Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• The biggest media news of the week is also the saddest: Jeff & Sally have decided that September 9 will be the last day for the edmontonian. They wrote: “Our heads are bursting with ideas and schemes (seriously, call the head hospital!) and this will let us make space for new things to come our way.” In other words, we haven’t seen the last of Jeff & Sally (thankfully). Here’s their first “look back” post. I’ll have more on this next week, and I can’t wait to see all of the tributes that are created over the next while. The outpouring of support today has been great to see.
• Looking to get your feet wet with podcasting? The Unknown Studio is looking for contributors. Simply pitch your segment idea by September 30 and you could be a regular feature on the show!
• It’s that time of year! Karen looks at education in her latest Edmonton New Media Roundup.
• Erin Despas did an interview with Julie Matthews, Global Edmonton’s Trouble Shooter. “With sixteen years of experience in journalism, the thirty-five year old journalist has been with Global Edmonton for seven and a half years. Matthews has no plans currently to leave her job.”
• I discovered recently that Avenue Edmonton’s Omar Mouallem also contributes to the AOL Travel Canada blog! Cool to see him talking up Edmonton beyond our city’s borders.
• I quite like the Government of Alberta’s Newsroom page. Simple, but clear and with all the relevant links and information.
• If you’re a U of A student interested in media, swing by the Gateway offices in SUB – they’re looking for volunteers. They’re also looking for help with their weekly podcast.
• Oil Sands Truth is an interesting site from a media perspective. It both aggregates and curates recent news, data, maps, photos, audio, and video. Does anyone know of a good site that does the same thing with the opposite side of the story?
• This note about a new book called The Man in Blue Pajamas: Prison Memoir in the Form of a Novel came up in one of my searches: “Kurdish poet and journalist Jalal Barzanji endured imprisonment and torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein because of his outspoken writings. After emigrating to Canada in the 1990s, Barzanji, who was named Edmonton’s first writer-in-exile in 2007, finally tells his story.” Turns out Jalal is on Twitter!
• Nice shout out to “the social media rockstars of #yeg” from Jeremy Bibaud, who recently left the United Way after four and a half years. I think he did some great work to bring that organization up-to-speed with Twitter, Facebook, and all of the other tools they have started using, not to mention the new website! Best of luck Jeremy!
• Four members of the local media participated in a pizza eating contest on Sunday at the Viva Italia Viva Edmonton festival. Citytv’s Stacey Brotzel, the griff’s Jenny Feniak, OMNI’s Kit Koon, and SONiC 102.9’s Brandy Taylor all competed to see who could chow down the most pizza in five minutes. Brandy came away with the victory in a tiebreaker round against Kit, but no one left empty-handed: they got to take the pizza they didn’t eat with them!

Brandy Taylor, Kit Koon, Jenny Feniak, Stacey Brotzel

The media table outside the media room at City Hall.

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

Just a quick mention: we had a very productive MediaCamp Edmonton planning session tonight, and we expect to share more on that in the coming weeks!

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

Another week off! Can you tell it’s summer? Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• Everyone was covering today’s sad news that NDP leader Jack Layton had died.
• As reported previously, ACCESS is being rebranded as CTV Two. The changeover is scheduled to take place on August 29.
• In Karen’s latest Edmonton New Media Roundup she takes a look at local podcasts. Let her know which are your favorites! I’m glad to see there are a few locals finding success with podcasting. Maybe of these days I’ll get back into it.
• Don’t miss The Unknown Studio’s episode on Festival City.
• Congrats to local men’s magazine Shave on scoring a partnership with Howzit MSN.
• Analog television broadcasting will officially be out of fashion on September 1, but Shaw says analog signals will be around in Edmonton for quite a while.
• The recipients of the inaugural CTV Citizen Of The Year Award are: Mr. Issa Kamara, and Mr. Amson Saintime. The award was created by CTV Edmonton in partnership with the Edmonton Heritage Festival Association.
• From the Edmonton Examiner: “Competition over young music fans is heating up on Edmonton’s FM radio dial.”
• Old news perhaps but I only mentioned part of it in my last update: The Edmonton Oilers and Corus Radio reached a new host broadcaster agreement that will last through the 2013/2014 season. Corus has broadcast every Oilers game since 1995.
• Speaking of local radio, Marty Forbes has the scene covered.
• Again, I’m late with this one but will mention it anyway – CJSR is looking for DJ’s, Reporters, Producers, & Designers!
• I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy this article at Slate. “According to media scholar Brendan R. Watson, bloggers writing about local public affairs do not rely primarily on established media for most of their source material.” I certainly try to link to as many original sources as possible.
• As I mentioned yesterday, the Edmonton Police Service recently launched a series of weekly videos called the Community Crime Update. Stay tuned for new episodes.
• I can’t seem to find anything online about this, but an ad in the Journal congratulated Marta Gold on winning the Excellence in Features Writing 2011 award from the Society for Features Journalism. The paper itself also received some kudos, as it was one of North America’s top 15 newspapers to earn “Best Features Section”.
• CTV’s Fall Preview Tour is travelling across Canada right now, and will be in Edmonton at City Centre Mall from September 15-17.
• In case you missed it: Sandra Sperounes wrote about the local edition of BalconyTV a few weeks ago. Hosted by Cheryl Wiwat and Jon McLellan, the concept was brought to Edmonton by Sean Martell.
• Here’s the latest edition of BalconyTV Edmonton:

