Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTNDA) has announced its 2020 Prairies Region Award finalists, with CBC Edmonton and Global Edmonton leading the nominations with 11 and seven finalist pieces respectively.
• 96.3 The Breeze has taken the top spot for listenership in the latest PPM (Portable People Meter) radio ratings report, reporting a 10.2% share of hours listened up from 6.9%. NOW! 102.3 dropped to fourth overall, after 100.3 The Bear and CBC Radio One.
• Peggy Garritty has been elected chancellor by the University of Alberta Senate. Garritty is a communications professional who was owner and president of PG Communications from 1993 to 2008, then led ATB Financial’s reputation and brand team, before returning to PG Communications in 2018.
• Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds thanked Global Edmonton news anchor Gord Steinke for sharing a historical photo of his grandfather at the Alberta Legislature. Chester Reynolds served as an MLA from 1940 to 1944.
• Arts writer Mel Priestley has ended her podcast Ghost Light, and blogged about why she made the decision, including that "podcasting is a thankless job that devours your time and energy."

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• "Twitter has applied a “manipulated media” tag to a doctored video of former Vice President Joe Biden that was shared by White House social media director Dan Scavino and retweeted by President Trump," reports The Verge. "It’s believed to be the first time the platform has used the tag to denote faked media."
• Based on a sample of 200 news outlets collected by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, just 23% of the top editors are women.
• "Until 2019, it has been the case that if you come across several paragraphs of text on a consistent topic with consistent subjects, you can assume that text was written or structured by a human being. That is no longer true," reports Vox. Stories generated by AI are improving quickly.
• "Journalists are overwhelmed by the information they process in their working day and want to explore solutions with third-party providers and management to make it more manageable," reports NiemanLab.
• NPR recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. "The beginning was rocky. NPR could have a brilliant piece and a poor one in the same program," reports Current. Today of course, NPR is doing just fine. I listen to their podcasts all the time!

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• Rebel News Network is counter-suing Edmonton writer Bashir Mohamed with a $150,000 "SLAPP" suit (strategic lawsuit against public participation). The move comes after Mohamed launched legal action against RNN in December for failing to remove a video and articles that he says "contains numerous lies and was intended to harass me and cast me as a violent person." Mohamed has raised over $30,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to help cover legal fees for the suit.
• "The time is now for the Alberta government to cut its losses and put an end to this experiment," Global News Radio talk show host Rob Breakenridge writes in a column about the Canadian Energy Centre.
• The Stony Plain Road BIA is launching a new community newspaper called The SPANN: Stony Plain Road & Area News Network. Paula Kirman, editor of the Boyle McCauley News has announced that she will be the new editor/consultant for The SPANN, which will serve Canora, Glenwood, Britannia-Youngstown, and West Jasper Place-Sherwood.
• Moira Wyton announced that she is leaving the Edmonton Journal. "I’ll make you proud in my next step (more on that soon)," she tweeted.
• Janet French has moved on from her legislative role at the Edmonton Journal. She is now the provincial affairs reporter at CBC Edmonton.

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• A cross-industry, cross-country group of media companies have issued a joint letter asking for Parliament to address the "threat" against "the future of a vibrant media ecosystem in Canada."
• The New Yorker is launching a new weekly email newsletter dedicated to climate change. It will be "written by perhaps the biggest name in environmental journalism, Bill McKibben."
• CJR and The Delacorte Review have published The Year of Fear, "the story of four towns that have little in common but the loss of the newspapers they once knew."
• Netflix is adding a new feature "that will rank the 10 most popular programs on its service in your country," reports TechCrunch.
• A new digital magazine called The Current is a publication of Jigsaw, a unit of Google previously known as Google Ideas. The inaugural edition is "mostly a cursory overview of disinformation, alongside brief descriptions of some tools that Google has used to combat the problem, gussied up with a coat of digital paint," writes Mathew Ingram.

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• During a time of shrinking newsrooms and evolving roles in the industry, MacEwan University has launched a new television studio as part of its bachelor of communication studies program. As part of the studio opening, Global News announced it is establishing a new $10,000 journalism scholarship for students in the program.
• The inaugural issue of the Alberta Jewish News is out, following a merger between the Edmonton Jewish News and Calgary’s Jewish Free Press.
• Lionel Rault’s CKUA afternoon show Somethin’ Else aired its final broadcast on Feb. 14. Rault, who has been an announcer with CKUA for 26 years, will continue to host his popular weekend show Lionel’s Vinyls.
• CBC Edmonton is opening a mini pop-up bureau at the Clareview Recreation Centre from Feb. 24-29.
• The Edmonton Broadcasters Club is calling for new members.

