» The Dominion
December 30, 2006
Anticipation
One of the reasons things have been so quiet around here is that we're hard at work, building a brand-new, completely overhauled Dominion web site. Coming in the new year.
November 08, 2006
FP Issue Launched!
For those who didn't notice, the Special Issue on Foreign Policy has been officially launched. Copies should soon be available in Vancouver, Halifax, Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa, if they aren't already.
We had our first official event last night in Montreal, featuring Mary Foster, Harsha Walia, Anna Carastathis, and Yves Engler, and a lively audience of about forty, most of whom I (happily) didn't remember seeing at similar events in the past.
Check out the FP issue page for an updated list of events in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and elsewhere.
November 06, 2006
Dominion in the T-Star
Thanks to an article by Darin Barney and Catherine Murray, the Dominion got a mention in the Toronto Star today.
September 22, 2006
This Dominion. Right Here.
This Magazine has a little story about the Dominion in their current issue.
March 06, 2006
April
Have you heard the news? Is there an ongoing issue that you think needs more or better coverage?
Tell us.
Click on the comments link to tell us what you think of the current issue of the paper, and tell us what you want to see more coverage of.
January 24, 2006
Election Night at the Bishop St.
The blurry crowd here at the Bishop St. Pub in Montreal. The MC opened the event by announcing that "we're against the Liberals and Conservatives, and indifferent to everyone else." It's going to be a long night.
überculture's Ezra Winton at the live-weblogging laptop extravaganza.
January 23, 2006
Election Night
Tonight, the Dominion and UniteTheRight.ca will be live-weblogging the election from überculture's election night party at the Bishop Street Pub (1222 Bishop St.) in Montreal.
If you're in town, come on down.
September 17, 2005
Estonia
Hi,
The weblog (from me, anyway) will be slow over the next two weeks because I'm in Estonia. But my personal site has a lot of posts from my travels.
dru
(Ahem, guest weblog editors?)
August 22, 2005
Weblog Slowdown
As even occasional readers have noticed, the weblog has slowed down quite a bit over the last few months.
Things will continue to be slow, as we focus on fundraising and planning for the fall, and the future.
Things will likely pick up again in early October.
Keep an eye on the front page for new developments and new stories.
May 13, 2005
NCMR
I'm off to the National Conference for Media Reform today. If you're going to be there, send me an email (dru at dominion paper dot ca).
April 17, 2005
First Review
Plenty of folks have linked to the Dominion Weblog (including Andrew Coyne), but none that I know of have offered an overall assessment of its contents.
Now all that has changed. The site Live Free or Die says that here at the DDW, there is:
More baffling relativist tripe than you can shake a stick at.
I've asked them to define their term "moral relativism". I don't know what it is, except that it's bad and we do it. I'll post a reply when it comes in.
In the mean time, I decided to address an identifiable instance of moral relativism--if it is defined as a lack of consistent moral standards--here.
I haven't jumped into a pointless debate lately. Could be fun.
(That's actually a pretty loose definition of moral relativism. There's a longer definition, but it doesn't make any sense at all in the context of what those live free or die kids are talking about.)
April 02, 2005
The Québec-Japan Connection
A Dominion article on the student strike has been translated into Japanese by one "antiwar translation brigade". Cool.
January 10, 2005
Jack Layton Interview
The Dominion has an interview scheduled with Jack Layton this coming wednesday. Do you have any questions you'd like to have Mr. Layton answer? Post your responses here.
August 22, 2004
Something to aspire to
The New York City Independent Media Center is printing 200,000 copies of the Indypendent, its newspaper, for distribution at the Republican National Convention.
July 14, 2004
Fundraising
Call for comments
Due to technical difficulties, the comments section on fundraising policy has moved here. We apologize for the excessive linking.
June 28, 2004
Issue #19 of the Dominion
Issue #19 is online, with a photo essay on daily life in Palestine, coverage of various battles over GM crops, Fair Trade coffee in Nicaragua, corporate personhood, and plenty more.
