Monday squibs (illness edition)

All in all, I’d rather be in the classroom. Instead…

• A good day for CanWest. CanWest’s stock had some ups and downs over the day, but finished the same place it did Friday, at 93 cents a share. Earnings report is coming later this week, so I wonder if last week’s steep fall was investors prepping for that.
• B.C. Court Rules Linking To Content Not Republication. This is an important ruling for we Canadians: merely linking to potentially defamatory content (without adding commentary to the link) is not republication and therefore doesn’t leave the linker liable.
• A little disillusioned with video right now. Web editor Stephanie Romanski ponders shooting, hosting and traffic as she wrestles with how small newspapers and video get along. She has a six-point plan at the end of the piece which seems solid to me, and there is interesting stuff in the comments, too. I think (hope) we’re getting to the point where video is no longer something special, but merely another storytelling tool, to be used when appropriate, and inserted into the regular online flow. Related: Mindy McAdams on Reassessing newspaper video.
• The Newspaper Crisis. Yesterday I blogged about Winds of Change and Tim Oren’s plan to help kill newspapers. Today, Andrew Sullivan takes a look at the latest bad news and worries about the loss of newspapers: “One looks at the looming depression and wonders if the media landscape will survive in any recognizable form by the end of it. And I take no pleasure in this: we need papers for the kind of reporting every democracy requires to survive.”
• Most Major Papers Continue Circ Decline. The latest reports are no better than previous reports. Editor & Publisher’s Jennifer Saba writes, “For those holding out for some improvement in print circulation, this morning brings disappointment.” I don’t know any serious observer of the newspaper scene who was expecting circulation to start stabilizing. The trends are against it. Related: Tim Windsor’s Newspaper circulation: Now can we call this a crisis?
• National Post, ten years later. Kirk LaPointe, who was there are the beginning, has a nice piece on the 10th anniversary of Canada’s second national newspaper, but this took me aback — “It has been challenged in making a profit, but that day will come.” — by reminding me that after 10 years, the Post is still losing money. Doesn’t that qualify as vanity publishing? One thing I should point out is that their website is very nice.
• The credit crisis, volatile markets, recession and media. Today’s best piece on the newspaper business and the effects of the economic mess comes from the always calm Robert Picard.
• 2005 SWPJC Presentation. A slideshow of photos from Gerik Parmele that made my evening last night. This guy can see and shoot.
• Video: Typewriter stays relevant in technology-saturated world. A fun little video from the LA Times marred somewhat by the flat voiceover. The typewriter in the first and last scenes appear to be same model as the one on my desk in the upstairs office. (At one time I had four typewriters; I’m down to two.)
• Let’s hear it for the virtual team. A good piece on the modern reality, headed by a quote from Tim Porter: “Journalism doesn’t need an address, all it needs it is a platform.” This piece also reminds me that we don’t hear enough from Tim any more.
• Holovaty’s Law of Online News. Joshua Benton’s original article dealt with comments and gave us the first corollary to Holovaty’s Law, which Albert Sun provides, along with the theorem.