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• "It’s no exaggeration to say that much of the American newspaper industry is in a death spiral," writes Margaret Sullivan at The Washington Post. "Yet local newspapers are relatively well-trusted — and the vacuum created as they fade allows false information to spread."
• Publishes are finding that producing less content is leading to growing audience traffic, higher dwell times, and ultimately more subscribers.
• The Information achieved profitability in 2016 and expects $20 million in sales by the end of 2020, according to a new feature published by The New York Times. "As other online organs have bloated and intermittently fasted, The Information’s reporters have become known in Silicon Valley for sniffing out the industry’s misdeeds and tweaking its powerful."
• According to a new report from McKinsey & Company, women make up 49% of the total workforce in media and entertainment but hold just 27% of C-suite positions.
• "The tech industry needs to understand that a challenging press is important component of society," writes Hunter Walk. He includes four things for the tech industry to rethink and three things that reporters should avoid.

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• In a 23-tweet thread, Progress Alberta, an independent non-profit which organizes training, research, as well as political and community initiatives, says they felt compelled to speak out "with particular urgency" following two Postmedia columns which it says "sunk to such ethical and professional lows" while "aggressively" promoting UCP positions.
• Mark Iype announced his time as editor-in-chief for the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun has come to an end after six years. "No idea what’s next, so onward," Iype tweeted.
• The Edmonton Journal’s Press Gallery podcast, where reporters discussed provincial politics for nearly six years, has been cancelled, former host Emma Graney tweeted.
• Chris Henderson, formerly of Calder Bateman Communications; Alana Williams, formerly of DDB Edmonton; and Tracy With, formerly of Yardstick Research, have come together to launch Y Station Communications & Research, "a reimagined communications strategy company."
• Congratulations to Claire Theobald who is the new investigative journalist for Great West Newspapers. Claire will be "touring the province bringing stories you won’t find anywhere else."

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• A new report on Canada’s broadcasting sector calls for widespread regulatory reform, "including mandated Canadian content on streaming services and an ad-free CBC." The report also recommends rebranding the CRTC as the Canadian Communications Commission and expanding its role.
• Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The New York Times, sat down with The Daily "to discuss how criticism of The Times’s coverage of the last presidential election will inform our approach this time." Definitely worth a listen.
• Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, is leaving to become the new media columnist for The New York Times.
• I’m a fan of the Morning Brew newsletter which just announced it is closing in on 2 million subscribers and has annual revenue of more than $13 million.
• For the first time, Google has broken out YouTube’s revenue in its latest financial results: $15 billion last year. "Those figures make YouTube’s ad business nearly one fifth the size of Facebook’s, and more than six times larger than all of Amazon-owned Twitch."

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• Freelance food writer Twyla Campbell is the new editor-in-chief of Eat Local, an Edmonton-based food magazine which is celebrating its one year anniversary.
• Melanistic Magazine, an ethno-cultural lifestyle magazine exploring black culture in Edmonton, has officially launched.
• Corus broadcasters including Global Edmonton, 630 CHED and CISN Country anchors, reporters and hosts participated in the annual Corus Radiothon, raising $1.4 million for the Stollery Children’s Hospital.
• Congratulations to Postmedia justice reporter and American expat Jonny Wakefield, who has been sworn in as a Canadian citizen.
• Congratulations to political blogger, podcaster and commentator Dave Cournoyer, who is celebrating 15 years of blogging.

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• ESPN plans to air "more than 500 live original shows across its own digital properties and platforms including YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook," reports Digiday.
• "More and more, publishers who engage in paid acquisition are reporting that they think about the relationships they have with their audience in increasingly nuanced ways," writes Phillip Smith in an article about newsrooms spending money to make money.
• "As hedge funds take a greater role in newspaper chains, journalists at the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere are sending out an S.O.S.," reports The New York Times.
• "If the media world were ruled by thoughtfulness, rigor and ethics, TMZ wouldn’t have broken the news about Sunday’s helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others before all the families were notified," writes Margaret Sullivan at The Washington Post.
• In China, the government "usually keeps a tight grip on what is said, seen and heard about it." But things are different with the coronavirus. "The sheer amount of criticism have made it difficult for Beijing to control the message," reports The New York Times.