June 06, 2004
Halifax Symposium on Media and Disinformation
Now that the PaulMartinTime.ca democratic deficit tour is wrapping up, most of my time will be dedicated to the Halifax Symposium on Media and Disinformation, to be held from June 30 to July 4.
It should be of interest to anyone with an interest in building a free press and media in Canada. If you can't make it to the conference (and also if you can), please consider endorsing the call for participation.
May 06, 2004
Where Dru Is
For those who think I've disappeared from the planet, or at least dropped offline: I'm on the road with PaulMartinTime.ca. We raised enough cash to travel across Canada, starting discussions, providing independent coverage of the coming Canadian federal election, interviewing people that the corporate press won't, and causing a bit of mayhem.
There's a tour weblog, and there will soon be video and photos and other coverage.
We're in Minnesota now, on our way to the west coast throught the US, where the scenery is different and the gas is cheap (thanks, imperialism!).
The Democratic Deficit Tour officially starts on the 11th.
April 11, 2004
Ottawa XPress Coverage
The original XPress article is here, but I'm reproducing it below. I'm not sure why it says there is distribution in Newfoundland, and there's absolutely no way I'd be able to put out the paper without a lot of help (i.e. it's not just me doing it) but other than than, I'm quite pleased at the coverage.
Jane Scharf just emailed, saying that there have been problems getting copies made, but that the first 50 copies of the paper sold in a matter of hours. If you're in Ottawa, have access to a photocopier and want to help out, get in touch with Jane at dn701 (at) freenet.carleton.ca
* * *
First union, then dominion
by Stuart Trew, Ottawa XPress
When we reported on a new union for Ottawa panhandlers, XPress readers expressed disdain, amusement and sometimes a little compassion.
Those unnerved at being asked for a dime might lighten up if they're getting something in return. Starting this week, local panhandlers will be peddling copies of The Dominion, an alternative newspaper based in Halifax, but with national aspirations.
read more...April 09, 2004
The Coast
I forgot to mention that the Dominion was featured in last week's issue of the Coast, Halifax's "alternative weekly".
March 16, 2004
Issue #16
Issue #16 of the Dominion (y'know, that publication that's distracts some of us from posting to the weblog) is now up. Lots of good stuff.
February 16, 2004
The Halifax Symposium
Two important things:
I'm helping organize the Halifax International Symposium on Independent Media and Journalism, where we will discuss disinformation and ways of dealing with it. It's July 1-4, Halifax is beautiful that time of year, and you should come.
In the months leading up to the Symposium, I'm organizing a series of round table discussions, the first of which has just started. The first theme is 'advocacy journalism', and there will be new contributions daily.
February 05, 2004
Issue #14
For all those who just read the weblog, Issue #14 of the Dominion is now online.
December 09, 2003
CBC Interview
Yesterday, I was interviewed on CBC Halifax's Main Street about the Dominion. You can listen to the interview [8MB, MP3, 8.5 minutes] online.
December 03, 2003
Subscribe or Donate!
You can now buy a subscription to the Dominion, and help us out with a donation.
September 19, 2003
Halifax
I (Dru, the Coordinating Editor) am now permanently settled in Halifax, if there's anyone in town who would like to chat about the Dominion, or other interesting topics, contact me at dru |at| dominionpaper.ca.
September 05, 2003
'nuff inspiration
Quote of the moment:
"The independent artist and intellectual are among the few remaining personalities equipped to resist and fight the stereotyping and consequent death of genuinely living things. Fresh perception now involves the capacity to continually unmask and to smash the stereotypes of vision and intellect with which modern communications swamp up. These worlds of mass-art and mass-thought are inceasingly geared to the demands of politics. That is why it is in politics that intellectual solidarity and effort must be centred. If the thinker does not relate himself to the value of truth in political stuggle, he [sic] cannot responsibly cope with the whole of live experience."
--C. Wright Mills, 1944
August 12, 2003
More navel-gazing material
The Brunswickan, student paper at UNB, ran a decent story about the Dominion. A few things are off, but that probably has to do with the way I answered questions.
