While travelling in the Ukraine in the fall of 1989, I met up with a fellow named Tom Koppel, a journalist working for a communist newspaper in Kyiv on an exchange program.

With the 20th anniversary coming of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, I thought I'd excerpt an article I wrote for Bulletin, then the magazine of the Canadian Association of Journalists. It was published in the Fall 1990 issue and outlines how the paper that hosted Koppel covered the Wall story:

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From the Globe and Mail subhead: "As salmon numbers drop, bears are also few and far between along B.C.'s wild central coast – signalling what conservationists say is an unfolding ecological disaster."

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U.S. President Barack Obama may have won a majority in the 2009 presidential vote, and his Democratic party may enjoy majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress, but they are getting outshouted, says the NYT's David Carr.

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The Globe and Mail's Michael Valpy had a big screed in Saturday's paper on whether the bonds of Canada's social cohesion were breaking down. I'm going to excerpt the media part of his essay.

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Veteran U.S. Rep. Barney Franks (D., Mass.) on a woman who compares U.S. President Barack Obama to Hitler for his proposed health care reforms:

Addendum

Gawker had the following on Wednesday:

Crazy woman repeating Republican talking point was not technically a Republican

Fox News's guide to winning an argument: Recut the tape

Addendum 2

You might also want to see this Gawker item from Tuesday: Town hall crazies go through the ideological rabbit hole

Barack Obama built a huge army of volunteers who flocked to his message of hope and change, propelling him into the White House. But where are they during this current frenzied attack on health reform?

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Author Rick Pearlsten says the kooky have always played a role in landmark U.S. policy debates. What's different different today is the structure of the media. Be a kook at a town hall today, be a guest on Fox News later that night.

The whole thing is well worth a read, but I'll excerpt a media-related part.

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Sarah "Will Ya Stop Makin' Things Up?" Palin seemed to be the first to get the 'death panel' ball rolling in the bizarrely ferocious U.S. health care debate.

But did she? This NYT article says the groundwork was laid long before.

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