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• Keith Gerein’s column in the Edmonton Journal on Jan. 10 announced his new role covering municipal affairs for the paper, after covering provincial issues for years.
• Ronnie Stanton, program director of Corus FM stations in Vancouver, has been promoted to lead programmer for all Corus FM stations in Alberta and B.C., including 103.9 CISN Country and 92.5 The Chuck in Edmonton.
• A new journalism grant has been created in honour of late veteran broadcaster Peter Watts, who worked for CBC Sports Edmonton and was host/producer of Alberta Morning News on Corus, among many other positions throughout his 40+ year career.
• Communications specialist Grant Ainsley has written a new blog post exploring what it means to be a reporter, after recent controversies over writers from the province’s energy "war room" (the Canadian Energy Centre) referring to themselves as reporters.
• The Canadian Public Relations Society has granted accredited status to 19 members including Samantha Peck of Edmonton.

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• "In a break with convention, the editorial board has chosen to endorse two separate Democratic candidates for president," reads The New York Times’ endorsement of Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren for president.
• The Wall Street Journal reports that Spotify is in talks to buy The Ringer, "a deal that would let the audiostreaming giant break into broader digital media and bring a network of more than 30 podcasts under its roof."
• iHeartMedia has initiated a round of mass layoffs, cutting enough people that one former on-air host described Tuesday (Jan. 14) as “one of the worst days in on-air radio history.”
• MediaReview is a proposed standard for fact-checking visuals and is meant to build on the existing ClaimReview which was built primarily by the Duke Reporters’ Lab, schema.org, and Google.
• From The Ringer: How the ‘Bachelor’ Franchise Became an Influencer Launchpad

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• Long-standing community newspapers in Hinton, Edson and Lacombe will release their final issues this week before closing. "It is well known that the media industry is undergoing significant disruption and legacy revenues are declining at a precipitous rate," Postmedia’s Phyllise Gelfand told CBC Edmonton.
• Keith Gerein is moving on from his role covering provincial politics to cover municipal issues as the new city columnist for the Edmonton Journal.
• The Edmonton Jewish News and Calgary-based Jewish Free Press are merging into the Alberta Jewish News.
• Global Edmonton has launched a new morning show segment called "A Good Four Minutes" which will focus on good news only.
• Video editor Jason Konoza has been laid off from CTV Edmonton after 18 years. "The future for me is uncertain, but I’m grateful for such a long career so far and the friendships I’ve made," he writes.

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• Here is NiemanLab’s collection of Predictions for Journalism in 2020.
• A number of those predictions are related to podcasting and audio. A new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford suggests we’ll see a bunch of new daily news podcasts this year. See also from HotPod: Here are the big podcasting stories we expect to be covering this year.
• Joker earned 11 Oscar nominations including for Best Picture. "In the major categories, it was a list of mostly white nominees, one that will likely inspire outrage, frustration, and pushback," reports Variety.
• Fox News averaged 2.5 million viewers per night in 2019, a 23-year high that made it the most viewed channel on basic cable, The Hill reports (via Axios).
• "If we don’t communicate the efficiency and power of journalism, who will?" Editor & Publisher spoke with various news publishers "about their recent marketing campaigns and found what happened when they took matters into their own hands."

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• Following a lawsuit by Corus Entertainment over the use of the ‘Power’ name, Harvard Broadcasting’s CKPW-FM has rebranded from ‘Power 107’ to ‘Play 107’. The new name was selected from listener suggestions in a contest where the winner, Lauren S., was awarded $1,007.
• Star Alberta papers have officially shuttered. Alex Boyd, former Star Alberta editor, has announced she will be joining the Toronto Star as a Calgary-based reporter. Former Star Edmonton reporter Omar Mosleh will also be joining the Toronto Star as an Edmonton-based reporter.
• Former Globe and Mail journalist Sarah Budgen is joining Postmedia as Assistant Managing Editor at the end of January.
• After 20 years, CBC Edmonton legislature reporter Kim Trynacity is moving on to a new role and reflecting on two decades of covering Alberta politics. "There’s always a battle for public transparency and accountability, regardless of which party forms government," she writes.
• Former CBC Edmonton AM co-host Garette McGowan revealed in a tweet that his abrupt absence from the show in 2018 was due to a role change that required him to "choose between having a job and looking after my son."

