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Ink & Beyond kicks off with a buzz and a whir

By Drew Halfnight | May 20, 2009

The CNA/CCNA’s annual conference, taking place this year at Le Centre Sheraton in Montreal, kicked off this morning with a guided tour of Transcontinental’s state-of-the-art Transmag printing facility in the Montreal suburb of Anjou.

Sleepy-headed delegates assembled at 8:30 this morning and, after a quick bite and a coffee at the facility, were treated to a presentation on the facility by Richard Lafrenière, director of manufacturing operations for the Transcon’s newspaper group, followed by a tour of the press room.

The new Manroland presses, which stood three storeys high, were a sight to behold. While the presses were not being operated during the visit, delegates got some idea of the din and hubbub of nightly press runs from the testing that plant workers were conducting on four new towers that will be launched in early June.

Don’t miss all the news, views and updates being posted on our blog site at www.inkandbeyond.ca by the conference team here in Montreal.

To visit the blog, click here.

To follow us on Twitter, click here.

Topics: General | No Comments »

RR Donnelley makes an offer for Quebecor World

By W. Andrew Powell | May 13, 2009

In a move that could potentially be the best deal that creditors will see, RR Donnelley & Sons Co. announced on May 12 that they made an offer to pick up the bankrupt Quebecor World Inc.

The deal includes $700 million in cash for creditors, $394.2 million in stock, and $257 million to buy the company’s assets.

Although there is still much to consider, this could be a very big deal when you look at the size of Quebecor. The company was reported to have over 40,000 when it filed for bankruptcy in 2008, and the company operates numerous print facilities throughout North America, and in Latin America.

Read the Associated Press article over at Editor & Publisher for more details, or visit Quebecor World at www.quebecorworld.com.

For a better examination of the company, read this CTV article from January 2008.

Topics: Financial, Ownership | No Comments »

Mass protest revived

By Drew Halfnight | May 12, 2009

After world leaders got wise and began meeting up in places where we couldn’t reach them, like Kananaskis, Alta., and Huntsville, Ont., not to mention walling themselves off with 18-foot fences and riot police, the era of mass protest looked to be on the wane.

At the same time, competing interest groups became media-savvy, learning to get their demonstrations publicized whether or not they were newsworthy.

But in the past few months, a Toronto ethnic community has breathed new life into the abused spirit of mass protest. Tamils and other Canadians enraged by the international community’s inaction on Sri Lanka have been taking to the streets (and highways, too), sometimes by the tens of thousands, to register their frustration.

The response of the news media has been interesting. The protests received relatively little play at first. Now, after protesters took over a major freeway in downtown Toronto, the Gardiner Expressway, newspapers have been devoting serious column inches to the conflict.

Today’s headlines had our elected officials explaining, rather superciliously, that there is “a right way and a wrong way to protest” and that these “defiant Tamils” had crossed the line. Dither and stonewall all they want, I hope our feckless leaders don’t succeed in distracting the newspeople from doing their own jobs: holding our officials, not peaceful protesters, accountable for their actions.

Can e-readers really replace books, magazines and newspapers?

By W. Andrew Powell | May 5, 2009

Call me a skeptic, but I’m beginning to doubt that electronic readers will replace traditional printed media within any foreseeable future.

I’m happy to be wrong here, but as it stands now, the devices just don’t make any sense.

The Editor’s Weblog ran a story that looks at the possible battle lines being drawn between Plastic Logic and Amazon. Amazon has so far inspired a lot of hope in the e-reader marketplace by saying that they are impressed by sales in their Kindle 2.0. At the same time they are planning to launch a new, larger model, months ahead of a large-model e-book reader being developed by Plastic Logic.

The devices are certainly eye-catching, and I have no doubt that lots of people will love the idea of being able to take newspapers or books with them as they go, without carrying around a stack of paper. But as I’ve said, I have my doubts. Read the rest of this entry »

Topics: Commentary, Innovation | No Comments »

Why ’swine’?

By Drew Halfnight | May 4, 2009

Our friends over at the Canadian Journalism Foundation have put up a sharp little series of posts dealing with coverage of the recent influenza H1N1 outbreak.

For anyone who has read the headlines in the past couple of weeks and asked, Why ’swine flu’ instead of ‘pig bug’ or some other name?,’ the series is definitely worth a gander.

Angles of interest include: Rolling Stone magazine’s decision to re-publish a 1998 article that warned conditions in the pork industry were a recipe for contagion; haggling between the pork industry, scientists and politicians about what to call the virus; and the lines for reporters between educating, entertaining and scaring the bejeezus out of the public.

To read more, visit J-source.ca.

Topics: Commentary, General | No Comments »

Akin speaks up for newspapers

By Drew Halfnight | April 28, 2009

This week, the National Post’s David Akin is writing a five-part series on the future of the newspaper industry.

It’s a summary up of all the reasons that newspapers, in Canada anyway, are not in one quarter the trouble that people seem to believe they are.

They’re solvent, profitable even. They’re trusted. They’ve got brand recognition on their side. They’ve got a line on online news. Lo and behold, their circulation figures are actually growing. Their ad revenues have plunged like everyone else’s in the past six months, but they’ll be up again. And advertisers still love newspapers.

Akin puts the argument for the enduring strength of newspapers in a nutshell.

Read the first part, second part and third part of the series.

Topics: General, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Celebrating one year of Newseum

By W. Andrew Powell | April 22, 2009

This month marks the first anniversary of Washington, DC’s newspaper museum, Newseum, which has attracted 700,000 visitors since it first opened.

Although news coverage of the anniversary has been a bit sparse, the new landmark definitely deserves more attention, especially since it represents the roots of American journalism. Even as Canadians, this stands as a resource worth noting.

Read what some journalists have been saying about the Newseum at The Editor’s Weblog.

Topics: Innovation | No Comments »

NewspaperDirect: One to watch

By Drew Halfnight | April 21, 2009

NewspaperDirect Inc., which calls itself the “world leader in multi-channel newspaper and magazine content distribution and monetization,” announced recently that it had reached the 1,000-publication mark with the addition of French sports newspaper L’Equipe.

To get an idea of what NewspaperDirect is doing, check out PressDisplay.com, their amazing newspaper kiosk that aggregates customized print versions of all the company’s client newspapers.

For newspaper publishers trying to figure out how the web works, this company is one to watch. It’s been said before, but it can’t be said enough: the future of news is in brands and aggregation. PressDisplay leverages both.

The Google debate

By W. Andrew Powell | April 8, 2009

The debate rages on: does Google benefit or harm the newspaper industry?

Google’s lawyer, Alexander Macgillivray, defended the company on their blog this week following an announcement that The Associated Press were working on a deal with the search engine giant. The plan would have Google distributing and hosting AP news.

“For news articles we’ve crawled and indexed but do not host, we show users just enough to make them want to read more — the headline, a ’snippet’ of a line or two of text, and a link back to the news publisher’s website,” Macgillivray wrote.

As a Reuters story explains though, many publishers and journalists feel that Google is making money off of the backs of newspapers. Whether your newspaper can opt out of indexing or not, the general feeling there is that it’s a bad, or at least unfair, business model.

This new deal does point to the fact that Google has found an ingenious way to make money, and call me the devil’s advocate if you like, but it shows how they have been able to harness web traffic where many publishers have so far failed.

Have your say below, and let us know what you think of Google. You can also read the Reuters story here.

Topics: Internet | No Comments »

Off with Friedman’s head!

By Drew Halfnight | April 7, 2009

The Roger Friedman affair would be funny, if it weren’t so sad.

For those who haven’t followed the story, you can catch up here. Basically, a pirated copy of the new, much-hyped “Wolverine” X-men movie surfaced online, and Fox News columnist Roger Friedman defied his employer, Hollywood and the law by not only downloading the illegal video, but posting a review of it online, too.

I can’t tell you exactly what the review is like, since Fox has pulled it from its website, but it was obviously meant as a statement of opposition to the anti-piracy front that has been talking tough and gaining influence south of the border.

The upshot: Fox let Friedman go today.

This is basically a case of shooting the messenger. Most young people already pirate video on a regular basis. Like it or not, most new films, and many that haven’t yet been released yet (including “Wolverine”), are readily available online. I alone can think of two professional film reviewers who have admitted to illegally downloading films they later reviewed.

If a journalist commits illegal acts and broadcasts the fact in your publication, they damage your credibility as a source of news and reviews. Censure them, yes. Ensure they never do it again, yes. Let the police do their own work, yes.

But what exactly does firing this person accomplish?