Newsroom Insider

Summer of ink. 2013 interns

2013-05-14T10:07:30-04:00

Summer interns 2013, left to right: Justin Robertson, Natalie Paddon, Amy Kenny and BlairMcBride. It's spring and at The Hamilton Spectator that means paid summer jobs for reporting interns. Few things (aside from breaking news and good stories) cause as much excitement in the newsroom as the arrival of the interns. Who are they? What's their background? How will they measure up to interns the year before? Interning is an opportunity for young journalists to...

Newspaper cool

2013-03-15T17:59:51-04:00

This is Hamilton: There's nothing hipper than a newspaper Reporters Emma Reilly, Molly Hayes and Nicole O'Reilly (hey, they all have Irish roots and Sunday is St. Paddy's Day, but that has nothing to do with this grouping) There's the words and photos and the colourful type and interplay between black lines and white space. There's the fragrant smell of truth, justice and democracy in the ink. The lively curl of each page turns to...

He breaks news and blogs

2013-02-20T16:36:06-05:00

1,000 days of blogging and a lot of gems along the way. In May, when Drew Edwards asked readers for their Ivor Wynne memories, one reader shared an engagement photo taken at the now-demolished stadium. Last week, the reader followed up with a new post-engagement photo: their team has grown by one. There are no timeouts for this typist. Spec sports reporter Drew Edwards (@scratchingpost)reports, blogs, videos and tells just damn interesting stories about the...

Random thoughts on a snowy day

2013-02-08T12:05:00-05:00

Twitter photo of a prisoner transport truck stuck in downtown Hamilton. Taken and posted by @susanclairmont who went to court today - twice - before it was shut down. The thumping sound on the porch this morning wasn’t Snowmaggedon. It was the sweet, serene sound of the daily issue of truth, freedom and democracy under the banner of The Hamilton Spectator hitting the front door. God bless our carriers. Shortly after it made its way...

Drone drops a media bombshell

2013-02-07T18:45:00-05:00

Oh my how the media can huff and puff and rail and write for truth, freedom and hail the disinfectant powers of sunshine. How then does one of the most promient and powerful newspapers in the world get to a point where it believes colluding with the CIA to keep from the public details about a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia? In a stunning Page One story in Wednesday's New York Times, the paper...

Tweeting Truths

2013-02-06T16:25:00-05:00

A Hamilton Spectator journalist is covering a murder trial in a way we've never done before: She is using social media's Twitter to let readers know what is going on inside the courtroom. Susan Clairmont, a Spec columnist, is no stranger on Twitter or to crime and court reporting. This is the first time she's been able to combine it all (find her on Twitter @susanclairmont). Last Friday, Feb.1, was the first day we were...

My media affair

2013-01-31T12:58:30-05:00

Just turn the page. No wi-fi necessary. As media experiences go, it was thorough, revealing and fantastic. My finger glided over the information-rich platform. The tactile experience was easy and rewarding. Photos, dates, context, reporting, weather, entertainment and sports stats. I had a daily encyclopedia in front of me. Custom delivered, and, it cost less than a $1. In today’s new media world, we're told content is king and with this experience, surely I was...

Photo Finish 2012

2013-01-25T09:28:59-05:00

The shooting is done, now the judging begins. Spec photographers have sorted their files and put up what they believe to be their best photos of the year. They've posted their pix to a wall in The Spec. This year, editorial staff are in on the judging to choose best in the NEWS, FEATURE and SPORTS categories. It's a friendly, in-house competition and the stakes are little more than a pint of draft and handshakes....

Journalism - a certain kind of person

2013-01-21T14:23:39-05:00

Lisa Niro is an 18-year-old high school graduate in Hamilton. Like many her age, she understands media activity and engagement. She undertands the power of communication, and, the importance of media. Perhaps that's what I find refreshing about Lisa. Every Tuesday she reported to the Spec newsroom as a co-op student to sense, experience and understand life at a daily. She attended news meetings, watched assignments take shape and news unfold. Lisa came out of...

The objective journalist in real time

2012-12-17T14:00:00-05:00

"...the best method of inquiry is not subjective ranting and unfair verbal warfare..." - Stephen J.A. Ward, writing in Media Magazine. Social media and demands of a 24/7 news programming does not justify lack of objective reporting. Journalists are not robots free of emotion, bias (cultural, political or otherwise and point-of-view. Stephen Ward argues there are safeguards. A day before the Connecticut shootings, J-source posted a prescient media column by Stephen J.A. Ward, director of...

Constant disruption. The tetonic shifts of journalism transformation

2012-11-28T14:15:00-05:00

There's a new report/essay out from Columbia Journalism School's Tow Centre for Digital Journalism that I recommend as required reading for anyone interested in contemporary media, how we got here and insight into navigating the future. The report is a well-organized read about the trends, economics and practicalities of old and new media. It offers much to think about and discuss. You can link to the report here: Post-Industrial Journalism. I've been through the report...

Somalia on her mind

2012-11-21T19:00:52-05:00

This year, Amanda Lindhout's Global Enrichment Foundation opened a literacy school for female Somali refugees in Kenya. GEF also started She Will which offers therapy and education to rape survivors. (Photo by Riccardo Gangale and sourced from Hiiraan.com a website with news and information about Somalia.) Amanda Lindhout is a story-teller, survivor of the lengthiest kidnapping in Canadian history and bridge-builder. She is a passionate advocate of human rights and is a poster child for...

It's about the story - part two

2012-11-15T08:26:32-05:00

Memorable storytelling takes different forms. Long-form narrative, column, theatre, song and video as we saw in Private Riley, and in one my ritual stops for slices of life stories, the daily obits page. Some time ago I flagged the obit of Fred (Fred's Dead and Dogs Liked Him). Today another gem from the pages of today's passings: James (Dale) Reid was quite aware of his pending date with the afterlife and upond his death instructed...

It's all about the story

2012-11-13T12:56:01-05:00

A damn fine story: Where the Blood Mixes at Hamilton's Theatre Aquarius (Nov. 7-24)featuring Craig Lauzon (left) and Lorne Cardinal (right). I wrote last week of the captivating and innovative storytelling Mark McNeil and others in our newsroom put into telling the story of a Hamilton soldier and his regiment. A powerful tale told from a unique perspective: a music video. Mark turned a story into song, photographer Barry Gray turned it into a video,...

The scribe, the song and the story

2012-11-08T10:37:38-05:00

The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry is one of Canada's most storied regiments. It's soldiers fought Fenians in 1866, the Boer War, two World Wars, including the nightmare at Dieppe, and saw action in contemporary Afghanistan. Spec reporter Mark McNeil has long written about Hamilton’s history and the RHLI’s. Earlier this year he wrote about Private James Henry Morrison, who died in 1866 and is marked as being the RHLI’s first fatality. Mark got thinking about...