I want to finish by highlighting a couple of posts from the edmontonian. If you don’t read their daily headlines, you’re missing out. Here’s a great discussion from August 10:

Newsrooms could also have mentioned to their audiences the Journal had a story about a late-night bus on Whyte, and worked on their own stories the rest of the day. Instead, they assigned reporters, editors, producers, video editors, and camera operators to produce the same story for Tuesday night and Wednesday.

One of the topics I love to rant about. Those same newsrooms will in the same breath complain to you about how times are tough and resources are stretched.

Here’s another great one from August 17:

The race to get the story into the news machine first damages everyone involved. It hurts the credibility of the media outlets who commonly treat factual inaccuracies as no big deal, and it fails the citizens who trust these outlets for information that shapes their reactions to the world around them. Reporting the news is a tremendous responsibility, and not just a game of  ‘who had what story first.’

Couldn’t have said it better myself. That’s why I linked!

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!

After a week off, here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• The Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation is looking for a Social Media & Communications Officer. The deadline to apply is August 12 – here is the PDF.
• CBC Edmonton is looking for a Senior Broadcast Technologist (EDM00241) and an English television Videographer (EDM00242) – search here. You can follow @CBCJobsEdmonton for updates.
• Another CBC tidbit – they launched a cookbook called Flavours of Edmonton as a fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank.
• I don’t know when they made the change, but I love that the Edmonton Sun now uses Disqus for comments.
• Yikes, retirement looks tiring. Here’s what Graham Hicks has been up to since “retiring” from the Edmonton Sun.
• Oilers Lunch with Bob Stauffer is moving to 630 CHED from Team 1260.
• Congratulations to Lucas Timmons on being one of three applicants from around the world to receive the MJ Bear Fellowship from the Online News Association.
• Karen’s latest Edmonton New Media Roundup is here. Her update from last week is here. She has also been busy contributing to Longshot Magazine.
• I meant to link to this one earlier: the Unknown Studio interviews Jay Runham as a welcome to the local podosphere.
• Here’s a great thank you post from Erin Despas who finished her four month term at the Journal last week.
• This is interesting: CKUA has signed on to use Groupigg’s software to provide daily deals to listeners across Alberta.
• Hot 107 is now being represented nationally by Bell Media Radio Sales.
• As I mentioned yesterday, Edmonton Next Gen is looking for presenters for PKN11!
• MediaMag reports that Art of Conversation LX is taking place at Sabor Divino on August 31.
• Citytv Edmonton has a new street team that has been fairly active on Twitter and Facebook so far. It looks like their photoshoot must have been lots of fun!

• From the Edmonton Journal’s August 2011 newsletter – they’re still killing it online, though the Edmonton Sun has shown some improvement and is rapidly catching CTV Edmonton:

• The homicide rate has been in the news in Edmonton a lot lately, which led to me launching everybodyinthiscityisarmed.com. Jeff has written lots of great stuff about this, so don’t miss his coverage. I focused on MacEwan criminologist Bill Pitt, but the media are just as much (if not more) to blame for the sensational coverage and hyperbole:

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!

