John Doyle has a reason why the CBC wants to push local supper TV news to a 5 p.m. start and end at 6:30 p.m. CBC TV newsies won't feel flattered.

Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno on the current film State of Play, which taps into some of journalism's current angst to create dramatic tension.

Patience. Time. Resources -- although one could add institutional willpower to that list. Toronto Star public editor Kathy English writes about investigative reporting at the Star -- with just the tiniest bit of self-promotion. :^)

But the Star does maintain a five-person investigative team -- a rarity in this day and age.

The Globe and Mail's Rick Salutin explores how best to support newspapers in their time of economic crisis. He asked what would be so wrong with public support for journalism.

I went through some of the major reviews of the new journalism thriller (oxymoron?) State of Play, which opened Friday night. I don't think I'll be dropping my $13 any time soon.

CBC News is going to cut $7 million from its budget, eliminate 70 jobs -- and deliver more local news programming.

How will this be done, you might sensibly ask? Through the magic of reorganization!

YouTube is burning through an amazing amount of money as it provides a video record of all the world's cute cats. This Slate piece looks at the perhaps fatally flawed economics of Web 2.0.

Last week, Billy-Bob Thornton got huffy with CBC Radio's Jian Ghomeshi, who had the effrontery to note that Thornton has been an actor. Thorton claimed he wasn't to be asked about his acting career.

Russell Smith notes that Thornton ran into something that was once quaintly known as journalism.

Twitter, at its best, can show what people are thinking as they are thinking it. Not only people are using it to extend social communications, but machines are starting to get in on the act. This could be big -- if Twitter gets bigger.

NEWSPAPER advertising, already in its worst slump since the Depression, suffered by far the sharpest drop in generations during the first quarter of 2009, down 30 percent for some papers, industry executives and analysts say.

Three longtime media executives are building an automated system to allow newspapers and magazines to charge for online access, including an “all you can read” subscription that would allow access to multiple publications, the executives said on Tuesday.

The Boston Globe is facing an existential threat from the parent New York Times Co.: Either its unionized staff agrees to draconian cuts or all options are on the table, including closure.

For some, Boston without the Globe is unimaginable. Others couldn't care less.

The NYT's David Carr wrapped up many of the developments in the continuing struggle about the online business model for U.S. newspapers. His conclusion:

Digital evangelists rightfully heap scorn on newspapers that leveraged monopolies into huge profits without investing for a day they knew would come, but newspapers have walked back the cat on the cost side as far as they can. Their gaze will inevitably turn toward consumers and the portals that serve them. The reckoning is at hand.

Saw this via Twitter. It's from a "luxury" magazine's website:

There's a fascinating twist to JO LEE. And it is this all Encompassing dichotomy driving its success. The Magazine pays not one of its global columnists-feature writers or its 68 editorial staff a fee. Rather, all advertising monies generated are placed into an ENERGY BANK embracing the young, Unsung Heroes with zero possibilities.

For some reason, the notion of not being paid at all made me think of this scene from Goodfellas:

Project Bounce, the now-defunct all-night hip-hop show that ran on CIUT, used to l-u-u-v-v-v running the "gimme the fuckin' money!!" sample from that scene. :)

Allow me to rewrite some of the dialogue to adopt it for writers and journalists:

The Globe and Mail's Ivor Tossell laments that the cool people aren't bellying up to the Twitter bar any more.

Maybe the problem is less with Twitter and more with the cool people.

That's how Gawker described this Washington Post feature on George W. Bush's post-presidential life in Dallas.

I liked this excerpt:

The presidency that is remembered on Daria Place bears little resemblance to the one that most of the country continues to blame for its problems. Bush left Washington on Jan. 20 with two-thirds of Americans disapproving of his job performance -- one of the worst ratings ever for an outgoing U.S. president. In his return to private life, he has maintained tranquility by adhering to a basic philosophy:

He lives squarely in the remaining 33 percent.

Bush works with a dozen aides from his administration, socializes with friends he has known for decades and lives in a conservative neighborhood that voted for him -- both times -- by a ratio greater than 2 to 1. And while the rest of the world mulls and debates his legacy, Bush has told friends that he prefers not to use the "L word."

This has been around for a few days, but if you havent' seen it, trust when I say it is bizarrely hilarious: