http://postmediaadvertising.com/sun-media/
http://www.postmedia.com/brands/
Quote
SUN MEDIA
We?re excited to announce that on April 13, 2015 Postmedia completed the acquisition of Sun Media?s entire network of English-language publications and digital properties.
The deal means Postmedia is now the #1 digital audience in Canada in the News and Information/Newspaper Category. It nearly doubles our print and digital footprint, which means we can help you reach a larger and more valuable audience.
We look forward to exploring new opportunities to leverage the combined strength of many of Canada?s most powerful media brands as we begin integrating our companies in the coming months. We are already working hard to make the transition seamless and to develop innovative offerings to amplify your marketing messages and to meet your strategic advertising objectives.
...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmedia_Network#Newspapers
NewspapersNational Post
Calgary Herald
Edmonton Journal
The Gazette
Regina Leader-Post
Ottawa Citizen
The StarPhoenix
The Windsor Star
etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Media#Sun_newspapers
Sun newspapersCalgary Sun
Edmonton Sun
Ottawa Sun
Toronto Sun
Winnipeg Sun
etc.
so... ummm... competition in the journalism / truth-reporting biz: was a good run, was it not?
PS: apparently it just got APPROVED this week. But it's been at least 6 months in the making: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/10/14/letters-october-15-2014
So which one will become redundant first?
Which one will die the final death?
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 15, 2015, 10:49:39 AM
So which one will become redundant first?
Which one will die the final death?
Let's play a prediction game! We can call it "The Future Shop Pool (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Pool#Plot)" ;)
Not sure the competition is all gone now, there are still lots of online news sources that Post Media will be competing with.
Print media is dead
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 15, 2015, 12:58:49 PM
Print media is dead
These media megacorps mostly started AS print media but have since branched into various other sources of information dispersal ... and CONTROL.
My point.
More power, more "credibility" for the voice, less choice for the audience who will be listening.
I am sure most folks (the non-young'uns anyway) are just gonna continue to rely on the now-DIGITAL version of the print media for most of their "news learnin'" ... not gonna even know about let alone read regularly any of the variety of alternatives that are out there. People, they be lazy :P
??? ok?
So our 3 main newspaper options with decent circulation are all getting their source for national and global news from news feed services just like everybody else, including online. Otherwise it's all local news and Editorials. The only difference is I don't have ink on my hands or have to make an extra trip to the recycle bin.
Internet is what gives me real options ranging from just the facts reporting to different viewpoints from different sources to crackpot blogs with spurious "news" and questionable creditability.
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 20, 2015, 01:57:59 PM
??? ok?
So our 3 main newspaper options with decent circulation are all getting their source for national and global news from news feed services just like everybody else, including online. Otherwise it's all local news and Editorials. The only difference is I don't have ink on my hands or have to make an extra trip to the recycle bin.
That's all I was lamenting: imo the reason most people choose a particular local paper (or media outlet, nowadays) is (if important to that particular reader) they make a choice based on a preference to the way in which a local paper approaches/covers local news and/or the editorial "voice". Up until this huge event (not covered noticeably by the media, har har) there was a perhaps-false-choice between two semi-diverse major options to choose from, now they are merged into one. Which voice will be silenced? Back in my day... #oldManRant ;)
I'm not a regular reader of either the Sun or the Journal anymore, I was about 15 years ago but after a while I was just sick of it, even the Journal online is rapidly becoming an annoying mess
News in general is a pain to read all around, there's virtually no editing anymore and a lot of time the editorials are just ranting about things and lose my interest fast.
And there's my old man grumpy rant :)
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 20, 2015, 02:12:43 PM
I'm not a regular reader of either the Sun or the Journal anymore, I was about 15 years ago but after a while I was just sick of it, even the Journal online is rapidly becoming an annoying mess
News in general is a pain to read all around, there's virtually no editing anymore and a lot of time the editorials are just ranting about things and lose my interest fast.