July 27, 2003
Issue #4
Issue #4 of the Dominion is finally up, with all the attendant good stuff.
July 14, 2003
More Discussion About the Dominion
This time, it's on the Canadian Association of Journalists mailing list. I'm not on the list, but the author of the weblog "breebop" writes,
Freelance writers are always complaining about the miserable rates they're usually paid, and rant about the new writers who are so hungry for work that they'll agree to work for free or cheap ... and thereby lower the rates paid to more established writers.I posted my thoughts on her weblog, but I'll include a slightly shorter version below, for posterity.I understand their point, but it also makes me wonder about our society's obsession about tying value to cost. Some of the points the journalists made on-list include, "Pay zilch, get garbage," "What credibility does a "newspaper" that relies on a bunch of volunteer contributors have? What credibilty do journalists have who practice their craft for free and feed their families by ____?" and "How much further will this charitable thingy dumb down/degrade the value of Canadian journalism?"
The short answer to this question "What credibility does a 'newspaper' that relies on a bunch of volunteer contributors have? What credibilty do journalists have who practice their craft for free and feed their families by ____?" is: kind of credibility that is wholly different from that of the professional journalist who relies on a paycheque from an employer.
read more...July 11, 2003
En Guardian!
Apparently, the Guardian is planning a US version of its paper. Michael Wolff writes:
“G2,” which he created when he was the Guardian’s features editor (Peter Preston, a Fleet Street eminence, was then the paper’s editor-in-chief), is a daily inside-the-paper tabloid section. But instead of this representing the tabloidizing of the Guardian, Rusbridger gentrified the tabloid. While the American evolutionary step has been to forsake hard news for soft—for instance, the Times’s and the Journal’s ever-expanding leisure, consumer, and service sections—the Guardian in “G2” has morphed headline news into a daily bath of stylish opinion, context, and narrative. It’s high-concept news. It’s story-behind-the-story news—which is, of course, the real story. It is not unlike the kind of magazine journalism that flourished in the U.S. a generation ago—before cableization and tabloidization and consolidation.Wolff focuses a lot on whether it's marketable, but it's nonetheless interesting.This is the marketing point: Unlike American packaging genius, which is about packaging down (resulting in the deterioration of taste as well as attention spans), Rusbridger packages up.
Comments on Independent Publishing
Some interesting speculation about independent publications (and a bit about the Dominion specifically) from Ikram Saeed and Colby Cosh. Both hail from the right-ish end of the political spectrum, both are thoughtful.
For those keeping track (or interested in finding new Canadian weblogs), some other sites that have recently linked to the Dominion or commented on it include: Living Can Kill You, Triplespeak, Tenorman, Stung Eye, Shatnerian.
Update: Wet Coast, The Tourist, Formica.ca, WayDownThere and I somehow forgot Vive le Canada.
Update #2: Ape Shall Not Kill Ape, Fatherbrain, Motherbrain..
Others sites? Additional thoughts on the Dominion or independent publishing? Post below.
July 06, 2003
CBC Coverage
CBC New Brunswick ran a short news item on the Dominion on July 3rd.
July 04, 2003
Kind words, good feedback
Craig Saila says what I want to hear:
Here's an idea that hasn't surfaced for a while (and runs counter to some recent predictions): build a publication then move it to print. Slate tried this, but never found success, Nerve has been more lucky. This time round, though, it's a national newspaper. A Canadian national newspaper. With the National Post hemorrhaging money and talent, and The Globe and Mail (my current employer) being the only "national" paper left, the timing couldn't be much better for the Dominion.Yep, we're the successor to the Post as "other national newspaper". Give or take a few hundred thousand in circulation. It would also be nice to have a few million to play around with, as the Post did (and does). Heck, just $100,000 would be fine. Heh.
Saila has other kind words for the paper, but more importantly, brings a bit of hard-to-maintain perspective to his look at the project.
July 02, 2003
Now Hiring!
The "hiring" page has moved to the following location: http://dominionpaper.ca/hiring/
June 26, 2003
A Dominion Poster
Download the poster [89k, pdf] Suitable for posting.