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• CJR has confirmed more than 3,160 newsroom layoffs in 2019, 800 of which came from Verizon a year ago.
• "Internet media over the past decade surpassed TV, radio, magazines and newspapers to become the biggest employment sector in media," reports Ad Age. Not surprisingly, the biggest losses came in print media. "The media jobs pie is shrinking. But the internet’s slice is only getting bigger."
• From The Atlantic, here are the 50 best podcasts of 2019. So much to listen to, so little time.
• Netflix picked up just one Golden Globe for TV at last night’s awards, fewer than both Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.
• Margaret Sullivan (The Washington Post), Dean Baquet (The New York Times), Ben Smith (BuzzFeed News), Kara Swisher (Recode), and other American media figures "describe their fears about covering this year’s election – and ideas on how to get it right" in The Guardian.

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by Linda Hoang:

• The Canadian Energy Centre, Premier Jason Kenney’s "war room" aimed at battling misinformation about Alberta’s energy industry, has launched.
• APTN and Rogers Sportsnet have agreed to a three-year deal to broadcast NHL games in Plains Cree.
• Benjamin Freeland has launched a new Medium publication called The Amiskuan (ᐊᒥᐢᑯ ᐃᔨᓂ). Articles will focus on "futuristic imaginings of post-oil, post-resource economy, post-colonial hangover Canada w/ focus on #Indigenous language revitalization, culture & tech," Freeland tweeted.
• CityNews videojournalist Carly Robinson shared the reality of putting a story together today — sometimes voiceovers are recorded at home underneath a blanket, with some furry distractions.
• The first round of speakers has been announced for SocialWest 2020. Media Roundup curator Linda Hoang will present on influencer marketing.

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• We can’t fight fake news without saving local journalism, says Emily Bell.
• LION Publishers has received a $1 million grant to help it do more for local, independent, online news sites.
• Netflix had about 6.5 million subscribers in Canada as of the end of Q3 2019.
• Axios is looking to raise at least $20 million in a funding round that would value the company at about $200 million.
• "Those who care about the vitality of journalism should here take a pause and ask why they don’t feel disturbed," writes Marc Ambinder in the New York Times about the House Intelligence Committee’s subpoena of John Solomon’s phone records.

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.

Taproot Edmonton’s latest Media Roundup was published today. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Local updates from the Media Roundup

Here are a few select updates from today’s Media Roundup, written and curated by me this week while Linda is on vacation:

• 102.3 NOW! Radio (CKNO) continues to lead the pack according to the latest radio ratings released by Numeris.
• Greg Schmaltz, founding member of the Edmonton Broadcasters Club, died on Thursday, Nov. 28 at the age of 85. He joined CITV-TV in 1974 for the station’s founding and retired in 1997. Schmaltz was inducted in to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Half Century Club in 2007.
• Publicity Room has joined Calgary-based marketing and PR agency Press + Post, effective immediately. "Publicity Room has rebranded as Press + Post Edmonton becoming the first-of-its-kind contemporary lifestyle marketing agency in Western Canada," wrote Publicity Room founder Janis Galloway.
• Bashir Mohamed co-hosted Episode 241 of CANADALAND to discuss what happened with the Edmonton Catholic Schools and his interview on 630 CHED (see last week’s Media Roundup for more on this).
• The first two episodes of the new podcast A Tale of Two Weeklies have been released. Episode 1 focuses on how SEE Magazine and Vue Weekly got started in the early 90s, and Episode 2 looks at the early days of their rivalry.

Media-related updates from elsewhere

Here are some non-local media links that I found interesting this week:

• Ken Doctor says the five biggest newspapers chains (in the US) could be come just two in the middle of 2020. "Worse, the two left standing could be run by hedge fund guys with little interest in more than the bottom line."
• "The Times can’t and shouldn’t be part of a capital-R, partisan Resistance, but it better damn well be part of the lowercase-r resistance against authoritarianism and illiberalism," writes Monila Bauerlein of Mother Jones.
• Apple is launching a new ‘Good Morning’ daily newsletter that will bring top news, analysis, and fascinating features every morning, collating the ‘best stories from the most trusted sources’.
• Ride Home Media, which creates podcasts that are commute-friendly, has raised $1 million from Tiny Capital to support its expansion.
• Comcast says it will spend $2 billion on the new NBCUniversal Peacock streaming service over the next two years and projects it will remain unprofitable for the first five years.

Follow Edmonton media news using the hashtag #yegmedia and be sure to check out Mediagazer for the latest media news from elsewhere. You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here. If you have a tip or suggestion for future updates, let me know.

At Taproot Edmonton we’re working hard to ensure that local journalism has a future in our city. Join us to be part of the movement.