Mike deAdder writes about the lot of cartoonists in a era of declining newspapers. Moneyquote: In 1967, Canada's Centennial Year and the year of my birth, Terry "Aislin" Mosher, Canada's pre-eminent editorial cartoonist began his long illustrious career after graduating from École des Beaux-arts in Quebec City. He started at The Montreal Star in 1967, then transferred to The Montreal Gazette in 1972. To this day, he still works for The Gazette. The great Roy Peterson, who retired this year, always called The Vancouver Sun his home, as did The Edmonton Journal's Malcolm Mayes, the Calgary Herald's Vance Rodewalt, and The Province's...

05 October, 2009
Picture 1Oh, how embarrassing! The New York Times, which many regard as the best newspaper in the world, had weeks of warning that Walter Cronkite was gravely ill. Like most large newspapers, the Times routinely prepares advance obits of famous subjects. In this case, it prepared both an obit and an Arts Section appraisal of the anchor's life's work. Two experienced writers and at least seven editors pored over the material. Two days before Cronkite's death, after CBS News discovered errors in the obituary material it had prepared in advance, Cronkite's son Chip emailed a senior Times editor to suggest a similar preemptive review of the paper's advance obit. Despite all this preparation, the Times's July 17, front-page obituary contained two errors, and the Arts Section appraisal fully seven. The result was this embarrassing correction:
02 August, 2009
An ink-stained wretch (and contrarian reader) offers a few tart observations on the Telegraph-Journal's strangely unelaborated apology.
I find something stinking with the Telegraph-Journal's wafer story. They bent over backwards to apologize and apparently the editor and publisher paid the price. But I haven't seen any reporting that took this any further. Did the Catholic officials cited in the original stories who apparently were so mightily offended by Harper's alleged act change their tunes? Who got the quotes from the church people? What contact was there between the PMO and the TJ? Did higher ups in the church get involved? God (literally) knows.
29 July, 2009
SJ Tele-Journal logoThe Saint John paper that broke the Wafergate scandal now says there is "no credible basis" for its story. Moneyquote:
The story stated that a senior Roman Catholic priest in New Brunswick had demanded that the Prime Minister's Office explain what happened to the communion wafer which was handed to Prime Minister Harper during the celebration of communion at the funeral mass. The story also said that during the communion celebration, the Prime Minister "slipped the thin wafer that Catholics call 'the host' into his jacket pocket." There was no credible support for these statements of fact at the time this article was published, nor is the Telegraph-Journal aware of any credible support for these statements now.
28 July, 2009

On the rare occasions when circumstances force contrarian to participate in religious rites, our unfamiliarity with the rules often begets panic. Thus contrarian sympathizes with Prime Minister Harper's apparent befuddlement when Monsignor André Richard, Bishop of the Diocese of Moncton, offered him the communion wafer during Romeo LeBlanc's funeral. What's a Protestant pol to do? As a non-Catholic, Harper is ineligible to receive communion. But having taken the wafer, which, upon consecration for the Eucharist, becomes the body and blood of Christ, he can't just ditch it. A YouTube video appears to show Harper slipping the host into his suit jacket...

08 July, 2009