Elaine Shein

When members of the media become targets, colleagues must report on the grim tragedy of their peers. They also face the reality that their images and words leave them vulnerable to people who resent the existence of the media. An Ottawa sportscaster was killed last week as he walked out of his television station. According […] Read more

Sometimes I can’t decide whether to take seriously some of the news releases that appear on my desk. Case in point: the group called Dhe Internasional Union For Dhe Kanadian Langweej. They generously sent me Times Ov Toronto, heralded as Kanada’s Internasional Nuuzpaper. It uses 24 letters of the Latino-English “alfabet” and “eliminats frum the […] Read more

When should a newspaper publish a gory picture depicting human death? Some papers publish such photos for sensationalism; others consider whether the pictures convey a valuable message. Many newspapers recently struggled with whether to publish images of two events – a man speared to death by a bull’s horn, and a cyclist who died after […] Read more

What kind of leads do readers like? Business stories can be challenging for writers. The Producer covers a lot of financial stories, whether it’s politics, the economy, commodity prices or even fund-raising by local communities for a certain venture. How can our staff present the facts but also make the stories interesting, starting with the […] Read more

How can reporters make difficult subjects simpler for readers, whether the area is science, health, finances or any other complicated area that agricultural journalism covers daily? Journalists at the Canadian Association of Journalists conference held earlier this year in Vancouver heard some suggestions from Paula LaRocque, assistant managing editor of the Dallas Morning News. Some […] Read more

Science can be one of the most intimidating and yet one of the most interesting areas to cover, according to the writing coach of the Dallas Morning News. Paula LaRocque told a Canadian Association of Journalists conference that science is the field moving most quickly, with new information appearing almost daily. He said science “is […] Read more

Stuart Erskine, originally from New Zealand, has been doing some freelance photography for us as he travels around Saskatchewan. Complimented about the amount of information he provides for cutlines, he explained the secret to getting the details: he asks the subjects to tell him, in their own words, what they are doing. He gets the […] Read more

Working for an agricultural newspaper is unique. There are pros and cons for reporters who work for several years here, covering general or specific beats. A beat is a certain area or specialty that a reporter follows. In the case of our paper it can be, for example, the livestock industry in general or covering […] Read more

This week’s paper includes a notice inviting people to take advantage of some of the free services we offer in our paper and magazine. Have a fair or rodeo coming up? Need to use our Mailbox column? Perhaps you’re planning a stock sale? Know of any other coming events you want people to be aware […] Read more

The words were blunt from the Americans last week: wherever the Canadian Wheat Board is in the future, the U.S. will battle it with export subsidies. Our front-page story on this declaration comes from our special reports editor Barry Wilson, who attended a conference of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers in Washington, D.C. His […] Read more