inCommunicado - eric eggertson

Sports writers are sometimes underestimated. How hard can it be to write up a game?
David Shoalts found a good way to measure the impact of the three-day suspension of New Jersey Devils’ Cam Janssen.  Calling it a 12 minute, 36 second suspension, Shoalts multiplies the player’s average ice time per game, multiplies it by […]

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It’s been a relief in the past couple of weeks to see media coverage shift briefly to stories about the women who went missing over the years in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.  For years, with some notable exceptions, the focus has been on the man accused of killing 26 women.
Most of the stories show that the […]

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An L.A. publicist denies making up quotes by Ryan Phillippe and supplying them to a magazine as an exclusive about the breakup of his marriage to Reese Witherspoon.
How to file that item?  Dog Bites Man?  PR Secrets?  Celebrity Myth Revealed?
Celebrity magazines are an art form. They triangulate the star power or level of ridicule […]

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Inside the CBC suddenly became one of the only sources of information Monday about why the cbc.ca site was unavailable for many hours.
The problem was caused by a server malfunction.  It took several hours to get a back-up server online.So, for a few hours, the company’s blog was there to inform people that the main […]

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Antonia Zerbisias doesn’t post to her popular blog about media, politics and culture for two months.
She drops in on Halloween, posts 17 words, and gets 157 comments. Those are dedicated readers.
With some blogs, half the fun is in the comments section. (Or in this case, all of the relentless personal attacks and mind-numbing semantic debates […]

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I didn’t even know there was an Ideas show before Lister Sinclair until the last few years.  Whenever I tuned in, he was always the voice of the CBC Radio show that was willing to examine thinkers and their thoughts in detail.
News this morning of his death brought to mind his gentle, whimsical voice.  There’s […]

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After taking some pretty intense criticism over her postings about the Middle East, and putting up with frequent nasty flame wars in the comments sections of her blog, Antonia Zerbisias put visitors on notice that their comments will be deleted and they will be banned if they get out of hand.
Then her dog died.  She […]

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Leah McLaren’s front-page Globe and Mail interview with actress turned director Sarah Polley goes pretty well until you get to the background description that says "she took the title role in Kevin Sullivan’s hit show, Road to Avonlea."
I have only one question:  Did she play the road, or Avonlea?
Definition: title role
(Image from Sullivan Entertainment website)
Tags: […]

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I enjoy the often interesting, sometimes fratboyish view of the world provided by Scott Baradell.
I try to look the other way when he pimps for links, the way you pretend not to notice when your uncle zips his pants closed on his tie.
His latest gambit to build his global personal microbrand is a special button […]

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As Gnomedex organizer (with Ponzi Indharasophang) Chris Pirillo notes, there are times when a conference is priced low enough for media to afford the full fee, and organizers don’t need to give them a free or reduced pass.
But anyone who doesn’t have built-in buzz from bloggers (see gnomedex on Technorati), or some other method of […]

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There’s nothing wrong with suggesting themes or story ideas to journalists. They feed off of that sort of input, even if they don’t use your specific suggestions.
However, telling them what not to write just gets their backs up. I’ve followed up with journalists to propose that revealing too many how-to details of a robbery victim’s […]

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