Journalism Research and Random Meanderings

Saturday, May 01, 2004

How to produce freelance work for the CBC 

"Tod Maffin's 100% Unofficial
CBC Resources
For Freelancers and Producers":

Producers' Guidelines 

Producers' Guidelines:

"We at Soundprint seek documentaries of substance. We call Soundprint the aural equivalent of photojournalism. We like stories which engage the listener's mind, imagination and heart. We encourage the creative and inventive use of sound to develop a contemporary art of story telling."

CBC Radio | Outfront | Contribute to Outfront | Where to freelance within the CBC 

Where to freelance within the CBC

Friday, April 30, 2004

HTML Help by The Web Design Group 

The Web Design Group: " was founded to promote the creation of non-browser specific, non-resolution specific, creative and informative sites that are accessible to all users worldwide. To this end, the WDG offers material on a wide range of HTML related topics. We hope that with this site as a reference, you will be able to create Web sites that can be used by every person on the Internet, regardless of browser, platform, or settings."

TheStar.com - Pre-Times, Jayson Blair honed skills at Daily Planet 

Well done Linwood Barclay

TheStar.com - Pre-Times, Jayson Blair honed skills at Daily Planet: "Pre-Times, Jayson Blair honed skills at Daily Planet"

Thursday, April 29, 2004

A funny thing happened on the way to my inbox 

A couple of people from one discussion list I am on, myself included, were opining the other day that given the maintenance headaches of some anti-spamware, it's just easier to eyeball and delete. I had so many start-up problems with the last program I tried (the name of which escapes me at this second) I uninstalled it after a few days.

Your average user shouldn't be asked to spell bayesian filter let alone tune one.

Before I went out this morning, I looked at my e-mail and wondered why one of my editors hadn't replied to a message yet. When I came back a few minutes ago I looked in the Spam folder and there he was, the spammer. ;>

Glutton for punishment that I am, and as part of my efforts as a volunteer web site content provider for CAUCE Canada: (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email), I am trying out some new spam freeware called spamfighter that has a collaborative element to it.

The SPAMfighter web site explains: "SPAMfighter works completely differently by using the power of more than 370.000 people in 149 countries that instantly report if they receive a spam mail. When several people have reported the same spam mail, it's automatically filtered for the rest of the community. This way very few people in the community will ever see the spam mail. On top of that a lot of spam is filtered before it even hits the community, but how we do that we will keep for ourselves. The spammers are reading our site as well."

I installed it yesterday. So far, so good. The program has accurately caught several spam and the only misplaced message, besides a couple of newsletters that give all anti-spamware fits, was the one from my editor.

The first entry in the FAQ strongly advises watching the Spam folder carefully for the first month and luckily I took the advice to heart.

If, as in the case of my editor's message, the software erroneously marks the message as spam, the unblock button, which is automatically added to the Outlook and/or Outlook Express toolbars during installation, moves it back to the Inbox and whitelists the address.

If you're not connected to the Internet when you fire up the mail client Spamfighter tells you it's noticed but that's it. Otherwise it silently connects to its server.

There are commercial and server versions as well.

If you try it let me know what you think at pboake@gmail.com

Yes, that is a Google mail address.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Gebbie Press: PR Media Directory: U.S. Newspapers Radio TV Magazines searchable listings by category 

Gebbie Press: PR Media Directory: Newspapers Radio TV Magazines Press releases, faxes, e-mail, publicity, freelance, journalism, marketing: "All listings include phone, fax, mailing address, city, state and 9-digit zip code. Newspapers have circulation figures. Magazines have editor name, readership profile and circulation. Radio stations have programming format and metro market ranking (ranking on disk and CD only). TV stations have network affiliation and metro market ranking (rank on disk and CD only)"

The Globe and Mail - Poll Results 

The question 'Do you believe prostitution, when it involves consenting adults, should be decriminalized?' got some interesting results: on Globe and Mail web site;

Yes 11294 votes (80 %)

No 2892 votes (20 %)


Total Votes: 14186

Monday, April 26, 2004

Subservient Chicken 

A Burger King Promotion worth a mention. Subservient Chicken does what you want so can 'have chicken the way you like'.

No sound though. too bad

Sunday, April 25, 2004

Invest - Press Release 

Invest - Press Release: "TORONTO, Dec. 23 /CNW/ - Loblaw Companies Limited announced today that
after extensive study of its conditional offer to purchase Maple Leaf Gardens
from Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSEL), the company will not be
proceeding with closing the transaction."