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Emus down vs. Emu Downs

On Monday, Contrarian voiced skepticism about a Digby couple’s claim that wind turbines had decimated their their emu flock. Andy MacCallum, vice president of developments for Natural Forces...

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Oops! – updated

The Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school respected in the industry for promoting  “the kind of journalism that enables us to participate fully and effectively in our democracy,” has...

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“Al Goldstein Dies at 77; Made Pornography Dirtier”

That’s not my headline. It’s the hed on the New York Times’ hilarious obituary of the founder of Screw magazine. Long before the internet brought newspapers to their knees, the industry suffered plenty...

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Tpyo feedback

On Wednesday I noted a typographical error that caused a local journal some embarrassment, only to acknowledge I was no one to talk, given the rising frequency of self- and auto-correct-induced typos...

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Edward Snowden’s Christmas message: asking is cheaper than spying.

Every Christmas since 1993, British Television’s Channel 4 asks a noteworthy figure to record an “alternative” to starchy pieties of Her Majesty’s annual Christmas message to her subjects. This year,...

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The growing clamor to grant Edward Snowden clemency

A Washington, DC, city bus Briefly, because I can’t say it better than these people did, please check out the links below for eloquent arguments about the value of Edward Snowden’s lawbreaking, and the...

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Fear-mongering as news: turning sad stories into bogus trends

See if this sounds familiar: (1)  A teenage girl becomes involved in sexual activity that most grownups, regardless of their own sexual behaviour as teens, find shocking and horrific. (2)  The girl’s...

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AllNovaScotia now a ‘case study’ at America’s most prestigious J-school

Two years ago, I pointed to an admiring account of Nova Scotia’s unorthodox online business and politics journal, AllNovaScotia.com, on the website of Harvard’s prestigious Nieman Foundation for...

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Proof that it’s never to late to correct a factual error

The New York Times this morning published a correction of a story it ran 161 years ago, on January 20, 1853: The Times does take its responsibility for factual accuracy seriously. This whimsical...

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A rare—and welcome—case of real government communications

I have vented previously, here and here, about the quiet acquiescence of municipal and provincial leaders to the destruction of Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation. Why haven’t the Premier, the Minister...

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Media egg on the mob after highway fatality

Presumption of innocence is taking a drubbing in Cape Breton this month as social media warriors, egged on by the Chronicle Herald, campaign against the driver of a car that struck and killed...

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Letter to a young driver under media attack

Dear __________: On a winter’s day in 1963, I was the driver in a single car accident that nearly killed a 10-year-old boy. Seventeen years old and newly licensed, I was driving along a private road...

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Journo hubris: Crowing about an oil spill

As soon as I read NS Power’s detailed accounting of the August 2 oil spill at its Tuft’s Cove Generating Station, I knew Halifax Examiner editor Tim Bousquet would be crowing about his prediction the...

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Hey forecasters: nix “wind chill.” Give us real temperatures

In a letter to CBC Nova Scotia’s Information Morning, West Dublin listener Peter made a plea dear to Contrarian’s heart: The formulas for calculating “wind chill” have the appearance of real science....

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Halifax Council kneecaps a struggling industry

Newspapers around the world are grappling with a catastrophic decline in revenues, the consequences of which, for the future of journalism and democracy, are far from clear. Against this background,...

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