Category: Blog

Last week, The New Yorker published a 17,000-word piece on Barack Obama by editor David Remnick. I haven’t read the feature yet, so I don’t know much about it, but I know how long it is because: Gawker noted it in a story about quote approval. So did the Washington Post. So did The Wire… Continue reading Fetishizing the form’: on the importance of word counts

From the department of “Things That Make People Complain About ‘The Media,’ Whatever That Means.”

Mohamed Fahmy is a Canadian citizen, working in Egypt as Al-Jazeera’s acting bureau chief. Before working for the Qatari broadcaster, he was with CNN. He is, then, kind of a big deal, and the kind of journalist of which the country ought to be proud. Fahmy is currently holed up in Cairo’s Tora prison, which… Continue reading The silence over Mohamed Fahmy

This week, Venus formed an aspect with Mars, and The Globe and Mail announced that it will no longer run horoscopes in its print edition (except on Saturdays). We’re not sure whether those two events are related, or even what the first means, but it’s good news nonetheless. The first newspaper horoscope appeared in a… Continue reading Globe and Mail cuts horoscopes, entering an Age of Aquarius, or something

With journalists set to descend on Sochi for the Winter Olympics, privacy experts are raising red flags about Russia’s omniscient security apparatus. As The Guardianfirst reported in October, Russia is “modernizing” its SORM system, which the country’s security agency, the FSB, uses to monitor phone and Internet communications. (The agency does not need judicial approval… Continue reading Going to Sochi? Leave your phone at home: advice for reporting in Putin’s Russia