Alison Garwood Jones

Planet freelance

Originally published in October 2015 in Blog

I stick up for freelancers. They inspire me. They’re my tribe. I don’t know if what I say disturbs the order. When there are still more men making $100 million a month on Wall Street flipping real estate than there are Occupy protests, I’d say … probably not. Every day, we freelancers show up to […]

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The gambler

Originally published in April 2015 in Blog

Back in the fall of 1999, this quote by Richard Ford in The Globe and Mail seemed important enough to scribble down. Translation: it rocked my little whitebread world which, true to form, consisted of Enya, getting lost in Kenny G’s mane, Mac matte lipstick and a shiny black Nissan Pathfinder. “My view of writers […]

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David Carr (1956-2015)

Originally published in February 2015 in Blog

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News really is getting mobile

Originally published in February 2015 in Blog

News organizations that have been focused on their online real estate  — i.e. stuff they own, like their websites — need to start thinking more like train-hopping vagabonds. This means going homeless and filling their rucksacks with original stories formatted for mobile-only apps, then hitting the road and stopping at a variety of destinations along […]

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Think like a newsroom

Originally published in July 2014 in Blog

When my story pitches for magazines or newspapers tank, it’s usually because: 1. My story idea is lame. 2. The story is good, but my pitch sucks. 3. My editorial connections are too thin. 4. It’s already been done (and, tut tut, I should have known that). 5. It’s a good pitch, but the wrong magazine […]

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Don’t act above social

Originally published in July 2014 in Blog

Social media is offensive to a lot of intelligent people. Or rather, it’s offensive to people who need you to know they’re intelligent. I think that’s part of the reason The New York Times wasn’t using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn like they could have or should have to distribute their content. Still, they’re aware of […]

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Tonight’s reading

Originally published in May 2014 in Blog

My good pal, Jonathan Menon, sent me this: The New York Times Innovation Report, 2014. It outlines how the paper might reorganize itself into a truly “digital-first” organization. The report is 100 pages and will probably take me two baths to get through. The Times admits its biggest weakness, still, has been its reluctance to shift the […]

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Artchivist

Originally published in January 2014 in Blog

Sara Angel is one of Canada’s leading visual arts journalists. Her latest vision, an online art museum, re-imagines Canada to the world through the works of our best painters and photographers. I sat down with Angel last fall to to find out how she coaxed Canada’s top museum directors to finally crack open their vaults and […]

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Blogger’s dilemma

Originally published in November 2013 in Blog

 

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Journalism: Still A Love Story

Originally published in November 2013 in Blog

It’s the spring of ’62 and Nora Ephron is at the wheel of a rental car crossing the George Washington Bridge into downtown Manhattan. Her mission: to find a job before she graduates from Wellesley College in a few weeks. At an employment agency on West 42nd St., Ephron tells the worker assigned to her, […]

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