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• YegNews.com is barely a month old, but it is already on to its second editor. Scott McKeen announced last Monday that he is moving on from the site. He will apparently stay on as an independent contributor, though he has not written anything since July 7. In fact, nothing was posted to the site between July 7 and July 18. Dave S. Clark is the new editor of YegNews.com. Let’s hope he lasts a bit longer!
• West Edmonton Local is still going strong, however! Check it out if you haven’t lately.
• Also last Monday, the Edmonton Journal finally revealed new details on its community newsroom initiative. They are looking both for new ideas, and for individuals interested in joining the “local advisory board”. Email community@edmontonjournal.com by July 31 if you’d like to get involved.
• Here is Karen’s Edmonton New Media Roundup from last week, and here’s her latest.
• Global Winnipeg’s weather anchor Craig Larkins is joining CTV Edmonton’s new morning show. Here’s his tweet about the news. Friday was his last day on air in Winnipeg.
• Shaw’s launch of the New Shaw Movie Club (PDF) on July 15 was widely reported as an attempt to compete against Netflix. The news reignited discussions about network neutrality with Shaw forced to clarify that the new service would in fact impact bandwidth caps for users.
• MediaMag has an entry on Hero, the new magazine launched by the Stollery Children’s Hospital back in April.
• Another new magazine launched this month: WE Magazine. A publication of the United Way of the Capital Region, it aims to “inspire people to come together to make a lasting difference in our communities.”
• A post on the Puget Sound Radio forums indicates there are changes afoot at Astral Radio in Alberta (The Bear, Virgin Radio, and Team 1260 are the local stations).
• Edmonton Journal reporter Jennifer Fong is heading across the pond on August 14 for grad school. That explains the new opening in the Arts & Life section at the Journal. Looks like the going-away-cake was tasty!
• Apparently the Twitter race is heating up for PC leadership candidates here in Alberta.
• An Edmontonian has been traveling the world, posting a video of himself drinking a Coke in each location visited. Sounds like an expensive but memorable trip for Duane Perera. Makes one wonder about the value of travel media when individuals document their trips like this, doesn’t it?
• The primary argument made for why Edmonton should continue to host the Indy is the media exposure we get around the world. I decided to look at Google News for an indication of how successful the event was at that (take these numbers with a grain of salt, they change nearly every time I do the search). Since July 18, there have been 889 articles posted about the topic, according to Google News. Roughly 268 of those appear to have been simply about Power winning the race.  Narrowing the field to just United States-based media, the number drops to 388 articles. If you try to restrict it to just Alberta-based media, the number of articles is 154 (though I think that is low, considering the Edmonton Journal accounts for 103 articles and the Edmonton Sun accounts for 72). Of course not all media sources are in Google News, and I’m sure supporters will quickly point out the TV coverage, but I think the results are interesting nonetheless.

I was away all of last week so I wasn’t paying as much attention to Twitter as usual, but I still didn’t notice as many #yegindy tweets as I expected. That said, there was some great coverage online. fusedlogicTV was recording video and posting photos over the weekend. Here’s a glimpse of what their AutoMojo show captured:

Today, Microsoft released Avatar Kinect on Xbox Live. I just had to give it a shot!

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!

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• Don’t miss Marty Forbes’ local media summer roundup. Lots of news tidbits there, especially radio ones!
• Best of luck to longtime Edmonton reporter Mario Annicchiarico, who has decided to move on to the Times Colonist in Victoria. He shared the news on June 29.
• Here are some photos and a bit of a recap of last month’s HOT 107 Switch Party with David Guetta. Apparently about 5000 people attended.
• Which morning radio show is the funniest in Edmonton? Pepper & Dylan, says GIG CITY.
• Theatre Alberta is looking to hire a new Communications Coordinator. The deadline to apply is August 5.
• GIG CITY has a great interview with Jeremy Die and Gregg Beever, the duo behind new webcomic Inglorious Hipsters.
• I wanted so much more from this TSN press release announcing that they’re providing multi-platform live Indy coverage.
• Found this one via Adam: CTV’s Quebec City Bureau Chief Kai Nagata explains why he quit his job. Definitely worth a read.
• Another must read, as usual, from Clay Shirky: Why We Need the New News Environment to be Chaotic.
• The last episode of the edmontonian presents aired on Sunday evening, called History. Congratulations to Jeff & Sally on a fantastic series! Here’s their thank-you post. And here is the last episode on YouTube:

I wonder how much people actually like “link” or “notes” posts. They seem to be quite prominent in the local blogosphere lately. I usually do my Edmonton Notes and these media notes, Sharon does her food notes, Scott does Hitting the Links, Karen usually does a media roundup, Linda has been posting her Clicks of the Day, Dave posts Alberta Political Notes, the edmontonian posts headlines each weekday, The Charrette posts a weekly news roundup, and I’m sure there are more that I’m missing. They’re not necessarily easier to write than single-topic posts, in fact they can actually take quite a bit of time and effort. They are easy to consume, however. Thoughts?

