GENERAL:
Canadian Music Week and Friends of Steve Young will once again salute Steve with the Allan Waters Young Broadcaster of the Year Award in Honour of Steve Young. This is the 9th annual award, which recognizes a broadcaster under the age of 30, working in on-air, programming, promotion, production or creative. The deadline is Feb. 6 and the nomination form is right here.
Telus has purchased Mascon Cable Systems and AirSpeed Wireless, the second rural BC cable operation acquired by the company in the last few months after buying YourLink’s BC operations in October. Mascon serves about 4,000 customers in the communities of Chase, Pritchard, Sicamous and Tofino.
The Bell 2017 Let’s Talk Community Fund is now open to grant applications. Registered charities are invited to apply for a grant up to $25,000 to help fund local mental health programs. This year’s application period runs until March 31. Bell Let’s Talk Day happens Jan. 25.
Bell Media and Twitter are among those named in a lawsuit brought about by a former Halifax professor after a nude photo of his genitals was posted to Twitter. Michael Kydd is seeking $1 million in damages from Twitter, Bell Media, his former employer Mount Saint Vincent University and a former student with whom he allegedly had an affair. Court documents allege the student later accused Kydd of sexual assault and she convinced a local sex abuse advocate to post the photo to Twitter. The suit says CTV then re-posted the redacted version of the photo on its website before taking it down. Bell Media hasn’t commented on the suit.
A new Reuter’s Institute for the Study of Journalism survey of nearly 150 CEOs, editors and digital leaders in 24 countries has found publishers see the rise of fake news as a chance for quality journalism to stand out, even as they worry about the increasing power of big tech platforms and their own commercial prospects. Part of the institute’s annual predictions report, the survey found over 70 per cent of publishers think their position will be strengthened by recent controversies over fake news with many hopeful that high quality, reliable news will be more needed than ever in a world awash with misinformation. A third (33%) of digital leaders said they are more worried about financial sustainability than this time last year.