Category Archives: Journalism

Retirement Planning Course

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This two day course is being held on Saturday May 2nd & May 9th, 2015 from 9:00am to 4:00pm in the CLC Boardroom 1st Floor, 2841 Riverside Drive, Ottawa.  The cost is $50.00 per person for the meals and course materials provided at the two Saturday sessions; please make the cheque payable to “Ottawa Area Council CURC”.  To register & pay to confirm your spot please contact Evert Hoogers by email: evert.hoogers@gmail.com and mail payment to: 182 Booth Street, Ottawa, ON K1R 7J4.   Thank you.

Final version of pre-retirement flyer May 2015

http://ottawanewsguild.ca/website/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Final-version-of-pre-retirement-flyer-May-2015.pdf

National election at CWA Canada under way

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2015.03.26

This is a national election year for CWA Canada and the nomination period is now open for two senior leadership positions.

All members are eligible to run for office or nominate someone as a candidate for President and/or Vice-president, the posts currently held by Martin O’Hanlon and Lois Kirkup, respectively.

The deadline for submitting nominations is noon on Thursday, April 16.

If an election is required, a campaign and voting period of 35 days would immediately follow, during which each union Local can decide how it wants to conduct the vote.

Locals can opt to hold a vote in the workplace or have ballots sent directly to members who would then mail them to head office in Ottawa in a prepaid envelope.

The President of CWA Canada, which is a full-time paid position, and the Vice-president serve four-year terms.

The official election notice and nomination form are available on the CWA|SCA Canada website.

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For more information, contact CWA|SCA Canada Election Committee member Scott Edmonds.

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LINKS:

election notice

http://www.cwa-scacanada.ca/documents/pdf/2015/150326_elxn_notice.pdf

nomination form (bilingual)

http://www.cwa-scacanada.ca/documents/pdf/2015/150326_nominate.pdf

Scott Edmonds

tsedmonds@yahoo.ca

CJFE is hiring!!

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image001Position Title: Editorial and Events Assistant
Location: 555 Richmond St. W, Suite 1101, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

About CJFE:
CJFE monitors, defends and reports on free expression and access to information in Canada and abroad. Rooted in the field of journalism, we promote a free media as essential to a fair and open society. CJFE boldly champions the free expression rights of all people, and encourages and supports individuals and groups in the protection of their own and others’ free expression rights.

Duties/Job Description
The job will be a 12-month, full-time contract position with the possibility of roll over into a full-time, permanent position. Primary duties will include writing and copy editing content for the CJFE website, assisting with the publication of CJFE’s annual Review of Free Expression in Canada, coordinating logistics for the annual CJFE Gala: A Night to Honour Courageous Reporting, helping with membership engagement, and other miscellaneous tasks as needed. The employee will report to the CJFE Executive Director.

Duties include, but are not limited to:

  • • Writing, copy editing, and fact-checking assignments for CJFE’s Review of Free Expression in Canada and CJFE.org
  • • Assisting with the annual CJFE Gala: A Night to Honour Courageous Reporting (tracking ticket sales and sponsor payments, communicating with committee members, etc.)
  • • Conducting research on press freedom issues and other topics in Canada and internationally
  • • Writing alerts and press releases on behalf of CJFE
  • • Contributing to CJFE’s social media accounts
  • • Assisting with other educational and outreach events as needed
  • • Assisting with membership outreach
  • • Undertaking other duties as needed

Requirements:

  • • Excellent written communication skills
  • • Excellent organizational and time-management skills
  • • Strong copy editing skills
  • • Strong attention to detail
  • • Minimum undergraduate degree in a related field (journalism, international relations, etc.)
  • • Strong Excel skills
  • • Interest in and knowledge of current affairs and free expression issues
  • • Previous experience (work or voluntary) with event planning considered an asset
  • • Fact checking experience considered an asset
  • • Previous journalism experience considered an asset
  • • Bilingualism considered an asset
  • • Website development, graphic design skills and experience with HTML considered an asset

Meeting these requirements is important. However, passion, intelligence, a strong work ethic and a willingness to learn is what the job requires above all else. We will be open to applications from strong candidates who possess these qualities even if they don’t meet all the requirements outlined above.

Hours: 37.5 hours per week

Remuneration: $20,000 annually

How to apply: Submit an application including current CV, cover letter and clippings by e-mail to thenheffer@cjfe.org.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Monday, January 26, 2015.

We thank you for your interest, but only short-listed candidates will be contacted. Interviews of short-listed candidates will likely take place in the first week of February. Start date will be as soon as possible following the interviews.
____________________________________

Tom Henheffer
Executive Director

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression

O: (416) 515-9622 ex. 226
C: (647) 992-4630
www.CJFE.org

@henheffer

 

Let’s stop pretending all is OK at CBC — it’s not

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Source: cwa-scacanada.ca

LISE LAREAU | CMG National Vice-President

One day, in between one major layoff announcement and another terrible revelation in the Jian Ghomeshi case, an email appeared in my inbox declaring the winners of the CBC President’s Awards. It stunned me; it seemed so wrong to pretend things were normal and the annual tradition was going on uninterrupted, while so much at CBC was disintegrating.  I didn’t read on and tried — like many of us — just tried to get through another sorry day at work.

So hats off to the Radio-Canada employees in Sherbrooke, Que., who had the same feeling, but amplified it and acted upon it. They were the winners of a President’s Award for their coverage of the rail disaster at Lac-Mégantic. When CBC President Hubert Lacroix went to deliver it this week, in person, he was rebuffed.  The employees refused the award, citing the cuts.

Lacroix is quoted as saying their move was, in effect, useless. But that’s evidence of the massive disconnect between those making decisions to dismantle much about the CBC and the people who do the programming every single day that makes the CBC what it is.

No Mr. Lacroix, what’s useless is pretending it’s business as usual at the CBC these days.

When senior managers write memos of yet another cut (this one the outsourcing of weather to another network, no less) that say people are “pleased to announce” a “new content sharing agreement” before mentioning the people who will lose their jobs, and the president of the CBC declares it’s a “good day” to announce 1,500 job losses in the next five years, one has to seriously wonder if senior CBC managers are deliberately deluding themselves in the hope that if they use words like this, it will all be OK.

There is nothing normal, usual or “good” about any of this. That’s why employees openly ask their CEO who will be their champion as the CBC is attacked by government cuts.  The answer should be obvious, but in this strange world of dismantling a public institution, nothing is as it should be.

What we do see is an increasingly empty Broadcasting Centre. We see empty offices. We see one empty studio, another one used by a former network competitor (Rogers) and a few more slated to be shuttered by next year.

We see whole areas of expertise parcelled out (documentary production, weather, hockey). We see a single permanent reporter in a city the size of Fredericton. We listen to talk about selling the Broadcasting Centre itself. And today all of us will bear witness as hundreds more people across the country get notices that their jobs are redundant.

I could go on.

We at the CMG are planning to do a full inventory of the losses in all their grim detail, mostly because we know no one else will.  Others, apparently, will keep declaring things are “good” and be pleased to hand out awards – until the very last studio door is closed.

– See more at: http://www.cwa-scacanada.ca/EN/news/2014/141113_cbc_lareau.shtml#sthash.tGmfhUJ3.dpuf