Media Monday Edmonton: Update #10

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• Congratulations to Edmonton Sun sports columnist Terry Jones on being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame! The official induction will take place at a luncheon in November. Fellow sports journalist Jim Matheson had some nice words about the news.
• The Writers’ Guild of Alberta handed out its awards on the weekend, and Edmonton Journal columnist Todd Babiak took home the $1500 Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction for his fourth novel, Toby: A Man. Other Edmontonian winners included: Alice Major, Myrna Kostash, Margaret Macpherson, and Carolyn Hall.
• Last week I mentioned that Global Edmonton would be expanding its local news programming, and now CTV Edmonton is doing the same. They’re adding a morning show as well as 5pm and 5:30pm newscasts, starting this fall. At the same time, CTV’s President Lloyd Lewis announced that Access will be renamed “CTV Two” in September.
• Marty Forbes has more on the local TV news “expansion” and other media tidbits here.
• Here’s a nice profile of David Climenhaga who blogs at Alberta Diary. Some of the blogs he reads regularly include Daveberta and St. Albert’s Place On The Web.
• Global News in Toronto recently did a report on the most dangerous intersections for pedestrians in that city, and they decided to make the data behind the report freely available. I really hope we see this replicated in other cities, especially here in Edmonton. And who knows, maybe other media outlets will follow suit! J-Source has more.
• Here is Karen Unland’s latest new media roundup.
• Very funny segment of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the “evil Maple regime” that is Canada. They came to Alberta!
• Intriguing post on the Skype blog last week: TELUS and Skype are “joining forces to bring affordable international calling rates to customers in Canada.” I’d rather they bring local numbers to SkypeOut, but it doesn’t seem like that will ever happen.
• The Western Magazine Awards will be handed out on Friday, June 17 in Vancouver. AlbertaViews, The Tomato, and Oilsands Review are among the local nominees.
• Christie Blatchford has announced she is leaving the Globe and Mail and is joining Postmedia. The Edmonton Journal ran a little ad in today’s paper saying to “watch for Blatchford’s provocative take on crime, politics, sports and more, starting tomorrow in the Edmonton Journal.” I understand her articles will appear in Postmedia newspapers across the country.
• Here’s a great little write-up on Neil Parmar, a graduate of Wetaskiwin Composite High School who recently returned to deliver the keynote address for the graduating class of 2011. Throughout his career, Parmar has contributed to The Gateway, See Magazine, Vue Weekly, and the Edmonton Journal.
• Pecha Kucha Night X is taking place on Friday evening, and if you don’t have tickets you can still watch the livestream courtesy of the Edmonton Journal.
• The latest episode of the edmontonian presents aired last night, and it was all about food! Check it out on their YouTube channel. They also produced a pretty great trailer for the episode.
• I’ve really been enjoying Linda Hoang’s Clicks of the Day posts. Check it out for interesting links and reads and follow her on Twitter.
• I kind of don’t know what to say about this. Terence Harding, who writes Metro Edmonton’s Urban Compass, says he sometimes gets invitations to meet with City Councillors and it causes him “some concern”. I don’t get invitations from Councillors, but if I did, I would take them up on the opportunity. Harding says “I’m not particularly interested in who our councillors are.” I would argue he’s not going to do a very good job of writing about them, in that case. He’s evidently not interested in their side of the story.

Global Edmonton’s Linda Nguyen interviews Slutwalk organizer Kasia Gawlak. Photo by Darren Kirby.

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!