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!

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• The St. Albert Gazette has written about the demise of Saint City News. The article states: “The Gazette will take on two of Saint City’s sales people and has added [former editor Glenn] Cook to its newsroom.”
• ChrisD.ca in Winnipeg reports that political reporter Laura Lowe has accepted a position at CTV Edmonton, and will be leaving CTV Winnipeg by mid-July.
• Here’s a detailed piece on the SEE-Vue merger. Apparently Vue is “assessing whether it will join the Alberta Weekly Newspaper Association.”
• The Edmonton Journal is seeking a Director of Digital Products “to lead the ongoing growth and development of our wide variety of local digital properties.” You can check out the job posting in PDF here.
• The latest Edmonton Journal newsletter, available here, says the Journal’s site saw a record 592,000 unique visitors and 11.8 million page views in May. The mobile site saw 1.2 million page views that same month.
• Check out the Journal’s Living on the Edge map, created by data journalist Lucas Timmons using data from the City of Edmonton’s open data catalogue.
• Karen’s latest Edmonton New Media Roundup is available here. She notes that Edmonton has a new web comic called Inglorious Hipsters. Follow them on Twitter – @ingloriouship.
• The final episode of the edmontonian presents (at least its first run) airs on Sunday, July 10 at 9pm on Shaw (Channel 10). Don’t miss it!
• Have your say on the future of the CBC! The CRTC is hosting a consultation on CBC’s radio and television license renewals.
• It looks like World FM is all setup in Enterprise Square now that 91.7 The Bounce has joined Sonic 102.9 on the southside:

Some Edmonton-related notes from the latest Broadcast Dialogue magazine, available in PDF here. I’m not sure how frequently it is published as I just came across it, and some of the items are older:

• Rawlco Radio Chairman Gord Rawlinson says that up! 99.3 FM received almost 900,000 text messages in a little over a year.
• Adrienne Pan is the new host of CBC News: Edmonton Late Night. She comes from Winnipeg though she has been here before, as part of A-Channel (this was announced in May).
• Calgary’s Mix 97.7 relaunched as up! 97.7 in May. The up! brand was developed here in Edmonton, and Rawlco Radio says it “wanted Calgarians to have the same opportunity to feel good every time they turn on the radio.”
• The first 96.3 Capital FM Edmonton Capital Cares Radiothon for Make-A-Wish Northern Alberta together with the Edmonton Sun raised almost $50,000.

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!

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• Some sad news to mention this week: Sonic’s Graham Scott died suddenly in his home on June 18. Garner Andrews wrote the blog post announcing the news, and said: “Radio guys like Graham don’t come along very often and, sadly, there are so few of them left.”
• St. Albert publication Saint City News has closed its doors, with the final edition published on June 24. The paper was recently purchased by Great West Newspapers LP, which also owns the St. Albert Gazette. No surprise then that the website now redirects to the Gazette (another sad example of an entire archive of content disappearing virtually overnight). MorinvilleNews.com ran an article publicly thanking Saint City News for “their years of dedication to covering the news”.
• As I wrote last week, YegNews officially launched on Tuesday. Here’s the introduction article from Scott McKeen. And here’s a follow-up, in which Scott explains that YegNews “does not see itself as a competitor to” the mainstream media. In the last week about 25 articles have been published on the site. Karen has some great advice for the site’s founders in her latest New Media Roundup.
• The Edmonton Sun reports that unique visitors to its website spiked 25% in May thanks to the April launch of the redesign. Apparently readers spend an average of about five minutes per visit on the site. Max Maudie, the Edmonton Sun’s senior online editor, says to stay tuned for additional improvements to the website.
• mc79hockey.com has a thoughtful discussion on the news that Journal columnist Dan Barnes is leaving the sports pages and is now part of the paper’s editorial board.
• Here are the Spring 2011 radio station rankings. Once again, 630 CHED leads the pack. Virgin Radio (104.9) suffered a major drop, due at least in part to the format switch. UP 99.3 appears to be the biggest gainer.
• Speaking of radio, iNews880 has a new feature called Face for Radio. It’s an opportunity to ask iNews880 “newsies” a question, which you do via Twitter or Facebook.
• I neglected to mention this earlier in the month: Fish Griwkowsky is now writing for the Edmonton Journal, the latest step in his quest to dominate local media!  Here’s his first article.
• I also missed this: local Corus journalists Morgan Smith and Scott C. Bourgeois were nominated for a couple of Sterling Awards. The awards ceremony takes place tonight at The Mayfield Dinner Theatre.
• Carrie Doll returned to CTV Edmonton on June 20, after a year off for maternity leave. She thanked Erin Isfeld for covering the anchor desk (Erin starts her own mat leave on Thursday).
• RTNDA Canada announced the 2010 National & Network Award Recipients on Saturday. Both CBC Edmonton and Global Edmonton picked up awards (see Global’s press release here).
• The Journal has been running an interesting summer series called Living on the Edge (here’s the first entry). They’ve integrated maps, tweets, and blogs into the project.
• MediaMag has a workshop coming up on Wednesday titled Blogging for Business With Pleasure.
• The latest episode of the edmontonian presents, called “edmontonia”, aired last night and can now be watched on YouTube. The next episode airs July 10 on Shaw.
• The Alberta Multimedia Development Fund received a $2.8 million boost a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully it has a positive impact on local filmmaking.
• Rogers is launching a new 24 hour news channel in October called CityNews Channel. Quebecor’s new channel still trails competitors but is growing.

