Tag Archives: Canadian Press

Why Canadian Press is now using Storify

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For Toronto hockey fans, Jan. 9 was a big news day: the firing of Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke was completely unexpected.

Also unexpected was how Canadian Press, the country’s wire service used Storify to tell the story.

A screengrab from CP's first storify
A screengrab from CP’s first storify

Think about it: A wire service, whose business model relies on revenues from subscribers, aggregated reaction to Burke’s firing and posted it online for the general public.

I asked Andrew Lundy, CP’s new Director of Digital (Wednesday was his third day on the job) about the decision to use Storify.

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What do students want out of j-school?

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Me, as an intern, a week after graduating (in red). I am still grateful for the skills I learned in j-school.

Convocations around town have me thinking back … way, way back to my own graduation from journalism school – and what I was hoping the experience would give me.

Recently I received the anonymous student evaluations from the ‘Fundamentals of Reporting’ (boot camp) course I taught last year at Carleton University. I took a version of the course when I was a Master’s student at Carleton.

The course emphasizes basic interview skills, preparing a background file, investigating sources and an emphasis on Canadian Press style  – with weekly assignments and a major feature at the end of the term. While it’s not their only journalism course, it is one where second-year students get to stretch their legs the most and get out there and do some writing.

As important as the grading system is  (I presume if your evaluation marks are astonishingly awful, you won’t be asked back as an instructor), I place as much importance on the comments on the back.

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