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.

   more »

MSN.sympatico.ca will be no more. As of Sept. 1, Microsoft will run MSN.ca and Bell will run Sympatico.ca.

   more »

Chris Lake, editor-in-chief of Econsultancy, wrote a post on Aug. 26 entitled 25 things journalists can do to future-proof their careers.

It has some reasonable tips for bringing one's online skills up to speed. I don't know if it's really about the future future, if you know what I mean, but certainly any journalist working today should have a handle on at least 80 per cent of what's on this list.

Do you spend virtually every waking moment of your life pondering the greatest question of our time: What is the Future of Journalism?

Can you not rest until you get an answer?

Well, in that case, too bad for you, because I doubt there is one answer. But there will be multiple options in Toronto over the next four weeks to ponder the question with like-minded individuals.

In order of appearance:

   more »

Crawley tells the Canadian Marketing Association a few things in a video podcast:

1. He said the new-look, full-colour Globe and Mail that will come out in the fall of 2010 will "change the way you think of newspapers. It will not look like the newspapers you currently seen."

2. It's not just about newspapers, but it's about mobile, online -- and other platforms. "We continue to look at this and say, 'Where's the money?' There's still a lot of money in print, and there will be for certain kinds of newspapers for quite a while to come."

He doesn't forsee the Globe's demise in the way that about 40 U.S. newspapers have died in the past year, partly as a result of a vicious recession.

3. Online ad revenue is still a fraction of print revenues, even though it's growing quickly. "It's not just about ad revenue. There's other forms of monetizing the content, which is the big subject of the moment. (News Corp. CEO) Rupert Murdoch is out there just the other day saying, 'We're going to start charging for all of our websites.' Well, I think that horse has left the barn." It's not that easy. The Globe has been successful in getting people to subscribe to Globe Investor Gold. But people won't pay for content that's freely available elsewhere.

4. Linked is the way to go. "Threatening to sue Google doesn't make sense to me." Papers must work with the Googles and the portals.

5. Marketers should have faith in print and the fact that the owners of the business who do get this understand the value of content -- and data. "We believe there's going to be long-term value creation for us."

H/T to Neil Sanderson.

NewsTrust has developed a news literacy guide to help people think like journalists (a scary thought; there's enough cynical, sarcastic people out there as it is).

   more »

The founder of the Huffington Post holds forth with the Wall Street Journal on the future of journalism (seen via Twitter).

Three key words, according to Neil Sanderson: Social, linked and free.

Teens have not embraced Twitter as a social medium in the way that they've glommed onto Facebook and other services.

There's a reason for that.

   more »

From the BBC:

The police officers who were killed were from the external security department in the town of Argun.

Three died at the scene and a fourth succumbed to his injuries later in hospital, said police.

Last Friday, two suicide bombers on bicycles killed four policemen in Grozny, in what the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, said could have been aimed at killing him at a ceremony to mark his birthday.

Also, in neighbouring Ingushetia last week, suicide bombers killed 20 people and injured around 140 others.

Figures compiled by the BBC show that more than 400 people have died so far this year in the largely Muslim areas of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

One regional expert says there is no doubt the insurgencies in Chechnya and Ingushetia are now on the rise, with increasing numbers of young men, some still teenagers, joining militant organisations.

Pimp another Grozny restaurant, Chrystal.

When David Beers launched The Tyee in 2003, he saw it as an experiment that would last a year or two. But surprisingly, it's still going strong.

   more »

Saw this on Twitter:

@AboutCBC #cbc Under Scrutiny: A failing grade for CBC http://bit.ly/9lRfV

Now, AboutCBC bills itself thusly:

Everything to do with the CBC. Not an official CBC account. Lovingly maintained by Tod Maffin.

I'm presuming it's about the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., but perhaps not, for look where the above link leads:

   more »

The Toronto Star's David Olive says many brand-name bloggers are hooking up with MSM outlets.

But he's using lousy examples:   more »

On Friday, four police officers died in Grozny, Chechnya as a result of suspected suicide bombings.

Did anyone catch Chrystal Callahan's show at Chechnya Today?

The video clip is undated,  but here are Callahan's opening words:

Political life in the republic was full of events this week. One of the main topics was in regards to the international status of the Grozny airport.

Sorry, couldn't bring myself to watch much further.*

* I did dig in a bit further. Chrystal does some resto reviews and appears to cut a rug with President Ramzan Kadyrov, or someone who looks very much like him.

Four cops getting blown up isn't particularly newsworthy in Chechnya (the home page doesn't reflect the story). And since Callahan has said she has complete editorial freedom, I guess it was her call (I'm  hoping this is simply an obsolete clip and not an indictment of her news judgment).

Here is a small excerpt from an RIA Novosti profile of Callahan:

And bombing noises? Are they part of TGIF celebrations in Grozny?

What is the difference between edgy and obnoxious?

The New York Times' public editor is wrestling with that question following a nasty bit of phrasemaking by one of its writers covering the arrival of J.C. Penney to Manhattan.

   more »

From the Toronto Star subhead: "KIDNAPPED - ESCAPED - RECAPTURED - RAPED - ESCAPED - RECAPTURED."

   more »

Had you stopped by this blog on Aug. 10, you would have found this post: How self-delusional is Chrystal Callahan anyways?

The post is about an ex-Toronto model who has become the face of a satellite broadcast for Chechen state TV -- not that there's anything wrong with it. You can catch her show at ChechnyaToday.com.

This showed up in a comment attached to that blog post today:

The report comes from RIA Novosti, a Russian news agency whose roots go back to Soviet times.

I found this excerpt from a Dec. 24, 2003 IPR Strategic Business Information Database on HighBeam.com:

To give Russia a positive image abroad means giving the bloodthirsty regime of Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov a positive image abroad. Read the story and click on the Callahan videos to see what I mean.

This might be a bit harsh, but I'm thinking that if anyone should be in the early running for the Walter Duranty Memorial Award, it should likely be Chrystal Callahan.

Anyways, the BBC has a good overview of the North Caucasus, a volatile region that includes Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, North and South Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Abkhazia. Author Robert D. Kaplan (Eastward to Tartary) has called the region one of the world's great geo-political fault zones.

Russia had a brief shooting war with Georgia there last year, and the regional unrest continues. It's undated, but here's something I found at Russia! about Callahan's show:

Is it now?