Blog by John Miller

End of dailies?

May 25th, 2012
The North American newspaper world came one step closer to its new business model this week -- one that might be described as "Unfit to Print."The New Orleans Times-Picayune, a Pulitzer Prize-winning daily published since 1837, will slash its staff and scale back to three days a week beginning this fall. Although it says it will step up its online presence, at least one-third of its editorial ...

Hurting our brand

May 10th, 2012
I know of no Canadian journalist who has gotten more blowback on a story than Jan Wong.Nor have many of us paid such a steep price: Prime Minister Harper condemned her publicly as "grossly irresponsible" and "prejudiced," the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion demanding that she apologize to the people of Quebec, she got racist letters and a death threat, her newspaper turned agains ...

Ford vs. Star

May 3rd, 2012
Somebody -- either the Toronto Star or Mayor Rob Ford, it's not clear who -- declared war on the other some time ago, and now things are getting very, very silly. The latest shot in a campaign that has escalated into farce came when the mayor detected a "trespasser" behind his house after 7 p.m., and ran out to find it was Daniel Dale, one of the Star's city hall reporters. Tempers ran high, ...

He'll be missed

May 3rd, 2012
I can accept a CBC without Battle of the Blades. I suppose I can even enjoy listening to CBC Radio without Dispatches. But I cannot imagine a CBC without Dan Henry.The latest round of government-ordered budget cuts hit the national network this week, and if J-Source is right, one of them was the bean counters declaring that Henry, CBC's senior legal counsel since 1978, is redundant.Danny Henr ...