And there's my old man grumpy rant :)
You are ranting at the loss of quality rants ;)
I avoid the Sun or Journal too, unless a particular article is linked from Google News. But also I read the free crappy paper on the LRT some mornings; later in the day I often find some of its contents were an apparent excerpt of a fuller story that is also on the Sun or Journal website. But as you said it might just be from the news feed services. So what's the "diversity level" of those I wonder... :(
Kids these days (or their kids), they ain't never gonna realize what "The Fourth/Fifth* Estate" is even a REFERENCE to, are they? Power is finally clearly winning over truth and justice and freedom... while the weak are continually distracted #oldManGrumpyRantBackAtYa
*I mean heck is THIS even delivering the same quality of journalism as it was consistently back in the 80s/90s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Estate_%28TV%29
Actually the main problem I find with "kids today" at least the ones that I interact with on a regular basis (i.e. 20-somethings) is that news generally comes to them in the form of social media, which as you know is more like yellow journalism at best and much of the time you do 5 seconds worth of fact checking you find the story is either outright false or of questionable origin.
It's like on one side people on the extreme right are watching Fox news and on the extreme left you have people mindlessly reblogging false information that fits their ethos
Somewhere in between are a small group of skeptical people who look up on snopes or look up the actual story material to see if it's legit
So like a story about an old homeless lady who used to take care of stray dogs had a bunch of stray dogs show up at her funeral on the surface is one of those things that you could have a warm and fuzzy over unless you do 5 seconds worth of fact checking to find out that the funeral was over 300 km from where she lived
The main problem I find with online news is that there are basically 3 camps:
1. People who accept everything they read as true (a problem since the dawn of news media)
2. People who just don't care to follow the news, but will reblog/tweet anything trending (this is a LARGE GROUP)
3. People who don't believe anything that comes from traditional sources and prescribe to echo-chamber "news", where groupthink rules over all sense (anti-vaxxers, homeopathy advocates, 9/11 inside job, etc)
I think online activity just exposes these kinds of people more obviously, maybe they have always existed and it just wasn't obvious before now
Wouldn't there be the fourth camp there, the skeptics who fact-check, like our little group on here?
Quote from: Thorin on April 20, 2015, 03:24:54 PM
Wouldn't there be the fourth camp there, the skeptics who fact-check, like our little group on here?
We aren't a problematic group so that's why we're not in the list, and there are plenty like us out there, they see these "news memes" (that's what I'm gonna call 'em) go around, do some checking and then reblog with an update on it saying how false it is, with REFERENCES and facts (which is awesome)
Snopes is friend for this but otherwise even doing a little homework reveals a lot, we're all good at this IMO, it's something that I think millennials are picking up on quickly.
I started this thread because most of the population ain't expending extra energy exercising critical thinking and additional research etc. when they read some news story. Wish they did, but reality is they don't -- and those same under-informed folks are casting most of the votes next month... and every other time. :(
...btw is this forum its own echo chamber? ;)
This forum doesn't have enough users to form an echo chamber, also we tend not to agree with each other (on practically everything) which is good IMO :)
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 21, 2015, 08:47:14 AM
This forum doesn't have enough users to form an echo chamber, also we tend not to agree with each other (on practically everything) which is good IMO :)
I both agree and disagree with what you said above.
But tomorrow I might instead be disagreeing but agreeing. I admit I am inconsistent, but at least I'm consistent in my inconsistency! ;D
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 21, 2015, 08:47:14 AM
This forum doesn't have enough users to form an echo chamber, also we tend not to agree with each other (on practically everything) which is good IMO :)
I disagree... given enough time and thought I'm sure we could complete an echo chamber with technology and our user base, and I think we agree on one or two things at least <- see what I did there :P
You are BAD MAN
BAD
Quote from: Darren Dirt on April 21, 2015, 08:17:52 AM
I started this thread because most of the population ain't expending extra energy exercising critical thinking and additional research etc. when they read some news story. Wish they did, but reality is they don't -- and those same under-informed folks are casting most of the votes next month... and every other time. :(
Are you sure most of the population doesn't expend extra energy exercising critical thinking and additional research? Do you have quantitative data to back up that assertion? Or are you just going with the anecdotal fact of what you see people close to you do? Because if so, I can counter with the anecdotal fact that I see people who
do get involved and interested in the political process and the issues at hand before they vote.
