The EastSouthWestNorth blog has a simple comparision of this week's coverage of a gas explosion. The Chinese media here in Hong Kong are often criticized for its use of graphic images. I don't think Roland is criticizing the media so much as he is pointing out the difference:

Even if you cannot read Chinese, you can just take a look at the kinds of photographs that the newspapers are willing to show their readers. I assert that it is unlikely that the photographs in Oriental Daily/The Sun would have shown up in the South China Morning Post or The Standard. Are you lucky or deprived? I have made the same assertion any number of times in the past.

Without translating the various articles, he includes the text and photos used in Wednesday's newspapers. What do you think? Is it necessary, or in the very least, interesting enough to publish bloody photographs?

The worth(lessness) of J-school

It's an old article, but I couldn't help but nod in agreement with a lot of the points Jack Shafer is making here — and especially about who is teaching in journalism schools.

I wonder though: Do you need a journalism degree these days to get into journalism? It certainly seems that way.

You think you're poor now?

In a case that's destined to set all sorts of legal precedents, author and blogger Mark Bourrie is being slapped with a $600,000 libel lawsuit by political wonk Warren Kinsella. Kinsella alleges that Bourrie accused him of taking kickbacks, which led to a hateful reaction to him in the eyes of (say it with me) "right-thinking members of the community."

Of course, it goes without saying that none of these allegations have been proved in court. But I just said that anyway, fully absolving Media Mix staff from having to blow their 72-cent legal budget for the next decade on a retainer for Lionel Hutz.

It's safe to say I'll be keeping a close eye on how this plays out. Bloggers have been complaining for a while now that they need to be taken seriously as commentators.

With six hundred grand on the line, I'd say they got their wish.

A City Magazine?

This is sort of old news but since there isn't much discussion about it, I thought I should blog about how Maisonneuve magazine will be Montreal's city magazine later this year. Last week, the magazine formally announced it will relaunch as Montreal's city magazine. Since its conception in 2002, Maisonneuve has become a national magazine on arts and culture and last year, won the President's Medal for Best Magazine in Canada.

Some may say it was unfocused, but I say love its unpredictability. Even as I live in Hong Kong, I wait excitedly for the next issue to be mailed to me (or delivered by whoever is visiting from the homeland). Although I've not yet lived in Montreal (one day) I look forward to seeing what kind of changes Maisonneuve has up its sleeve. Still, it's unclear to me why it decided to change. Is the general interest magazine format not working? Is there great demand for a city magazine in Montreal? Someone please explain...

The gloves are off

My own view is that if we're not free to say fuck Islam, then we're not free, period.

I was wondering who the first mainstream media writer to come out forcefully in defence of free speech was going to be in this cartoons-of-the-prophet-Mohammed issue. Lo and behold, it's good ol' Colby Cosh.

If nothing else, Cosh is a writer I admire for his eloquent passion — he's just as intelligent and boisterous talking about the Edmonton Oilers as he is about global geo-political strife. That, in and of itself, is a commendable skill. So with that in mind, I shouldn't be surprised that he threw the gauntlet down so forcefully in a recent post on his blog.

(One caveat: if you don't want to see one of these images with your own eyes, then don't look. Otherwise,clicky-clicky here.)

My own thoughts on the matter are all over the map.

My gut tells me two things. Number 1 — freedom of speech is not something designed to be selectively employed on a case by case basis. Pardon the cliche, but people fought hard for this right, and its not one we should be surrendering without some serious soul-searching. And Number 2 — in working out who the truly guilty party is in this whole debacle, I can't shake one feeling: when most minority groups are offended, they write letters of protest, recall ambassadors, propose trade embargoes, launch libel suits, or take some similar, seemingly-rational recourse to right their perceived wrongs. But here, we appear to be dealing with a small but vocal minority openly calling for public beheadings because of information that appeared in a newspaper.

In this situation, rational discourse has gone out the window. I haven't got a clue what to do about it, but I'm guessing the solution will involve more freedom of information — not less.

Isn't that what this is all about?

Something rotten in Denmark

Having lived in Denmark, I probably understand this cartoon crisis a little bit better than the average North American. It might just look like a lot of hubbub over some stupid cartoons, but this tension (aside from being symbolic of what's been going on in the world since Sept 11) has been threatening to come to the surface in Denmark for years now. A Salon article from a couple of days ago gives some good insight into the issue, because it was written by a Dane.

