Dean Wright's Blog

At a time when daily newspapers in North America are struggling, the  importance and vitality of community journalism was stunningly clear after the recent arrest at a U.S.-Canada border crossing of a man sought in a triple murder. Travis Baumgartner, accused of killing three Edmonton, Alberta, armored-car co-workers and fleeing with $330,000, was apprehended by [...]

Could the basic unit of journalism be changing? Is the “story,” that basic device that every J-school student is taught to write in Journalism 101,  being supplanted by something less defined–and something less in control of reporters? You could make a strong case that it is after reading a fascinating interview with Mohamed Nanabhay, the [...]

Defending social media is a bit like defending the sunrise. It’s going to happen no matter what and the only way to avoid it is to keep sleeping. Nevertheless, Dorian Benkoil at MediaShift does a fine job of taking on the anti-social media whiners. As he puts it,  ”to rail that social media destroy our social [...]

A study commissioned by Craig Newmark  recently found that only six percent of respondents believed that being first to report a story was the most important factor in choosing a source for election news. The national survey of likely voters by Lincoln Park Strategies found that an overwhelming plurality–49 percent–said that being “trustworthy” was most [...]

Could we be entering a golden age of journalism? That may sound like heresy  when, among other things, ESPN fires an editor for writing an offensive headline about NBA star Jeremy Lin;  Reuters makes five major corrections on one story about Republican Sen. Marco Rubio; London tabloid journalists and cops keep getting arrested and accused of bribery; [...]