I really would like to see a study on just how well- or ill-informed the voting public is before they go to vote (or don't).
Quote from: Thorin on April 21, 2015, 10:36:55 AM
Quote from: Darren Dirt on April 21, 2015, 08:17:52 AM
I started this thread because most of the population ain't expending extra energy exercising critical thinking and additional research etc. when they read some news story. Wish they did, but reality is they don't -- and those same under-informed folks are casting most of the votes next month... and every other time. :(
Are you sure most of the population doesn't expend extra energy exercising critical thinking and additional research? Do you have quantitative data to back up that assertion? Or are you just going with the anecdotal fact of what you see people close to you do? Because if so, I can counter with the anecdotal fact that I see people who do get involved and interested in the political process and the issues at hand before they vote.
I really would like to see a study on just how well- or ill-informed the voting public is before they go to vote (or don't).
The fact that harper got elected more than once is proof that most people don't give a @%&#.
Also i actually heard/read some guy on facebook call people who disagreed with harper "tin foil haters"... sooo....
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 21, 2015, 09:40:39 AM
Quote from: Melbosa on April 21, 2015, 09:38:09 AM
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 21, 2015, 08:47:14 AM
This forum doesn't have enough users to form an echo chamber, also we tend not to agree with each other (on practically everything) which is good IMO :)
I disagree... given enough time and thought I'm sure we could complete an echo chamber with technology and our user base, and I think we agree on one or two things at least <- see what I did there :P
You are BAD MAN
BAD
Despite that, do you concur (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5j1wWY-qus)? #PeerPressure
Quote from: Thorin on April 21, 2015, 10:36:55 AM
I can counter with the anecdotal fact that I see people who do get involved and interested in the political process and the issues at hand before they vote.
Confirmation bias.
But history in general (and voting/polling results in particular) at least HINT STRONGLY that the majority of people are creatures of habit. They believe what they are told by folks in uniforms and wearing fine hats.
And looking back, the media choices from the 1930s to the late 1990s didn't change all that much -- sure, since then internet + social media expanded the options, but that didn't completely do away with the previous choices for information dissemination.
And the human animal is lazy (and gets lazier as he/she gets older due to ... stuff) so the safe logical presumption is that the random sampling of under-informed folks in "man on the street" video interviews etc. in stuff like The Daily Show or Rick Mercer etc. is sufficiently representative of >50% of the population. Clearly there are exceptions (as your personal anecdotal experience confirms) but the folks on this forum are above average in both intelligence and effort-making when it comes to knowledge -- whether hard factual scientific ideas or philosophical/metaphysical "soft" conceptual stuff.
So I could just as easily demand you provide evidence supporting your claim that things are different than what I claim based on a complete-ass-pull idea ;)
CLIFFS: Sure if we hang around young smart people who don't already have a habit of "reading today's paper" to find out what is going on (and the "paper" includes the 6:00 / 11:00 news on TV, the homepage of MSN or Yahoo, etc.) then you'll see plenty of "extra effort" on display when it comes to learning what's what. But most people are either too busy or too old to do that -- we just don't hang around "most people". imho.
...continue ambiguous flame war... ;) /ducks
I suggest that if you think people in general are lazy and get lazier when they get older and the safe logical presumption is that the funny under-informed Joe Shmoes we see interviewed are typical of the majority of the population, well then you are most likely a lazy under-informed person.
This is where I repeat, I'd like to see an actual study done to see how informed people are, because a small random sampling by people with cameras will always lean towards whatever the people with the cameras are trying to portray.
Quote from: Thorin on April 21, 2015, 12:46:03 PM
I suggest that if you think people in general are lazy and get lazier when they get older and the safe logical presumption is that the funny under-informed Joe Shmoes we see interviewed are typical of the majority of the population, well then you are most likely a lazy under-informed person.
Touche.
But I'm choosy about exactly which things I will be lazy in.
I'm too lazy to say anything else.