I don't blame Muslims around the world for getting all in a huff about what seems to be some stupid cartoons to people who don't understand. It's more the straw that broke the camel's back than an itchy trigger finger. The Jyllens-Posten, Denmark's largest circulation paper, is situated in Aarhus, where I lived in Denmark. That city has a ghetto with Muslim residents, who were brought to Denmark in the 70s to do construction work (because it was the type of job that Danes didn't want). I wrote a story about Gellerup, the ghetto in question.

While doing the story, I heard lots of stories of racism that astounded me, especially since I come from one of the most diverse parts of Toronto, which is one of the most diverse cities in the world. While living in Denmark, I was faced with lots of racism and prejudice, and not just that against Muslims (the most common). In fact, I endured a tiny bit of it myself when some of my European classmates learned that I was half Jewish. I remember one incident in particular when a member of the Danish government said that all foreigners should be thrown out of a helicopter. This was strange terrain for me.

So bent on being purely Danish, the government introduced a law that said you could not become a Dane by marrying another Dane unless you were at least 23 years old. This was presumably to keep Turkish immigrants from marrying other Turks and bringing them to Denmark to live. The sad part is that the main consensus, at least from the people I talked to, was that a little bit of prejudice was okay, if it was protecting the Danish language and keeping Danish pride in tact.

With all this gurgling beneath the surface, I can't blame Danish Muslims for being offended by the cartoons. In fact, I'm surprised something like this didn't happen earlier.

Presented without comment

Just saw that there was a new book for all to read.

The Need for Ledes

Tragic though it may be, I was surprised to see the story of the death of a Toronto cabbie make the front page of the major papers this morning. Tahir Khan, a Pakistani taxi driver who was apparently due to become a Canadian citizen tomorrow, was killed late last night when his cab was struck by a street-racing Mercedes on Mount Pleasant Rd. last night. Obviously, it's a tragic local story, but I couldn't figure out why both national papers had the story today.

Then I saw the kicker:

Police found a copy of Need for Speed, a popular video game that simulates street racing, in the front seat of one of the cars

Uh-oh — Here we go again. Time for the mainstream media to trot out the tired old "video games make you bad" story angle.

Look, these two kids were stupid for street racing. But I just don't buy that Need for Speed caused them to want to street race in the first place. I've been playing video games for more than a decade, and Halo doesn't make me want to run out and start lobbing plasma grenades at random passers-by. Still, I think we all know where this is going to predictably end up. Anyone want to lay $5 that the Star will have some serious hand-wringing on its editorial page tomorrow?

blogging isn't real

I am sad to inform you that this isn't real. That's right, blogging doesn't exist, according to this article on AdAge.com. Simon Dumenco says:

...it occurred to me that there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing -- writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology.

Which is fine, I guess, but he ignores that the nature of blogging is much different than, say, writing an op-ed piece for the The Times. Mostly because I can blog all I like, but The Times wouldn't let me in the building if I had to pee. My problem with his article is that he's ignored the essence of blogging, which is the idea that one person can blog just as easily as another. One blog might have more readers and impact than the other, but the way in which I can mass market myself is astounding.

What?

A friend took this photo of "some boat" she saw in Victoria Harbour here in Hong Kong to ask me what it was all about. It is my newspaper, The Standard's inventive marketing strategy that's currently on public transportation, billboards and boats (actually, I think there's only one boat). The large sail reads: "WHEN will the poor start getting richer?" and the smaller sail to the left is the newspaper logo. It should be noted that this boat debuted during the WTO meetings back in December when the question would have been even more relevant.

The photographer decided the ad campaign, at least this example, was not very effective because the product is not clear. But it got us talking and she took the photo, so perhaps the boat idea is smarter than we thought. I like The Standard's "Tells It Like It Is" campaign. The Sing Tao Newsletter descirbes the campaign like this:

The campaign features the six tenets of journalism, "who, what, where, why, when and how" captioned over photographs of high-profile people who have appeared in the news in The Standard. They include China's Premier Wen Jiabao, the HKSAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang, tycoons Stanley Ho and Richard Li, movie star Jacky Chan and Nancy Kissel.

The only other newspaper brand campaigns I can think is The Globe and Mail's "Well written, well read" (the current "find out what you're missing" slogan annoys me) and a few years ago, The Toronto Star had a billboard that said, "our local news is national news," but not much else comes to mind.

Can anyone tell me if there has been a truly great, memorable newspaper branding campaign in recent memory?