CANADA
#1 — CNews | T.O. casino would rake in millions: Report
TORONTO – Toronto could hit a multimillion dollar jackpot with a casino, according to city staff.
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#2 — CS | Second person in as many days dies in Calgary cold snap
For the second time in as many days, cold weather has claimed the life of a Calgarian.
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#3 — LFP | Fontana to council: ‘I’m not going anywhere’
Pointing to the poppy on his left lapel, Mayor Joe Fontana on Monday cited the sacrifices of Canada’s war veterans as a reason he won’t leave office amid an RCMP probe.
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Standing half in Stanstead, Que., and half in Derby Line, Vermont, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House has, in the words of one visitor, stood for more than a century as an “enduring gesture of peace between two nations.”
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#5 — WS | Serial killer vividly described elaborate plan to kill cell mate
VANCOUVER – A convicted serial killer who methodically strangled a fellow inmate to death in their shared cell has placed blame on the federal corrections system for transferring him out of a higher-security prison.
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WORLD
#6 — BBC | French PM Ayrault says 35-hour week rethink ‘not taboo’
France’s Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, has suggested the 35-hour week brought in by his Socialist party in 2000 is open to review.
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#7 — CNN | Wild hogs pose problems on Texas highway (video)
Motorists on Texas’ new 85 mph highway are dealing with an unusual problem: wild hogs crossing the road.
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#8 — Fox | Apparent insider attack kills 2 NATO troops in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan – A man wearing an Afghan police uniform killed two NATO troops in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the international military alliance said.
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#9 — DM | Apple boots out the man behind the maps debacle
The man behind Apple’s maps software has been sacked in a major restructuring of the computer giant’s executives after he refused to apologise for its Maps software.
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The Pakistani terror suspect blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks has offered to send doctors, medicine and humanitarian assistance to help with relief efforts as the US is battered by Superstorm Sandy.
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One more for you:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1280020–dimanno-star-introduces-pay-wall-because-it-costs-big-bucks-to-put-out-a-decent-paper
Every Toronto paper except the Sun is doing this or planning it. Not that it can’t be circumvented most of the time (*ahem*) but what does this say for good quality, free content and the sites that require it?
Thanks Cy. I rarely (if ever) read the Star but a lot of people appear to like it and your “head’s up” is timely so I appreciate the link. Regarding Rosie’s comments I think she’s correct in what she wrote but she hasn’t followed this situation through to it’s obvious conclusion.
People are switching from “paper” to digital content and that is likely the wave of the future. The Globe has already done so as has the Montreal Gazette and a few others and so the Star is far from alone.
Having said that I will add this.
As soon as the Globe locked me out I removed it from my list of publications to check. Same, same for the Gazette and the Citizen. My view is that unless the news industry takes this action all at the same time there will be (guessing) ten news agencies that will jump into their space “for free” because of the advertising revenue which will remain available. I think it’s a bad business decision myself because it is self-defeating. The news industry is nothing if not a cut-throat situation and as one goes after the online bucks by locking up their content it is not hard to see what will happen next.
Readers will leave for the same reason I did. There is little reader loyalty to a particular news outlet to be found on the net. The same news stories can be located in any number of other places simply by searching Google (I do it all the time). That would be because these outlets all use common sources like AP, the Canadian Press or “company chains” to produce information for the great unwashed. Bad idea if they want to survive. How they get around that problem I don’t know.
Finally, I’ve always envisioned the Star being sold off and turned into a badly needed parking lot in downtown “Trana”. Perhaps that day is finally approaching.
Like your analysis. Perhaps the CityNews and the Huffington Post was onto something. If the only thing unique about a paper is its editorial content then news aggregators and micro-stations can do the same for much less cost (and for that matter no building at all).
You’ve sparked an idea …