Visited Fort Edmonton Park on the weekend, and of course I had to stop by the Edmonton Bulletin!

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!

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!

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• Karen Unland has also started doing “media roundups” on her blog. Here is her latest update.
• On May 28, the Alberta Media Production Industries Association held its 2011 State of the Industry Update. There’s an MP3 of the update and a PPT on “Stimulating Audience Demand”.
• St. Alberta’s Our City magazine has a new publisher. John Roberts, former publisher of the Saint City News, was announced on Twitter on May 18.
• A couple of weeks ago, the Edmonton Journal announced some changes to the layout. City Plus is now known as City and Region, and there’s a new weekly gardening section. The final restructuring of the print edition was announced this week: the Books section has expanded into the Sunday Reader, and What’s On is now part of the regular Friday Movies section.
• Global TV Edmonton announced recently that they will be broadcasting the Morning News seven days as week, starting in September. From Tim Spelliscy’s note announcing the change: “That’s 43 hours of local news every week on Global Edmonton, more than all of our competitors combined.”
• Here’s a nice “thank you” to the media from Marty Forbes for the way they handled the Slave Lake wildfires.
• Edmonton Journal reporter Jodie Sinnema has been named the winner of the 2011 Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians award for medical journalism. She was nominated by University of Alberta Hospital’s Dr. Felix Soibelman.
• Big congrats to The Unknown Studio on reaching the milestone of 50 episodes! Here’s to 50 more!
• Journal photographer Ryan Jackson won two multimedia awards in the News Photographers Association of Canada annual pictures of the year contest for 2010.
• Here, in a PDF, are the finalists for the 2011 Alberta Book Awards. The winners will be announced on June 11 in Calgary.
• The Montreal Gazette and the Victoria Times Colonist recently introduced paywalls. Edmonton Journal publisher John Connolly said that while the Edmonton Journal isn’t part of the pilot, "we will be watching the results with interest."
• Spacing Magazine is getting ready to launch its first national issue, and is celebrating with a cross-country tour. They’ll be in Edmonton on June 22, with a launch event at the Art Gallery of Alberta. Yours truly will be one of the panel members talking about some of the best places in Edmonton.
• The Journal won the International Newsmedia Marketing Association’s Public Relations and Community Service award it was nominated for back in March, and finished second in the Marketing Campaign category for Taste Alberta.
• Congratulations to all of the nominees in the 2011 Digital Alberta awards. The awards ceremony was held this evening in Calgary.
• So for the corporate challenge tug-o-war competition, the Journal decided to field a mostly female team. And then they named it the Power Puffs.
• Is it just me, or has the merger of SEE and Vue been pretty straightforward thus far? I mean I’m sure there has been turmoil within, but from an outsider’s perspective, it has been fairly “quiet”. No big articles on the merger in the new issue of Vue. Fish Griwkowsky wrote a nice piece in the final issue of SEE though.
• Here’s the Edmonton Journal newsletter for June 2011.
• It’s too late to take advantage of the offer now, but I was intrigued by the edmontonian’s recent decision to sell some simple ads for their upcoming June 12th episode of the edmontonian presents. I hope it turns out well! Speaking of, you can see the third epsiode named “Spring” here.

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